John Talbott's Paris

Words on Wednesdays: Taxi drivers talking on cell phones.

I just conducted a most unscientific student of taxi-drivers talking on cell-phones in New Orleans.

I took 6 cabs; 4 of their drivers couldn't resist the impulse.

One said it was an emergency and I told him he was in luck I was a doctor, how could I help- he then talked to someone in his household about finding the two dishes he'd prepared for dinner and quickly switched to a language I have limited familiarity with.

One said a cabbie had been murdered the night before and they (cabbies) had to stay in touch - to which I expressed doubt how that was a successful preventive measure.

A third insisted he was more distracted by my request that he stop talking than by talking.

I gave up and afterwards would only take cabs where the driver agreed not to answer calls.

Drastic times call for drastic measures.

4th Day in New Orleans: Bon Ton Cafe: still here; Cochon: there's a reason his book is entitled "Real Cajun."

I hosted a group of French folk at the Bon Ton Cafe some decade or more years ago and was curious to see how it was holding up, since it was not on the list prepared by my two N.O.-experts. 

This time I came with one of my American publishers and we both ordered the crawfish jambalya - immediately putting the song "jambal[ie], crayfish pie, filé gumbo" on a tape loop in my brain.  The dish was as I remembered; solid, tasty but not the end of the rainbow.  With a most generous fresh salad before and onion rings with, it worked perfectly for us both in the comfort-food dept.

Bill?  Apparently, she still thinks I'm worth a meal.

 

Cochon (piggy) Restaurant is in the heart of the coolest area I've seen since SoHo (NYC) circa 1968-9 (think Viet Nam, Kent State, Stonewall) - called unimaginatively the Warehouse/Arts District.  Almost every building/shop is gentrified and stunning. 

Anyway, because my two food NOLA gurus rec'd it and another blog reader endorsed it, I made sure I showed up (their website, rather dauntingly, threatens one with a $25 fee for not showing up or cancelling but more intimidatingly says something like 'if you don't get a phone call - you don't have a rez."  Whoa!

Well, I never got such call and I tried to email, call, have the concierge call, etc.  When I finally connected I said I'd just show up and we'll see what opens up first - chef's counter, bar stool or table.

I sat for 13.18 minutes on the Group W bench and a stool at the bar was vacated.  Great.

Menu; nice choices, too many, but better than too few, choices.  Pigeon brain clicks in; "John, remember portion sizes in America, esp the south."

 
I order two starters: first - fried alligator doused with spicy (and I mean spicy,) garlicky (and I mean garlicky,) aoili - At this point I wrote down: extra prima.  But I couldn't finish it - too much food.

Second, spicy (and I mean spicy,) pork ribs with diced pickled watermelon: quite good, but if I were the owners, a bunch called the Link Group, led I assume by the now-famous chef Donald Link, of Acadian German (huh, whatever happened to Evangeline and all that?) and/or co-chef Stephen Stryjewski, apparently of none-of-the-above lineage, to take the ribs off the grill before they were charred: ribs are best appreciated when moist, succulent and full of their youth in the middle, albeit toasty on the exterior- not tough and senescent throughout.  But I couldn't finish it - too much food.

Dessert; faggedaboudid.  But I had seen some Moonshine poured a while back and negotiated to trade in some of my demi-carafe of wine for a hit of Junior Johnson's best.  (Yy'll remember the Tom Wolfe piece).  So I had some - verdict: pallid.  Apparently they cannot bottle 150 proof stuff in today's South, even though everyone walking through the Quarter is gripping an open bottle of booze.

My bill = $39.51.

Aizpitarte, the La Famille family and me; a short history.

I’ve been meaning to write again about my experiences with Inaki Aizpitarte, not only because like the volcano, Eyjafjallajokull, his name is a tongue twister, but because he is one of the few chefs here with innovative ideas that often come off OK but sometimes do not.

 

My initial meals that he probably had a hand in as sous-chef, were at Gilles Choukroun’s Café des Delices on the Rue d’Assas, one of our favorite places in the late 1980’s.  The cooking was Asian-influenced, used exotic ingredients and was inventive without becoming outre.  (Unfortunately, Choukroun wandered off the reservation at l’Angl’Opera, presenting items such as a ceviche of dorade with a side dish of a rhubarb sauce and another of a tempura of petits-pois, Saint Jacques a la vapeur, and Granny Smiths & a quirky catsup sauce served by waitresses in goofy jump suits, a goofy menu (veggies first, protein last) and goofy names for drinks (e.g., O'Bordeaux).  Fortunately, he’s back to Café des Delices levels at his new place MBC – but back to Aizpitarte.)

 

I was first aware of who he was at La Famille, a place not far from where I live, which was quirky when it opened in 2004 but intensely friendly.  I had dropped by when the paint was still wet and came to eat by myself almost as soon as it opened.  I liked it.  Later, I brought a very old and good friend and experienced home chef from Geneva and he expressed some fears that the cooking was pushing the envelope too far.  But I went back again alone and at this point I think was tagged as a “regular,” meriting Aizpitarte’s sending me various items to taste and tell him if I approved.  The one I most clearly recall was a large shrimp whose tail was burnt, the middle halfway cooked and the head raw.  I insisted Colette and our downstairs neighbors come and they thought I and Aizpitarte were crazy.  And I had to agree, the preparations were now over the top.

 

The next Spring (2005) I ate at Le Refectoire, which Aizpitarte and the La Famille gang were rumored to have had an interest in (how much I never figured out) and while the reviewers were laudatory, its concept, the recreation of an old school cantine’s atmosphere and cooking, was off-putting.  Anyway, here, I deserved what I got, knowing what I knew in advance. The day I went I had roast chicken with frites; the chicken was alright, but at double the price it is at the rotisserie on my street and the fries while thick and inviting looking were banal and tasteless.  To top it off, the chopped fruit dessert was about on a level with the breakfast compote on United Airlines they throw in front of you at 5 AM and the waitstaff were very nice, young, unprofessional, clueless but enthusiastic types who, one would know, in Greenwich Village, were your college roommate’s grandkids. 

 

Just about a year later (we’re now in December 2005) Aizpitarte opened Le Transvзrsal in the MAC-VAL (Musee d’art contemporain du Val-de-Marne), Dept. 94, way to hell and gone and he was definitely in charge of everything from the menu design to food preparation.  The food was deconstructed to the “nth” degree and the menu was a series of some 40 numbered ingredients/products grouped under veggies, soups, salads, cold-cuts, cooked meat, fish, cheese and desserts that one then constructed a meal from.  I’m exaggerating just a bit when I say that, for example, you had to order and take items 32, 31, 9 and 11 together – to arrive at two veggies, miso soup and cheese.  Two of us had the following: olives (which came with the apero/wine), dried tomatoes Lirgurian, three kinds of warm beets (very sweet, good sweet, not cloying), rillettes of rabbit (outstanding), scallops both raw and sautéed (great), wonderfully affinated comté cheese, fabulous cooked bananas and a “Mikado” (whatever that means) of chocolate with desserty bread sticks.  But they also had bizarrely named items, a pot a l’ectricité (whatever that means) = pot au feu and a plat d’exposition (linked to a show in the museum), which they were out of, called a Mono Lapin (whatever that means).  As we were leaving, one of the staff revealed that Aizpitarte would be leaving soon to revive Le Chateaubriand, without specifying if he’d remain involved at MAC-VAL.

When I went to Le Chateaubriand in the Spring of 2006, I felt he had, for the most part, gone back to the basics, serving items such as a tabouli of red cabbage, herring over potatoes in oil or a terrine of pork and mains like a saddle of lamb and a brandade but also had frou-frou desserts like a banana milk-shake – so I felt that he was still capable of his old tricks.  And finally, the Chateaubriand 13 E lunch was truly a bargain.

More recently, in 2007, the La Famille bunch, which as I said, Aizpitarte was once part of, opened Cheri bibi in Montmartre, and I had a so-called vichyssoise, which was not the cool, thin, chives-enhanced delight but lukewarm lumpy Gulag potato soup. For my main I tried a spicy beef stew with salad: the beef, once one got through the gristle and fat, was fabulous, the sauce incredible but the salad was too bio for me and could have used a good washing to get the sand out.

So what’s the bottom line here?  I think it is that some innovation keeps the tastebuds excited (vide Ledeuil), too much pushing the envelope is beyond precious (see Choukroun) but that Aizpitarte has the potential to be great not just cute but that the La Famille group does more damage than good with their back-to-the-future stuff.

However, if you want to catch the surfer’s wave before the New York Times and New Yorker, go to places like :

 

Le P’tit Caillou
2 rue Maleville in the 8th (Metro: Miromesnil)
T: 01.45.63.20.87
Closed weekends and Monday nights
Lunch formulas at 22 and 25, a la carte 41-51 €.

 

Chez Grenouille

52, rue Blanche in the 9^th (Metro: Trinite)

T: 01.42.81.34.07

Closed Saturday lunch and Sundays

Lunch menus at 15 and 25 and a 40 E carte but they’re cool about mix & matching

 

Day 3 N.O.L.A.: August, disgust: Felix's, helixes.

The administration of the professional scientific organization I'm associated with has never figured out that several of its Past-Presidents have a passionate interest in food and schedules a luncheon each year for them without input from any of us.  Thus it was that I found myself at the Restaurant August.  It is of course, an almost forced menu, which I understand.

First course, crispy fried P&J oysters (yah, I had to look it up myself - PEI & PJ I understand but P&J?)  Google reveals that they say about themselves that "No institution has played a larger role in the advancement of south Louisiana's oyster industry than New Orleans' P&J Oyster Company, the oldest business of its kind in the United States."  OK.  The oysters were great, fried properly, but the Clemson blue and butter-milk sauce was annoying and cloying, slightly improved by the fresh greens.

The choice of a main was between American Kobe Beef (huh? an oxymoron if ever there was one) with blue cheese which I'd had my millenial fill of with the entree and truffles which were surely from a spray can or "crispy-seared" pompano which was over-the-hill, dry, tasting of rancid flour paste and musty athletic socks, which I noted that only one person at the table could eat all of.

 

The dessert was a creme brulee, supposedly made with Bourbon and topped with local berries, which was not half bad.

The bill: I have no idea.

Go?  My goodness no.  And Chef John Besh, please don't write me offering to cook me a "special meal" for free; these responses only harden my bad feelings.

So, several hours later, I'm walking through the French Quarter after an ample, warm, non-corporate, academic, cocktail party where I ate 20 shrimp and talked to (among others) the greatest pianist/historian/psychiatrist/humorist/nice guy in my sphere - Richard Kogan, who just did a stunning performance/talk on Chopin and I'm thinking, I really don't wanna schlep out to the place rec'd by my N.O.L.A. food-buddies - Les Crepes Nanou - for a full meal - I just want out of the vomit/urine and how shall I say it delicately - phenerome-sticky - streets of New Orleans.

And I spy two of my traditional oyster places, the Acme and Felix's.  The Acme has a line like that of Studio 54 (you're too young to catch the ref) or Lady Gaga (you're too old to know) and Felix's is 20% full - a no-brainer.  Ahhhh, wait.

I go in, sit at the DMZ oyster/full food bar, order a dozen (Backstory: I'd been told by an inside source that Louisiana oysters had maybe a week left before the BP oil made them a moot item, so I figured I'd better have some now or never.)  Not bad, but not so great either, but really cheap, $11 some for a dozen (pigeon brain starts to add things up: no line to get in, so-so cheap bivalves = Felix is in decline.) 

Give them a second chance - fried crawfish tails, recalling those at Mulate's earlier this visit - wrong move, clearly frozen, overfried, without sauce - nada.

With a glass of Abita Andygator (don't ask) my bill was $25.45 before tip.

Go?  Yes, across the street to the Acme and watch your shoes for the telltale crick-crick-crick of vomiticious/uriniferous/pheromonic post-Katrina resurfacing.
 
 

Reviews of reviews: The Week of May 17th, 2010

Monday-Tuesday, A Nous Paris, gave 3/5 dots to two places - Jerome Berger awarded them to one already much described on this site Ralph’s and Philippe Toinard to Commes a Savonnieres, 18 Rue Guisarde in the 6th, 01.43.29.52.18, closed Sundays and Mondays, lunch menu 15.50 and a la carte 30 E for items such as an excellent terrine, rillons, andouillette and lots else.

This week in Le Fooding Yves Nespoulous reviewed Bougnat, 2 rue de la Ferronnerie in the 1st , 01, closed Sundays, open 11:30-4:30 PM only

Wednesday, in Figaroscope Emmanuel Rubin in his “Les Nouveautés” gave two hearts to three places: the annex of Le Petit Marguery called Le Comptoir Marguery, 9, blvd de Port Royal in the 13th, 01.42.17.43.43, closed Mondays, with formulas at 18 & 22 E for herring, pigs’ feet and floating island; the cave-plus Tombé du Ciel, 7, rue d’Enghien in the 10th, 09.81.74.17.17, closed Sundays and Mondays, with a 13 E formula but normally running one about 25 E without wine for items such as scallop carpaccio, raw tarama with urchin coral and a pork pate as well as the previously described Aux Deux Amis in the 11th. One heart each went to the previously mentioned Alice Pizza in the 15th and the Spanish El Catador in the 17th.

The « Dossier » this week was written by Colette Monsat & crew and concerned places serving a club sandwich and ranked the top ten as follows:
Bar 228 Hotel Meurice
Duke’s Bar Westminster
Bar Plaza Athenee
La Societe + Bar Hotel George V
Mama Shelter, Bar Hotel Murano + Le Flore
Harry’s New York Bar
Bar du Fouguets
And Francois Simon went to Westin where two club sandwiches were 51 E and assorted drinks the same. Go ? No.

Wednesday as well, Richard Hesse reviewed the established bistro a vins or bar a vins the Café de la Nouvelle Mairie in the 5th saying one is best going with a hearty appetite.

Thursday in l’Express, Pierrick Jegu, along with the rest of the critics, reviewed Aux Deux Amis, Francois Regis Caudry reviewed the Zerda Café, 15, rue René-Boulanger in the 10th, 01-42-00-25-15, closed Saturday and Monday lunch and all day Sunday serving couscous for 15 & 18 €, tagines 13 & 15,50 €, and someone unidentified reviewed the Table de Suzanne in Lyon.

This week in Bonjour Paris, Margaret Kemp published an article “All Shipshape & Bristol Fashion” and John Talbott essays on “The New Diets: End Zone, North Beach and the Modified Montignac” and “What Do Two Hearts Mean? Redux.”

Sunday, Alexander Lobrano published an incredibly witty mini-review of Ralph Lauren’s new Ralph’s in the print NYT. Longer version here.

NOLA: stellar, Martinique: Best dish of the millenium: Day 2 in New Orleans

NOLA is another of Emeril Lagasse's great ideas in his vast empire; taking an old setting and putting in a new New Orleans downer-scale resto. I ate there with a French pal who frequently eats out with me in Paris and we were impressed.

The 2 breads were impressive looking - a jalapeno corn bread and focaccia roll (if I heard correctly) but less than overwhelming in the taste dept.  Not so my friends' crab cake nor my richly, spicily, sauced BBQ'd shrimp - really good.

  
 

We also were impressed by the shrimp with cheddar-flavored grits and the lemoncello marinated salmon with a corn soup-type sauce.  Again, both were spicy without overwhelming you and intensely flavorful.  The only problem with our whole meal came with an inordinate wait for our coffees (which were from Cafes Richard, what a surprise).

The bill was $107.56 before tip (that included a bottle of wine but no desserts.)  A fine meal.

Martinique, a dump you say, from the pix above.  Unh unh.  I went on the advice of my two NOLAdvisors and as my cabbie dropped me off he said "I think you'll find it very good food in a very small place."  Understatement of the year.

They said, "inside or outside?": inside was just over 32 degrees F., outside just under 100 degrees F.  I actually restepped outside to see where I'd suffer less; inside.

Menu arrives, water arrives, bread arrives - warm baguette with fine fine butter, best of this visit.  Good omen.

I'd just been two (now Drug-Co-BigPharma-less) receptions with no stupefying booze but plenty of finger food and had that great lunch at NOLA (above), so I wanted easy in the Biggest of Easies.  Firsts: mussels, maybe; escargots, hummm; Spring Scallion Gnocchi a la Parisienne, now what could that mean?

But the shrimp bourride caught my eye.  OK.

I ask the nice wait-person, "a bourride, here, in NOLA, it's a fish soup, right, sort of as from Provence or Marseille?", "yes Sir, except with shrimp".  "The blood orange sauce, doesn't that clash with the aoili," ask I stupidly. "Oh no, it's really good" she replies, with a really convincing smile. 

OK.  Arrives (a long long, long, time later - that's OK, I got a chance to hear a shrill lady from Chicago's nasal opinions on everything except Rand Paul - a forte voce).

I dig in.  The shrimp are fresh (no BP oil or freezer burn here) and succulent, the fennil not over-powering and the "soup" exquisite. The aoili; I ask, "what is it?"  After one mis-step (in reporting it was lime and mint), he reported "it's green," OK, "with parsley, garlic, scallions and lemonoil (?)."  Wow!

I'm glad my children and especially my grandchildren did not hear the rest (they'd be so embarrassed, as I was at their ages).

"So, where did this guy work before?"  "Australia, France, etc."

I Googled the place and got this: "Enchanted by it's beauty and coziness, Cristiano Raffignone born in Paris, France and raised in Italy, purchased Martinique Bistro in October 2003. He kept the name in remembrance of the tropical feel that the dine-in courtyard and view gives the place.

Hubert Sandot opened Martinique Bistro in 1994. The chef was born in Madagascar to a French mother and a Martiniquais father; he was raised in Paris. Martinique Bistro's menu was, and is, a reflection of this heritage. As executed by longtime chef de cusine, Eric LaBouchere, the food represents some of the smartest cross-cultural cooking you'll find in the area."

Indeed!

My bill, with 2 glasses of fine Pinot Gris, no starters, desserts or coffee sans tip = $51.66

Go?  Dude, you gotta ask?

Breakfast at Tiffany's: A Sunday Cinema

Breakfast at Tiffany's is one of the most perfect movies made.  I'm not sure who was the genius behind the idea of taking Truman Capote's rather thin story and making it a masterpiece that was a star vehicle for Audrey Hepburn, a star turn for Mickey Rooney and ensured a place in heaven for Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer for Moonriver, but he or she deserves a place in Hollywood's pantheon.

It's amazing that BAT holds up so well 40 years later while other popular films of more recent times (Annie Hall, for example) wear out.

Once again, I commend United Airlines for following the suggestion many of us made to play one great old film a month.

Mulate's: not bad; Patois: Not good. Day 1 in the Big Easy.

OK, so, I arrived fresh as a rose off the airplane in New Orleans (Louis Armstrong Airport no less, how cool?) - after flying over the gulf with oil slick globs looking quite artistic from 10,000 feet - and was met with stiffling humidity and heat as I hit the exit.  Into the city.

First meal - Context: I had no time, was rushing between airport, hotel, convention center where I was speaking (hah) and chairing a session, etc., but had to have some chow after having had little except peanuts (actually quite good) on SouthWest.  I spy Mulate's (a lie, I'd looked up places between my hotel and the CC long ago) and enter, thinking this place is a tourist trap, and I'm gonna hate it?  Right and Wrong.  It was full of what my friend A. calls "visitors" but the food was not half-bad.

For numerous reasons (one being that my pigeon brain recalled that American portion sizes were Supersize Me plus 5), I had just one course, a main - a so-called 1/2 of fried crayfish (aka crawfish aka ecrevisses) and 1/2 of crayfish (aka crawfish aka ecrevisses) etouffee with rice, fries and veggies (in honor of Colette).  The latter crayfish (aka crawfish aka ecrevisses) were spectacular, the former crayfish (aka crawfish aka ecrevisses) quite good.  PS: I finished maybe 20% of it before I decided that my heart, my blood vessels and my gut were not worth upsetting chef.

Bill, with a glass of, I thought, very nice (local) Abita ale was $27.15 before tip.

Onward.  Dinner at a place recommended to me by two trusted N'orleans friends of at least 30 years - Patois - in the "quarter" (misquoting JP Morgan, if you have to ask which quarter, you can't afford it).  Arrive, greeted warmly, seated warmly, treated warmly.  Look at menu.  Hummm.  Firsts look good, mains are gonna be too much.  Ask for dessert menu, nah.  OK.

It's all Colette's fault.  I didn't bring my camera from France because she graciously offered to lend me hers and I'm still getting used to it.  But this was a really good gumbo, smoky and spicy, of rabbit, andouille, greens, rice and chopped scallions; I said to myself, Johnnie you've got good friends.

OK, so I had ordered two other starters, instead of one main, figuring firsts (in France) are always winners; Wrong!  This (above) was supposed to be sweetbreads on beluga lentils (whatever they are) with wilted spinach in a country ham reduction (whatever that is).  The sweetbreads were over-cooked to a dry cadaveresque ending, the lentils so crunchy as to be be perhaps not cooked at all and only the spinach survived.

Alors.  The sizzling octopussy with oranges and radishes and Kalamata olives and mint - sounds great, eh?  Indeed.  The octopus was as tough as a rock; if they had had the poor plongeur chap beat the sh*t out of it, as much as they chopped/sliced the olives, this dish with incongruous slices of oranges, might have worked.  But alas, it  didn't.

My bill, with two glasses of a fine Malbec (kudos for the wine selections) but homemade bread, less great than the industrial (I assume) at lunch, amounted to $54 before tip.

Now you tell me about price-quality.
 

Is it fair to judge a place by its clientele? : An archival* essay.

I recently ate at a new place called Clarisse* in the 7^th and it brought home a dilemma I face reporting on restaurant meals.  How much does the clientele influence one’s opinion?

Let’s take this meal.  The place is 2 blocks from the American University and in the heart of American boboland, so the cafes and restos are going to be full of Americans.  OK.  I accept that.  But to be subjected to bad acoustics in addition to loud (ugly) Americans is not to be expected.

For about a week, I’ve only heard English spoken once, and that by Brits who kept their voices low.  Part of that’s because when alone, I eat in new places, not yet “discovered” by our compatriots and part of it is because I eat in non-touristy areas.

On some websites there’s considerable discussion of the American/English language snobbism, but sadly, I find that the presence of Americans, correlates strongly with the presence of loud, intrusive conversations.

In this case, the day I was there two American dot-comers, two French buyers of software and one Brit who seemed in the middle, talked non-stop at the top of their voices some thirty feet from me and the acoustics, like in Chartres, enabled their loud conversation to go bingo into my ears (and yes, I tried other secluded corners to no avail). 

Contrast that with a recent meal** at Le Clocher Pereire in the 17^th, where the packed house was 100% French and the music and conversation was animated but muted.  The meal was pleasant and I’m sure I awarded extra points to the place because of the lack of Americans, the presence of good sound-proofing and the polite behavior of the French diners.

Maybe Americans need signs with their immigration forms that indicate that one does not need to speak loudly to be heard and understood.

*Originally published in October 2007 about a meal on 2 October 2007.

**28 Sept 2007.  Paid for both.

My favorite [not nearby] is:

Le Clocher Pereire

42, bvd Pereire 17^th, (Metro: Pereire )

T: 01.44.40.04.15

Closed Saturdays and Sundays

Lunch menu 17, dinner 29 and 38, a la carte 35-50 €.

La Maree Passy in the 16th: Filling the Sunday Fish Trou: an archival* review.

6.5 La Marée Passy, 71 ave Paul-Doumer in the 16th, 01.45.04.12.81, open everyday, inhabits the space that would appear cursed – three restos in as many years – Le Bigorneau + l’Escale run by the Coutanceau group and now this. It’s in a great location, if you love the 16th or are on your way to or from the Trocadero or Musée Marmottan.

But even to an alien from the 18th, it’s pretty nice. Except for one American couple on the verge of an argument, and a couple of sugar-daddies and sugar-babies, most folk seemed to be French, rich, pleasant and old (but more about that later.)

As I entered the place I noticed, even at 12:30 it was pretty packed, and the host immediately greeted me and on learning my name apologized profusely; the kitchen staff had screwed up and while he had a record of my reservation, I would not be at a primo table but stuck off in Siberia/Coventry/etc. for which he sent over a coupe de Champagne right off (PS I had a fine table, in a fine location, in the midst of wonderful folk my age who entered wishing me not only a “Good Day” but a “Good Meal!”)

There is an extensive menu on the blackboard; firsts ranged from 10 tasty-looking langoustines to a scallop/celery/chestnut soup to a tartare of salmon and oysters to what I had – crunchy giant shrimp with a tandoori sauce (that I could have sworn was a regular tartare sauce); the seconds included a huge whole maigre (meagre, one of the Drum/Sciaenidae family) solette, bar, daurade and what I had, simply the “Best of the Year” scallops (grilled toasty brown on the outside, raw inside); and classic desserts of which I had the crepes Suzette (in homage to the late great Bistrot Cote Mer – it was more flour-y than theirs was).

As I was saying my goodbyes to the host and congratulating him, he said that they just cooked simple food – harrumph, it may be simple but it’s great product, well done. It turns Olivier Morteau’s formula (go to a culinary desert, import an innovative chef and charge low prices) on its head – the 16th is hardly a desert, there have to be a host of chefs to run a place that provides two meals a day, seven days a week, and the prices aren’t rock bottom.)

But these folk are hustling, the bread is gold standard, the cheese by MA Cantin and they have well-priced wine by the glass, 18 cl portion and bottle. At least on a Sunday for those statistically inclined, the age range was 20-90, the mean age 88, and the median 82.

And the damages, with some very nice white wine, were 52.50 €.

”Should one go?” On a Sunday, for a fish lunch, I cannot think of a better bet.

*Originally published in December 2006