John Talbott's Paris

Reviews of reviews: The Week of July 11th, 2011

Monday-Tuesday, in A Nous Paris, Jerome Berger gave 3/5 dots to Agapé Substance, coordinates given before, and open all summer, a “concept-restaurant” where you choose 3, 4 or 5 ingredients nd the chef prepares them without a false step; while Philippe Toinard reviewed and gave 4/5 superb dots to Le Vernet, coordinates well known, which has a new chef serving items such as a thin tartine with goat cheese and sardines, wild bass and good desserts. 

Tuesday in Le Fooding, Yves Nespoulous reviewed the Brussels restaurant Neptune.

Les Coulisses: undiscovered but what a treasure.

We went back to Les Coulisses and it was every bit as good as it has been before.  My orignal intention was to have the mackerel and strawberries and leave it at tht, bit "a funny thing happened on the way....."

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dishes such as (for sure the mackerel in white wine), ceviche with white asparagus, foie gras with beets, marinated-in-wine Mandela melon with shredded something, "fish 'n chips," sturgeon (when did you last see the fish itself on a menu?), veal with green tomatoes, their famed chocolate mousse, a chocolate delight and (the strawberries).

Incredible.

Le Clarisse in the 7th; this chef, staff, place, food is so cool.

 
Colette and I went back to Le Clarisse on the Rue Surcouf in the 7th today.  How can you not love a street that has Italian, sushi, regularJapanese, Basque and club sandwich restos in the first 100m?

 
It's a really nice place; a combination of French wine bar/resto with a few Japanese ingredients/terms and a long saki carte and Japanese sword-guards.  It's hard to believe I was here only 5 weeks ago and the carte was totally different.

 
The amuse-bouches consisted of a cold essence of veggies and herbs and a phyllo-like wrapped piece of fish - both light as air and perfect for a beautiful summer day. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Colette had the most intensely flavored beet soup ever with a dollop of Granny Smith ice and red basil and I had what was called a brochetta of red tuna with eggplant and shiso but was, as you can see a tiny tower of eggplant, fresh cheese, a thin salami-like piece of cured tuna topped with (I guess by deduction-subtraction) a shiso leaf salad.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then she had a beautiful piece of "preserved" salmon with perfectly cooked skin and thyme and ginger and a tender vegetable strip and I had the sauteed veal with a small amount of mashed potatoes with mustard seeds, carrots and bok choi.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then Colette had a "maki" (really sponge cake) of chocolate with chocolate ice cream, a roasted banana and dribbles of melted Okinawan brown sugar while I had what was called a nougat glace with red fruits and a cappucino of wasabi but far exceeded that description.

With a bottle of wine, no bottled water and two coffees our bill = 110.60 E.

Vivant in the 10th: Pierre Jancou pulls off another great meal with a good price/quality ratio.

 
Another place Colette had not visited (since she blew out her knee in Spain in April and thus missed it) is/was Pierre Jancou's Vivant, where I loved the duck then, thinking it was one of the best of such I've ever had.  Well, things haven't changed.

 

Especially my camera, which I bought because it was supposed to be great in low light and accomodates for movement: so much for camera reviewers.  In any case, today's offerings were every bit as tempting as April's.

 

 

Colette had the "first" tomatoes of the season, with a simple oil & vinegar sauce (wonderful) while my sort-of-boss on PbM and I had the pleurottes with nuts and mesclun - quite special, indeed.

 

 

 Then our friend/boss had the merlu from St Jean de Luz (where Rose's Spring gets much of their seafood from, but more about that later) and the other two of us had the super duck breast of Challans with what can only be described as incredible summer veggies (in truth, both were so good and so tender and so plentiful that we asked for a doggie container and will feast on the rest for supper.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally Colette had the genache of chocolate and our companion the peasant-style peach and as I sampled both i can certify that both were gold standard.

Our bill (which I wasn't quick enough to snare a copy of) was 148 E for three (thus just under 100 E a couple); it included a bottle of fine bio/natural/etc/etc Bergerac, 3 coffees, no bottled water and a few glasses of wine that must have been offered.

As we were leaving, the ladies, more bavardesque than I, chatted up M. Jancou, the starter being his display of business cards, one of which was for Christophe which I noted we'd loved just a few days ago, and his liking of Septime and Spring; the common element (which I stated too clumsily yesterday) being their great price/quality ratios - and that sure goes for Vivant.

Charlotte Perriand at the Petit Palais: Maybe.

Charlotte Perriand was essentially a designer and this show consists of her furniture (shown scattered among antiques as well as free-standing) and photos.  Worth 8 Euros?  I think not.

Septime in the 11th: Frenchie and Spring, watch your backs, Bertrand Grebaut is gaining on you.

 
I went back to Septime today with Colette and supposedly with a great friend who must have been jetlagged cuz she didn't show; however, that gave us lots of time to observe the kitchen (5 folks) and front-room (4) work in near silence, calm, cool rhythm.  Wonderful, like a zen ballet.

They still have a great deal at lunch; 2-courses for 21 E and 3 for 26 E with a glass of wine (which today Colette preferred to the bottle I ordered solely because of its name "La Cuisine de Ma Mere.")  There are also still 3 starters and 2 mains and either cheese or dessert.  (N.B. Lunch is now reservable a few days before but dinner is sold out for a week.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We settled on Colette ordering the haricots verts, peach and sesame and I the red tuna, oyster and cucumber but like so many dishes served by innovative chefs like Bertrand Grebaut, the description was minimalist - in fact, she had a giant goose-egg-sized mousse of peaches in a essencey-soup of green beans and my oyster was a chopped concoction on top the tuna, with a granite of cucumber.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then she had the line-caught merlu with microtomed cauliflower in a chorizo fluff and I had the black pork with both the advertised zucchini but also a sliver of yellow squash as well as bok choy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We shared a plate of wonderfully runny reblochon and a piece of wonderfully affinated tomme de Savoie and then a genache of milk chocolate, caramel and passion fruit sorbet.  (Really superb!)

I have not commented on each dish but they were all terrific.

Our bill, with a bottle of wine, extra fine bread, no bottled water and two unsually good coffees was 76 E.  Beat that for price/quality in this day and age.

Akrame in the 16th: These wonderful repeat meals are getting predictible.

Colette said she wants to go to all the places I've been to and liked since she left in mid-April and I've been doing my best; today at Akrame with my former and I hope future co-host on the web.  We entered and were warmly greeted by both the chief waitguy and chef Akrame himself.

 
Not a lot of difficult decisions to make here except wading through the extensive wine list; as opposed to Le Relais d'Entrecote where the only question is "How do you want it?" here, it's "2 or 3 dishes?"  We all said "three" and onward we marched - first with an amuse-bouche of a light goat cheese creamy thing with ciboulette and a parmesan "cookie" [my word] with fish eggs a top.  Great start.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first course was/were strips of squid (I judged perfect; but the ladies thought not beaten to death enough to break their fibers) on a bed of coulis of rocket with rocket leaves, diced zucchini and "heart" of avocado and graced with a tiny square of sherry jelly.  Then came a nice bavette of beef with two potato preparations, sliced undercooked Noirmoutier ones and mashed ones so light we argued over whether they were that way due to extreme whipping, extreme butter or extreme egg whites.  All agreed that this piece of Australian meat was extremely good, especially with the intense reduction of beef sauce and salt crystals.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally came two desserts (we didn't dispute their math); a fruity sorbet with fruit underneath (raspberries, watermelon and something else I cannot recall but which looks green in the photo) that had a cakey thing underneath and chocolate "hat" over it; and a caramel/chocolate mound.

Our bill, with the bottle Gaillac 2009 and one of their ecological CRYO water (6 E) but minus a charge for an extra glass of red Ventoux, plus three coffees was 156.60 E, thus 104.32 E for a couple for another wonderful meal.

Stealing food: Jean Valjean is alive and well.

OK. I admit it; I confess, I steal food.

No, not from my wonderful friends staffing the stands along the Rue du Poteau, nor Supermarches or Hypermarches, indeed, not even from fecund fields of strawberries, corn or olives lining the roads. No, I steal from my own food at restaurants.

“But that’s not stealing, John, come on….You ordered it, it’s yours.” Well, it may be seen that way in the US, maybe, but not here. (As someone said to me today about banks in France “They think it’s their money, not yours.”)

 

In fairness I should note that Sunday in the JDD version femina there was an article by Brigitte Valotto on some "rights" of diners, that stated that it is indeed legal in France to take an untouched dessert or unfinished wine bottle home.  Shortly after the Loi Evin was passed that cracked down on drunk driving, I had some unfinished wine at the end of a superb meal at the old Regalade and was taken aback when the waiter said "Why don't I cork and bag it for you to take home?"

So a slight classification in my list of crimes:

1st are places like Helene Darroze, where the food was so bad, (has it ever been good?), that we used our zip-lock baggies, that we always carry (more about that later) to put the horrible food in and left it for her minions to find under our chairs, a cowardly but effective way of thumbing our nose at the most pretentious chef in France.

2nd was an Alsation place whose name I will not sully by naming, where my buddy Paga and I ate at one night; where we ordered too much food. It was fine, indeed more than fine, the flammekueche was first rate, but too much, so we bagged it for me to dump in a nearby poubelle – except that I forget to pick it up at the end of the meal and when we passed the first vigipirate spot he said "OK throw it in here."  "What said I?"  "The food."  "OMG, it’s on the floor back there."

3rd example occured today when I ate at l’Antre Amis and had one of the best meals of the year; but it was too much. Carefully bagging the beef and later the cheese, I had one very fine two meals ahead of me.


Where to have too much of the best food in a long time.

L'Antre Amis 9, rue Bouchut in the 15th, (Metro: Sevres-Lecourbe)
T: 01.45.67.15.65
Closed weekends
Lunch menu = 32 E

Les Coulisses (Vintage) in the 9th: Frederic Barette is indeed a "serious pro."

 
Les Coulisses (Vintage) in the 9th is a place I ate at with a chef buddy 6 weeks ago and promised to return to with Colette.  As usual, she asked, "who is this guy?"  "This guy" is Frederic Barette whom Lebey describes as "a solid cook, a true pro who has worked in the most serious kitchens in Paris and the provinces."  He got that right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The specials today included a mackerel in white wine sauce with lavender and carrots and a pot au feu of tuna; I was really tempted by the mackerel but went with the thick terrine slice of foie gras and smoked eel in jelly because the one had by my friend 6 weeks ago was so superb; not to worry, Chef gave us the mackerel as an amuse-bouche, a most generous gesture, and we liked that as well as the terrine with white asparagus Milanese, topped with a microtomed toasted slice of eggplant.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then Colette had the veal tomato (not tonnato) a complex serving of veal on top of cooked tomato slices, with  a real tonnato sauce and topped by a large but very thin square of brik with an eggyolk that she was told to pierce so that it flowed through the brik and into the veal and sauce below.  It was delicious. I had a rumsteak (not pictured) with a dark, rich red wine/ginger/pepper sauce accompanied by a very nice green salad that was arranged in the osso bocco os plus a side serving of gratined potatoes.

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At this point, with all that beef aboard, I figured I should rest, but we were plied into the temptation of ordering dessert.   Colette chose the incredibly light chocolate mousse and me the strawberries "Anais"; both great, but together even greater.

With a bottle of the Barathym Languedoc wine and two glasses of red Mas Amiel dessert wine (discovered by our waitperson while working in the U..K. who described it as "perfect with chocolate," an opinion echoed by Newfoundland & Labrador author Kevin Major) and two coffees, our bill was 100.90 E.

A footnote: Colette, very sensitive by nature and heritage to friendliness in waitstaff, said our waitress was "more than just friendly, she was very informed and very informative."

Reviews of reviews: The Week of July 4th, 2011

Monday-Tuesday, in A Nous Paris, Jerome Berger gave 3/5 dots to Au Passage, 1 bis, passage St-Sebastien in the 11th, 01.43.55.07.52, closed Saturday lunch, Sundays and Monday nights, formulas at 9.50-16.50, a la carte about 25 E, mentioning sea trout, cod, red fruits and good wines; meanwhile Philippe Toinard reviewed and gave 2/5 disappointed dots to Le Relais du Parc, calling the crevettes nothing to write home about and crumble banal.

Tuesday in Le Fooding, Yves Nespoulous reviewed the mirrored Agapé Substance, 66, rue Mazarine in the 6th, closed Sundays and Mondays, open other days 12-14 and 8-10 PM, costing about 39, 51 65 E for well-sourced products such described tersely as “œuf, courgette, tourteau, carotte, cabillaud, lotte, pigeon, veau, girolle, chèvre, chocolat, cerise.“

 

Thursday, in l’Express François-Régis Gaudry wrote up the Frenchie Wine Bar as his Resto of the week as well as Tetedoie in Lyon; Pierrick Jégu reviewed the sushi-serving Yuzu; and Charles Patin O'Coohoon wrote up an Argentinian bistro El Nacional in Bordeaux.

Saturday, in Le Figaro, Francois Simon, wrote an article, hardly a review, of Thierry Marx’s two new restaurants in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel – Sur Mesure & Le Camelia, giving his critique of one Ferran Adriaesque dish, a deconstructed egg – « Est-ce bon ? Pas franchement. »

And Sunday, in the JDD, Aurelie Chaigneau wrote an article on rosé being the wine of summer and with Guillaume Reblere wrote another list of places with terraces:
Saint James – most messed up
Bellevilloise – most cocky
Maison Blanche – most airy
Frenchie bar a vins – smallest
Park Hyatt – most glamorous
Bal café – most British
Baudelaire – most discrete
Jaja – most hidden
Le brunch de l’Ouest parisien – most bucolic
Felix – most bourgeoise
Philou – most bistro
Grande Verriere – most countrylike
Restaurant La Terrace –most 360°
Chez Julien – most Costes Attitude