John Talbott's Paris

Roger la Grenouille in the 6th: Ouch. An archival* review.

1.0 Roger la Grenouille, 26, rue des Grands-Augustins, 6th, 01.56.24.24.34, closed Sundays. Why did I go to this place described as “old” and “old school” by two friends?

You’ll recall Bogart in the role of Rick Blaine replying to Captain Renault as to how he got there: “I came to Casablanca for the waters. Captain Renault: The waters? What waters? We're in the desert. Rick: I was misinformed.”

And so it was. Someone, somewhere, said they had a new chef or something new, well, in my defense, they opened in 1930, so something must have changed in 76 years. As I was walking smack in the heart of the Right Bank in the 6th between the backpackers’ cheapo places, you know them, 10 Euros plus wine for 2 courses on the ardoise, and Jacques Cagna/William Ledeuil/Relais Louis XIII-land, I had a sinking feeling that I was walking into a trap (I know, I read too many polars.)

Entering, I thought it looked exactly like it did in 1930. And it probably does.

But the ardoise said “New Proprietor,” there were two young men in the salle rather than the older Maitre d’ described elsewhere and there were two young women in the kitchen. I was mostly alone in a place that must seat 100 covers; a French family with a screaming kid left after one tantrum too many and their replacement, a three generation triple, didn’t sit down ‘til I was almost finished.

Anyway the food; it’s Roger la Grenouille, after all, so I wanted and one gotta have frogs, right? If anyone can fix them well, they must, right? It’s old and old school, right? Wrong x3. They were barely OK (basically tasteless but without any accompanying sharp parsley zip or garlic zatch) and their price was outasight (25€ for 6 as an entrée and 31 for a main course). I also didn’t like the chopped fennel either – so there!

Then I had veal kidneys that were properly cooked as we had agreed (that is pink) with potatoes dauphinoise. I dunno what happened, the kidneys were again barely OK, the bordelaise sauce ditto but the potatoes were again tasteless and uncrispy on the exterior.

The coffee was great so I have something nice to say, but the financier was limp and chocolate cookies less than basic.

Now sometime during the meal I noticed that while the women were bustling about the kitchen, out of the window observing every bite I ate was an older guy and when I got the check they handed me two cards, one for Roger and one for Allard with the same names on both and like Jonathan Safran Foer, suddenly everything was illuminated: the Allard bunch had taken over this tired place and were transitioning the old guys out to be replaced by younger kitchen and waitstaff; but I got caught in the middle.

Cost of lesson = 59.70 €. Ouch!

*Oringinally published in September 2006.

FAQ: Why do I eat sushi/kimchi/tandouri/etc., in the US and not in Paris?

That’s an interesting question.

Just last week, I had what was close to the best pizza of my life in ………….. ah, here’s the hitch – Bologna. But I had another that was similarly mind-blowing in New York of all places last year.

So, part of the answer is that I’d much prefer to hold off eating "ethnic" food until I’m in the mother country.

But then, why do I eat sushi/kimchi/tandouri/etc., in the US?

Somehow, it seems that when in France (or Italy) one should eat French (or Italian) food, whereas in the US there is no real American cuisine (save hamburgers, cranberry jelly, catsup and ramps).

Is it a question of quality?

Yes and No.

My one Indian meal here was awful, but a Thai place around the corner from it was terrific until it changed owners. I always attributed that to their use of native (Thai) spices and herbs combined with French products, cooked by real Thai chefs.

I also used to have a sushi place whose clientele were largely Japanese expats but it too changed ownership and direction, so “Sayonara.”

It’s puzzling that Chinese/Asian take-out places all have the same offerings as if from a central kitchen rather than a couple of woks in back with which to prepare stuff on order; can it be that difficult?

And to complicate matters, two of my top places in Paris in 2011 as we face the end of the year tallies are Sola and Kei which if you walked into them in Kyoto, you’d swear were just Nouvelle Japanese.

Reviews of reviews: The week of December 5th, 2011.

Monday-Tuesday in A Nous Paris, Jerome Berger gave 4/5 dots to L’Affable, coordinates given before, where he commented on the chicken liver terrine, cod and boeuf bourguignon as well as water-cress/sorrel soup with gnocchi, sweetbreads and baba; next door, Philippe Toinard gave 3/5 to Dodin, coordinates given before, using words such as “no surprise, not sufficiently alluring and cruely lacking conviction and talent.”

In Tuesday’s Le Fooding, Yves Nespoulous reviewed Restaurant Verjus Restaurant [sic], 52, rue de Richelieu in the 1st, 01.42.97.54.40, open 7-11 PM, closed Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays, costing 70 E for an 8-course “menu,” 55 E for 6 courses, 14 E for cheese and 30-40 E for mets and wine. The portions, he says, are the size of two bites and while good are expensive, prompting him to say that the Verjus’s invented a new notion, that of - “gastrominiaturisation” which is akin to “gastrofrustration”.

Wednesday, Figaroscope’s Emmanuel Rubin reviewed his usual five new places, only one of which merited three hearts : L’Office in the 9th, cordinates given before, mentioning the pork belly, lamb chop and chocolate-banana cake. The other four were rated a 1/4 : Corneil in the 9th and coordiates in the guidebooks reprised with eggs, duck with pear and a chocolate cake ; the Argentine La Recoleta in the 20th ; La Terrasse du Laurier, 143, bvd St-Michel in the 5th, 01.43.29.40.81, open 7/7, an annex of the brasserie Laurier in the 14th, with menus at 17.50 (lunch) and 32 E (dinner), featuring cauliflower soup, filet mignon and a Tarte Tatin ; and the previously mentioned Dodin, mentioning the mikado de couteau, tete de veau and cannelloni.

The Dossier this week by Colette Monsat, Alice Bosio, Alexandra Michot and Hugo de Saint Phalle covered places where one can heat up out of the cold:
Le 7 Eiffel
L’Atelier Maitre Albert
L’Auberge Bressane
L’Auberge du 15
Les Montargnards
Braisenville
Saravanaa Bhavan
Robert et Louise
Candelaria
The Duke’s Bar
Le Quincampe and also Le Bar de Montalembert & O Restaurant.

And Francois Simon’s Hache Menu covered the well-known Cartouche Cafe in the 12th. he ate at trendy new places Racines 2, coordinates already given. Go ? Yes, but not all together.

In l’Express, Pierrick Jegu reviewed Jean-Yves Bordier’s new epicerie/bistro Autour du Beurre in St Malo ; and Charles Patin O'Coohoon reviewed L’Affranchis, 5, rue Henri Monnier in the 9th, (Metro: St Georges) 01.45.26.26.30, closed Sundays and Mondays.

Saturday, Francois Simon in Le Figaro’s Croque-Notes wrote up La Fourchette des Ducs in Obernal. 

More trends in Paris restaurants.

Periodically, I get fed up with the fads in Parisian restaurants and I realized this week that these guys are just as sheepish as the fashionistas who lower or raise hemlines or declare what this year's color will be.

So this winter it's eggs, cauliflower couscous, brunch on weekends and beets, beets, beets.

One ray of individualism; a guy today did what I do frequently with friends, he ordered a carafe of water while his companion had the 8 E bottled stuff.

Cezanne at the Luxembourg: Enough already!

The reliable son of one of my oldest reliable friends declared a moratorium on Impressionist Block-buster art exhibitions a few years ago and I honored it for a while, but after seeing the Stein show yesterday, broke my resolve and went to the show of about 80 Cezanne's, painted in his "Paris" days.  I was not impressed until I got to the last room entitled "Les Voies de Silence" containing works from the last 15 years of his life.  Do these justify 12 E?  Dunno.

No wows.

L'Affable in the 7th: Yet another solid, packed, neighborhood neobistrot with bigtime prices.

5.3 L'Affable, 10, rue St-Simon in the 7th, (Metro: Rue du Bac), 01.42.22.01.60, closed Sunday and Monday has a 26 E two course lunch "menu" but ordering off the carte adds up to 40-60 E.  Now, I realize it's in the midst of "downtown,"  but price-quality-wise, that's a stretch.

It's a charmingly decorated place which when I entered at 12h20 was calm and welcoming; but, but, but....as folks drifted in and filled every seat, the combination of tight quarters + women + wine + no sound-dampening made it close to intolerable.

The food was OK.  Not exciting, but above average.  The lunch menu was either a terrine of chicken or eggs with cepes (and truffles +6 E) and lotte, with cheese from Barthelemy at 10 E.  I went with the carte and had beef cheeks and carrot raviolis in a Ze-like Thai bouillon (which my friend R. could identify the herbs therein in a flash, but I struggled to be be sure were lemongrass and cilantro.)   Ok.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then I had a brochet of perfectly crispy-outside sweetbreads beside a generous bed of duxelles and a side of mashed potatoes.   Again OK.  But there was a strange element - it also had two fried onion rings which were crisp on the outside and soggy on the inside - most off-putting.

There was another strange element: while I think the place is trying to be a semi-elegant restaurant, when it got half-full, the staff started running around like Marx Brothers imitators of French brasserie waiters of eons past.  Some owner or investor (two of whom I concluded were outside smoking and finishing their wine during the height of this nonsense) should tell them that maintaining their cool rather than running amok conveys professionalism.

The bill, ah the bill.  Well, with a bottle of wine and the 'menu" a couple can exit for 76 E but with the carte, a couple can easily drop 140 E.

Go back?  Not until they solve the noise, price-quality and running to and from the kitchen issues.

The Steins Collect; at the Grand Palais until January 12th: An art history lesson well worth taking.

On reading about the arrival here of the Stein exhibition from San Francisco, I thought to myself, I don't need to go, I've lived 25 years in New York and even more in Baltimore, how can these finds top the Moma, Met and Cone collections?  Well, they do, because the show's intrepid curator, Janet Bishop, tracked down everything the four Steins ever touched: by Matisse, Picasso, Bonnard, Cézanne, Gris, Picabia and Renoir.

3 Wild Wows!

L'Affranchis in the 9th: Another fine neighborhood bistrot.

5.9 L'Affranchis, 5, rue Henri Monnier in the 9th, (Metro: St Georges) 01.45.26.26.30, closed Sundays and Mondays, is another fine neighborhood bistrot that was packed to the gills with locals, although as opposed to Sot l'y Laisse, it wasn't turning folks away.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My friend, the Versailles expert, and I went there for lunch and weren't disappointed.  After a small but delicious parmesan biscuit amuse, he had the coco bean soup with goat cheese and tiny croutons and chorizo and I, 2 slabs of poached fois gras with a super "chutney" of agrumes and raisins.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mains were a delicious slab of cod with a perfectly-crisped skin on top of a mushroom/veggie puree and veal liver with fat fries, the latter of which I thought were/was the only downer in the meal (the bread and coffee being superior too).

Desserts presented both of us with a dilemma, solved by us both having the cafe gourmand, which gave us a bit of everything, chocolate fluff, chopped poached pear, a financier and small dab of chocolate.

With a bottle of Syrah and no bottled water, our bill was 98.00 E.

Go? I tried to make a reservation over New Year's when Colette is here but they were closed prepararing for and recovering from the Big Night (like everyone else in Paris) the days I enquired about.

 

Giacometti and the Etruscans and Expressionismus & Expressionismi at the La Pinacotheque.

A big show on essentially, how Giacometti was influenced by Etruscan art, is now on til January 8th at the Pinacotheque of Paris.  I have seen enough Etruscan artifacts to "get the idea," but the 30 Giacometti pieces still impress.

On the other hand, the show on Expressionismus & Expressionismi: Der Blaue Reiter (founded by Kandinsky) and Die Brücke delivers a huge, dazzlingly colored shock as one wanders through some 150 works by Kandinsky, Kirchner and Nolde, my favorites.  Open til March 11th.

2 Wows!

Albion in the 10th: Is the glass half-empty or half-full?

5.3 Albion, 80, rue du Faubourg Poissoniere in the 10th, (Metro: Poissoniere), 01.42.46.02.44 (but I had a hard time getting someone to pick up) is named after the Greek appelation for Great Britain, best known in the scathing insult - "perfidious Albion." 

As numerous people have pointed out, Matt Ong in the kitchen and Hayden Clout at the bar/wine store, from Fish, opened this place just recently.  I originally wasn't going to go, having loved Ong's food in the past at Fish, and figuring that it would be the same, but two "trusted sources" urged me to, saying he was better at Albion than before.

I went with a Professor of Culinary Arts who teaches in and divides her times between the US, Italy and France, and had, perhaps, built it up too much to her; but she had done her own research and went in with expectations as well.  We were not wowed by the choices at lunch; for starters: a burrata, spinach soup or cauliflower couscous, mains: scallops, cod, duck breast or linguine, and desserts: cheese, lemon posset or rice pudding.  But we ordered.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She took one taste of her soup and said 'It's over-salted, and I love salt, try it."  So I did and agreed.  They graciously replaced it with another which she was underwhelmed by as well.  I thought my burrata with intense pesto and a nicely crisped piece of toast with cherry tomatoes was fine but did not really test the kitchen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She then had the cod with petoncles which a food writer we both admire had loved and said "It's OK."  Meanwhile I had the scallops which were first rate, but didn't quite go with the boudin noir or puree of Jerusalem artichoke.

Now, perhaps because of deflated expectations, or running out of steam, or, who knows? she declined dessert and i forgot to take a pix of mine - big mistake - because the "posset" of lemon, which Google reveals to be an old Elizabethan and/or Medieval recipe, was very, very good.

Our bill with a bottle of wine, no bottled water, two extra glasses of wine (one offered, after a lovely chat with our host), was 81.50 E.

Go?  We come back to my title; "half-empty or half-full?'  I think the place has promise, we saw that in the dessert, but I hope they work on the rest of the menu, especially their combinations and limited choices.  If so, I'll be back, if only because they are so welcoming and nice and you so want them to succeed.