John Talbott's Paris

Aspen 2012: bb's, Syzygy & Asie

bb's Kitchen is a most pleasant 2nd story treat in a sea of drecky-restos.  They have a great setting; a wonderful staff; and innovative stuff - like Colette's green grape "gaspacho" with fennel thickened with almonds and her shrimp ceviche with "many, many chopped veggies" and multi-colored tortilla chips and my crab blt (sauteed soft-shelled crab, bacon [pancetta], lettuce & tomato) as well as aioli on too-crumbly focaccia with coleslaw - which would hve worked better deconstructed - but all quite good.

With a liter of very good white sangria with lots of fruit, no desserts but two Illy coffees, our bill was $87.20 before tip.

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Syzygy is another place we've grown to love, although not in the main salle but in the bar area and not with the former chef, but a new one named Keith Theodore, ex of the St Regis.  Colette had a two large scallops, served with delicious succotash and a small portion of mashed potatoes that she glowed over and I was most happy with my slice of sauteed Hudson River (perhaps D'Artagnan?) foie gras with a strawberry compote, bacon bits and a coffee demi-glaze (that I asked for the coffee to be removed from which did not detract from its quality one bit).

With a bottle of Carmel Road Pinot Noir, no desserts or coffee, our bill before tip was $80.75.

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Asie is yet another old favoite and they have an amazingly changed menu year by year.  Colette had a terrific crisp cucumber salad and great tasting chicken satay and I had one of the nicest portions of crispy skinned and spicy sauced duck with green vegetables of my career.

With 2 glasses of a Pinot, one iced tea and no desserts or coffee, our bill before tip was $76.30.

Aspen 2012: Takah Sushi, Casa Tua and Above the Salt.

Takah Sushi has for years been our reliable first meal stop in Aspen following our cross-country flight. It never disappoints; the staff are very welcoming and we appreciate the very fresh fish, nice wine choices and innovative alternatives, such as the Viet-Namese type lettuce wrap with not pork but minced shrimp and chicken with the usual cilantro and mint, nuts, rice vinegar and hot sauce.

With a bottle of wine and no desserts our bill before the tip was $91.56.

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NYC Lincoln & Jojo: Restaurant Week may not be the best time to go.

Colette and I had to be in New York for a meeting and knowing it was Restaurant Week we let two of our local experts pick the places.

Lincoln Restaurante is a great idea, a beautifully sited and gorgeously outfitted place right across from the bedeviled/multiply-repaired reflecting pool besides the Met (currently the pool is full of water, the Moore sculptures are standing guard and a fashion photo shoot was in full swing outside the resto.) The tables are not too close together - a very nice touch.  Rather than rattle off the dishes we had, I'll summarize by saying that many were surprisingly nicely spicy with the sliced shrimp and pasta as well as the tagliatelle with vongole being the standout dishes.  It should be noted that the lettuce salad was not only wonderfully local, it was humongous.

With 4 of the non-Restaurant Week 2 dishes for $32 prix fixes, one dessert and multiple drink components, our bill per couple amounted to $112.62 before tip.

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Jojo's is a place I had never been to even though it's been open for a decade, but we did know Vongerichten's food from Lafayette and Vong and did not object when our other local host suggested it.  Again, rather than spew out each dish, I'll note the outstanding sashimi-salmon atop mini-croquettes and duck two ways as really nice dishes (the negatives per Colette: the music was way too loud and the air conditioning was minimal)

Our bill here with a bottle of wine a couple and eating from the everyday and not Restaurant week prix fixes, was $127.93 a couple.

(Wise) words on Wednesdays

A recent letter to the New York Times (July 22nd, 2012) from Henry Finkelstein of Brooklyn NY said what I often think after reading a critique of a restaurant:

"I don’t think you accurately diagnose the difficulties many of your readers have with the arts critiques that appear in The New York Times. I find that with the exception of the book reviews, after reading the evaluations of the work in question, I don’t really know whether the writer likes or dislikes the subject, or whether I should spend my vanishing leisure dollars in seeing it. It seems that your arts staff is more interested in winning Pulitzer Prizes than aiding the poor questioning consumer."

Cheap eats/student prices/reasonably-priced meals.

So, you’re entering the Place de La Concorde at sunset after a long ride from Eastern Europe and you need a reasonably priced meal - you head for a falafel place in the Marais or a crepes resto near the Gare Montparnasse or a gyro joint around St Michel.   Well, that’s what I did 50 years ago but there's no need to do so today when there are reasonably priced places that also feature really good food.  Here are some ideas from recent months (prices exclude liquids):

Braisenville
36, Rue Condorcet in the 9th (Metro: Anvers)
T: 09.50.91.21.74
Closed Sundays
3 courses at lunch = 19 E

L’Apibo
31, rue Tiquetonne in the 2nd, (Metro: Etienne Marcel)
T: 01.55.34.94.50
Closed Sundays
3 courses on the lunch formula = 26 E

L'Auberge Flora
44, blvd Richard Lenoir in the 11th, (Metro: Brequet-Sabin)
T: 01.47.00.52.77
Open 7/7
3 courses a la carte = 30 E.

Some new (for me) Baltimore area restaurants.

Miguel’s Cocina y Cantina is located in Silo Point in a hard to find spot but is worth finding.  I ate with three others who all liked the guacamole, (not necessarily the crackers that came with it that were too fragile to dip with), bean soup, Caesar salad with broad leaves and nicely dressed, grouper and a sausage (flavored with Achiote and allspice), Chihuahua cheese and Mole Chatino Quesadilla.  With two bottles of wine our bill was $156.79 before tip, thus $78.40 a couple.  Go again?  Yes.

The Café de Paris in Columbia is about as genuine a French joint as one can get in this neck of the woods, with a French-speaking owner and waiter-in-training and a menu straight from Les Halles: onion soup (better than those around Les Halles), tomato bisque, a lobster-tail/pasta dish, salmon and entrecote (that would have been helped by the Relais’ secret sauce and was not the best ever).  With a bottle of wine, our bill was unknown to me since it was a Christmas present.  Go again; I suspect next year.

The Waterfront Kitchen has been open several months and has a sparkling décor, albeit quite noisy.  I went with three others who thought the food was equally sparkling; I’ve been twice now, once for dinner and once for lunch on the deck (fabulous).  The first meal, I tried to get a simple green salad but felt I was a grouchy version of Jack Nicholson in Five Easy Pieces when I asked for it unadorned; but the greens and dressing were fine.  My seafood “soup” was a soup in name only, more of tempura-style shrimp and langoustine heads with a wonderful smoky spicy sauce with white beans.  (BTW They do not clear your plates away as you finish and they don’t pile on specials without giving you prices – you’d almost think you were in Paris.)  Bill at dinner = $87.78 a couple before tip.  Lunch was a simpler menu but I loved my steak sandwich.

The Thames Oyster House is another new place that provides a level of seafood hitherto not found in restaurants in Baltimore (only in markets).  The oysters are very good, colossal shrimp equally, bouillabaisse most generous and more like seafood with a few drops of soup, scallops succulent, fish a chips special and desserts out of the ordinary.  This was a heck of a meal for the equivalent of $125 a couple before tip.  I went back again for dinner and was just as happy although Colette really disliked the noise level.  Bill here (oysters aren’t cheap) was about $130 a couple with a bottle of wine before the tip.

Finally I’ve only been once to the Fork and Wrench but loved it. 
The pluses were numerous:
A wonderful décor (wood and tin ceilings, upholstered couches on the first floor)
Terrific attentive service
Terrific duck breast cooked as specified with heirloom carrots of three colors
Nice hanger steak but with weird sauce
Terrific lemon, blueberry and strawberry crème brulee
Reasonably priced wines from largely southern hemisphere vineyards.
There are a few things that are weird though:
They say there are no quiet spots because it’s an “active” restaurant
Colette wore a dress and the A/C vent blew cold air right up her legs
We had to ask for bread to soak up the wonderful spicy sauce on the sautéed mushies
The plates were not warmed before the main courses were plated.
They have the dreaded stools and high tables which we avoided.
The wait for the mains was out of proportion to the few customers being served
Bill = $62.86 before tip with a bottle of wine and no bottled water.
Go?  We’re gonna!

John’s Top 10 For 2012 Approaching Les Vacances

Last week, I gave a listing of my top hot bistros defining “bistro” as what I think a bistro is; this week I’ll give the ratings and rankings of all restaurants, bistros, caves à manger, etc. that have impressed me over the past 6 months:

8.3 MaSa
8.0 L’Escargot 1903
7.1 Le Bistro Volnay
7.0 Sens Uniques, Le 122,  Les Jalles, La Table d’Aki, A La Marguerite, Philippe Excoffier
6.9 Les Saisons

Runnersup:
6.8 Bigarrade
6.6 Bouclier de Bachus, Terroir Parisien, L’Auxiria, Braisenville
6.5 L’Escient, La Cantine du Troquet Dupleix, Le Chemise, Alain Milliat, Pinxo St Germain, Le Cabanon de l’Ecailler
6.1 Le Petit Broc, Semilla
6.0 Clocher Montmartre, Pierre au Palais-Royal, L’Instant d’Or, L’Ecallier du Pichet

Reviews of reviews: The week of July 9th, 2012.

Monday-Tuesday in the last edition of A Nous Paris before the summer break, Philippe Toinard gave a 2/5 to previously-mentioned La Table d’Aligre in the 12th, coordinates already given, commenting on how they screwed up the daily seafood/shellfish; and Jerome Berger awarded 3/5 dots to the previously mentioned and obviously Italian L’Alimentari in the 4th.

Tuesday, in Le Fooding, Matthieu Jauniau-Dallier reviewed Roseval, 1, rue d’Eupatoria in the 20th, 09 53 56 24 14, open evenings only, and closed weekends, costing one 36 to 50 € for the food which two tatoo’d «gangstas minots» with good provinance - Rino, Chateaubriand, Gazzetta, Caffè dei Cioppi, Mirazur, Cracco à Milan… offer one langoustines, bak choï, kumquat, noisette, pulpe d’oignons doux épanouis and traits vifs de l’oseille sauvage.

In the Financial Times this weekend, Nicholas Lander is “excited by three openings”; Les Jalles, Semilla and Albion.

Pinxo Rue Mazarine: Inventive but not always dazzling.

Pinxo, Dutournier's 2nd such named on the Rue Mazarine in the 6th bewitched me a few weeks ago so I returned with Colette and my forever and favorite and only still-eating-with-me-ex-co-host on the food website whose name cannot be mentioned.

The carte was pretty much the same and I revealed myself as a creature of habit by ordering the same things.

 

 

 

Luckily the ladies saved the day by ordering different items however.  My charming ex-co-host had what I would call a spring roll with crab meat and veggies; Colette had 3 gaspachos (melon, petit pois and tomato with goat cheese on the bottom of each glass) that she thought were blah but I rather liked; and I had the boring (this time) "fricassee" of chipirons, piquillos, ginger and pasta which was only brought to life with a heavy dousing/dosing of espelette and black pepper.

For mains, the ladies had green curried shrimp that was/were wonderful and I repeated the duck hearts, I had had before, a la plancha, but this time they were overcooked and not very interesting.

For dessert, our friend ordered a single "tiramisu" with strawberries, that, like at Drouant, come in three portions.  Very nice stuff and very nice touch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I ordered a Red Graves which everyone but Colette liked and so I ordered a Pic St Loup, which I must admit for the same price, was much better.

Our bill, with two bottles of wine and 6 Illy coffees and no bottled water was 183 E but without all the chatter and extra liquid, for "normal" people, it would come to 108 E a couple.

L'Escargot 1903 in Puteaux: Excellent food - too many waitfolk, too few chefs.

 

L'Escargot 1903 in Puteaux is another of those places like Pere Lapin, L'Escarbille and all those great places in Levallois-Perret that go unvisited by visitors because they're outside Metro 1-2 Zones.  And yet, they won't suffer; today L'Escargot 1903 was jam-packed with locals.

The "menu" is an easy 37 E for a great choice of items and we quickly settled in with a relatively new expat who is, like Hemingway, Baldwin and Fitzgerald, using Paris as a place in which to write her great American novel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After a startlingly-spicy (for the French) amuse of tapenade on their great bread (toasts), we were served a tasty gaspacho - a good beginning!  Colette ordered what was called a presse of sauteed vegetables with burrata, topped with a couple of parmesan strips - and very good it was.  Our friend and I had the porchetta (a rollatine) of rabbit on a tabouli-like grain with a splendid lemony sauce. So far so good; I mean

we had our fine bread, nice carafe of water and bottle of wine and good company and lots of waitfolk and, but, still, yet, no main courses appeared for too long a time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

However, I should stop complaining because once they arrived, our mains were wonderful; my lady companions both had the rouget, which was inadequately described on the menu; it was in fact a cocotte of various seafoods and fish a top a paella-like rice with peas.   I had the similarly minimalistically-described stuffed tomato - stuffed with cubed veal breast, zucchini, and mushroom on a bed of risotto - delicious!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For desserts we had respectively: an oeuf a la neige with banana/passion sauce, a lemon meringue tarte and a soup of strawberries and orange slices that set each other off perfectly.

Hummm, outside on the terrace was a Weber grill - I wonder what they use that for? Our bill with two bottles of that nice Syrah, no bottled water and three coffees was 168.50 E or 112.33 E a couple.