John Talbott's Paris

Le Chaland in the 10th: Well it was a beautiful day along the Canal St Martin, why not?

4.9 (and that's being charitable) Le Chaland, 163 Quai de Valmy in the 10th, 01.40.05.18.88, open 7/7 except Monday night is a place my pal N. noticed a few months ago when flanneuring and said "It's on the Canal, it's full, not everyone there was a hipster and on a nice day it could be nice."  So me, I'm game, right?

Well, you cannot complain about the prices - 6 E for starters, 11-17 E mains and 5.50 E for desserts.  But the choices did look rather banal excepting the special main - gambas, so we ordered them - out at 12h45!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The waitlady immediately asked if we wanted some wine (it apparently being primarily a wine place) and I ordered the Talmar, a Pays d'Oc that my companion thought was if not the cat's meow, at least the cat's yelp.  And we both had a salad of terrific gesiers which were cooked perfectly, then sliced and mixed in and atop a salad of green beans, lettuce and hot-house (in August?, ah no!) tomatoes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then she had the tartare of salmon with frites she simply adored and I had an entrecote which was OK/standard/etc., cooked to my liking, with the fries and those dang hot-house tomatoes again.

With 2 coffees and no desserts, our bill was 46.80 E.

Go?  Nah, even on a nice day, with a nice lady, eating nice fries and drinking nice wine.

L'Office (version 4.0) in the 9th: Luckily Charles Campagnon didn't try to fix what wasn't broke.

6.7 L'Office, 3 Rue Richer in the 9th, 01.47.70.67.31, closed Saturday lunch and Sundays, is a place that just keeps getting better and better.  You'll recall the history: Frenchie Marchand's BIL Nicolas Scheidt opened it in May 2007 to pretty good applause (5.0/10 from me), then Charles Campagnon, ex everyplace (Costes, James Beard, Lily Wang) bought it and brought in the much loved and heralded Kevin O'Donnell ex Del Posto and other venues) and I thought in October 2011 that it had climbed to a 5.7; now, after Kevin's depart for SE NE, one Youssouki Yamaji (my partner's spelling), ex Bocuse, Piege, Barbot, etc is in the cuisine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My partner started off with slices of perfectly ripe avocado, cool crab and a lime sauce and I had a mound of encornets with parmesan and a nicely piquant sauce.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then she had a yellow lieu which was sauteed in a shredded wheat looking batter with broccoli, petit pois and other seasonal veggies and I had the chicken with heirloom tomatoes and an anchovie-infused sauce.  At this point I should mention that the chef and, for all I know the owner, are fierce advocates of fresh, local, beautiful products, a wall of which is evident when one visits the newly-refurbished cuisine (under Scheidt it had one frigo and one oven and O'Donnell was covered with sweat from the blast-furnace-like temperatures; no more, Campagnon proudly showed off his glistening ventilation system.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At some point Campagnon was chatting to us about the cheese he had acquired, insisting that this was the best of the year.  So we had the St. Nectaire, Conte and blue and with the great bread and fine wine were not disappointed.

Finally he served us Ethiopian coffee which he spent as much time and verbiage describing as others do wines and it too was way above average.

For all the above, the tarif was 83 E and we left very happy campers.

Go?  Please do.

Some More Trends in Paris Restaurants

I’ve written before about Paris Restaurant trends.  It’s amazing how there are new ones each season but some keep repeating, such as slates for plates and listing a dish like eel with avocado and mango – where the eel is verbally buried in the middle so one sees “Avocado with eel and mango,” which is not at all what it looks like.

June 4th’s A Nous Paris had a feature on what’s trendy in Paris right now and some such trends seem dated and silly to at least one American.  They included:
A wrap from Subway©
Tofu Bavarois
Gin not vodka
Sugar snap peas
Fruit & herb ice cubes

Then, Food and Wine had an article in its July issue on Food Trends in America and included:
Lists of food trends (ha, so there!)
Popup restaurants
Fancy chefs making burgers
No-reservation restaurants
Cross-cultural cuisine that’s more than Asian fusion
TV chefs
The death of fine dining
Chefs as sex symbols

And just a few weeks ago I heard a relatively new but terrific restaurant reviewer from Baltimore, of all places, mention:
Small plates vs huge portions
Locavore vs get what you want when you want it
The end of fine dining (again)
The growth of casual dining
Uncomfortable chairs, stools and high tables
Painful noise levels vs able to talk places

However, there are other more mundane observations that I and others in Paris have made on what was hot and what was not this spring and summer:
Eggs, especially on ham with asparagus
Fluff and foams (yet again)
Duck hearts
Grains
Hot (really hot, for the French palate) spices over unexciting espelette
Stools and high tables in the best of places
Baba’s on every menu
Chocolate domes rather than moelleux
Marshmallows
Smoke flavor or truffle spray on the most unlikely of ingredients
62 degree eggs
Angus beef
Those silly little tin buckets for the bill/addition.

On the Road Again: RT to Maine

For our summer vacation eating I offer a few suggestions of “Best of’s” between New Jersey and Maine and back.

In Pennington, NJ we continue to find the sushi and composed dishes, such as shrimp and vegetables to be super at Edo Sushi.

Once Upon a Table in Stockbridge MA offers an OK Reuben and Caesar.

Best (and worst) of Aspen 2012

Best dish at a new place – Sauteéd spinach at the Meatball Shack (unfortunately not the meatballs though).

Best new place – No award this year (untried were Justice Snow and Bangkok Happy Bowl).

Best new chef – Keith Theodore at Syzygy, not Robert McCormick at Montagna.

Best coffee, espresso division – Victoria’s.

Best Take-out – The Butcher’s Block.

Best old places – bb’s kitchen & the Casa Tua.

Best sushi – Takah Sushi.

Best Ethnic – Asie.

Worst new place – Above the Salt.

Worst old place – Ute City.

Colette’s choice – bb’s Kitchen

Colette’s choice phrases – “My pleasure” said in response to anything. “No problem” instead of “You’re welcome.”  “Guys” to diners of all ages even when doddering.

Aspen 2012: The Wild Fig, Meatball Shack and Brexi Brasserie.

The Wild Fig has been around a long time, and while no substitute for the fabulous Torino Pizza place there before, it has served its purpose.  Colette had a nice gaspacho with shrimp and I had a plate of largely cold seafood items - a terrific white fish ceviche, a pretty good hot octopus bits with cherry tomato "salad" and an absolutely bland tartare of salmon.

With a glass of red wine and one of iced tea, no desserts nor coffee, our bill before tip was $87.21.

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The Meatball Shack has gotten rave reviews from Aspenites and wildly divergent reviews on Yelp and after our meal I think I know why.  The bread was stale until toasted; Colette's quinoa salad was deemed by her only "OK", e.g. she sees no need to return; my three "classic" meatballs with a tomato, capers and olive sauce were pale whispers of what my Mother prepared; but the sauteed spinach with garlic was "the" single best dish of this week in Aspen - it was super-spectacular - maybe I'll return for more of Florentinian chef Eddie Baida's Italian stuff.

With two glasses of California red, one iced tea and no desserts or coffee, our bill before tip was $55.

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The Brexi Brasserie is a pseudo-French place that usually satisfies quite well.  I must admit that we loved going/coming here for lunch in the past because dinner is such a wild scene with all the nursing home escapees/Bobo's/rich face-lift tummy-tuck breast-enhancement trophy wives in abundance and deafening music. (we were seated on an outside table so the music was not as intrusive.)   Colette had the scallops a top a pea puree with diced carrots (no salt & pepper required because it was "quite well seasoned") that she quite liked and I thought my sardines with tomato sauce were also quite acceptable.  No fireworks but quite pleasant so long as one was far from the deafening noise (see todays NYT by Katherine Bouton).

Our bill, with a bottle of Zin with nothing else, was $73.05 before tip.

Aspen 2012: Plato's, Montagna, (Butcher's Block) & Ute City.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Plato's at the Aspen Meadows Resort has served us well over the years when we were under some pressure to make a perfomance at the Auditorium, Tent or Hall.  Colette had the Plato Salad Bowl which she presumed would be more substantial, I on the other hand ordered two appetizers - some BBQ chicken wings and veggies as well as foie gras with morels and pineapple that I assumed would be less substantial - so in the end it all worked out.

With a bottle of Sicilian red, no desserts or coffee, our bill before tip was $67.58.

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Montagna has a new chef so of course we wanted to try him out.  The market menu is $26 for 2 courses and $32 for three and we went for exactly the same two: a green tomato gaspacho with nuts that was so-so and a "bouillabaisse" of a scallop, shrimp, mussels, purple potatoes, fennel and leeks in a wonderfully intense crustacean broth.

With a bottle of vinho verde, no desserts or coffee, our bill before tip was $98.10.

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We picniked between concerts with cashews, seaweed and pate with peppercorns from the Butcher's Block, Ak Mak from the City Market and a bottle of La Vielle Ferme from the Grog Shop - for a grand total of $39.09.

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The Ute City has served us well in the past but not today sadly.  Colette had the crab poppers with a weird sauce which tought not much of but I liked and I had the rigatone with pesto which I found edible only with an undeserved amount of extra cheese, freshly-ground black pepper and salt.

With a glass of grenache and one of iced tea, nothing else nor any coffee, our bill before tip was $40.90.

Some more cultural differences.

My annual visit to New York and Aspen in the US always brings me smack gob up against some cultural differences between things in France and the US:

In America, couples typically order different dishes while in France, couples, especially more elderly ones, order exactly the same thing.

In the US hot restaurants take no reservations (and love people waiting up to 2.5 hours) whereas in France they do.

In the United States, Europeans think restaurants and railway cars are telephone booths and shout into their cell-phones whereas in France they exit the resto or car to talk.

In France, fusion cuisine means French-Asian whereas trendy US ones merge American with South American and Indian/Pakistani trends.

In France, wine lists are almost exclusively of French wines whereas in the US many carry Southern Hemisphere imports.

In both countries, the addition of formerly little known herbs, spices, vegetables and fruits, especially from Japan, to "traditional" salads and other dishes, is rampant.