John Talbott's Paris

Aspen 2013-5: Asie, alright Asian and Syzygy, sizzling sustenance.

Asie is a pan-Asian place with everything from sushi to Thai dishes and while the prices have crept up over the years, bargains still can be found.  Colette and I started off today with the seaweed and cucumber salads respecively and both hit the spot.  Then she had the sushi and roll plate and I the spicyduck noodle soup - both terrific.

With an iced tea and Asahi and no desserts or coffee, our bill before tip was $53.50.

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Syzygy is a pretty swank downstair's restaurant that could pass as a '30's speakeasy did it not have such fine food.  We've found that by threading our way through the menu and wine list (esp at the bar) one can eat very well indeed without going broke.

Tonite we ordered three very good firsts:
- a richly flavored and intense Meyer lemon with rock shrimp risotto,
- a mini-lobe of foie gras, and
- a nicely herbed corn soup with pancetta.

With a bottle of Carmel Road (Monterey) red,fine bread and no desserts or coffee our bill was $92.90.

Aspen 2013-4: Casa Tua; holds up very well indeed; The Butcher's Block; would that I had a "deli" like this in Paris.

The Casa Tua is a place that if memory serves me was a failed fur-coat emporium turned into high end Italian place that continues to serve very good if pricy chow and even pricier wine, but hey this is Aspen with more private planes and 1%'ers than JP Morgan.

Anyway, it finally stopped raining so we ate on the terrace of this fine place, Colette indulging (once again) in a beets and arugula salad while I had as good as it gets in America (I've given up trying to have a replication of Luigi Buitoni's classic dish from his Locanda della Rocca in Paciano)- tagliatelle with Bolognese.

Our bill was $86.14 before tip with a bottle of fine Sicilian wine and no bottled water, desserts of coffee.

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As a picnic between concerts we went again to the Butcher's Block and picked up some pate with pepper, sheep gouda and coleslaw.

Aspen 2013-3: Element 47, quite quite nice; Plato's, quite quite disappointing after all these years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Element 47 at the Little Nell looks strikingly like its predecessor- Montagna, except it seems chef Ryan Hardy decamped for NYC and there is a new name, menu and approach - for instance Monday is Pink on the Patio for $12 pp (translation:  all you can drink rose wine for $12) and in case you wanted to know what Element 47 is, it's silver of course, the source of Aspen and Leadville's boom (Baby Doe, the Matchless Mine, Tabor and all that).

To my uneducated naturalistic eye, they have filled in the space between the patio/terrace and swimming pool with much higher plants and flowers and made the menu much less precious.  It just seemed right that we go almost vegetrarian; Colette with a salad of various-colored beets, goat cheese and grains; me with various-colored hierloom tomatoes with goat cheese and a dish of carpaccio of gravlox and capers and such - three perfectly resourced, perfectly prepared and perfectly served summer dishes.

With the aforesaid wine and no desserts or coffee, our bill was $86 and change.

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Plato's (Retreat) Restaurant at the Aspen Meadows has been a favorite of ours for years, especially for a meal between stuff at the Music Tent, Paepke and/or Harris Hall and this is the first disappointing meal we've had.  The waiter we had tonight was the best-ever here or in Aspen, the view the best-ever here or in Aspen but the food uninspired.

Colette had the sweet-pea agnolotti with wild mushrooms and I the seafood a la plancha; her pasta was with very old peas (not sweet spring peas) and tasteless muschrooms was bland to an extent I've never seen before - she was pouring on salt and pepper and dipping the pasta into my intense, too intense for me, Balsamico, to no avail.

Our bill with a bottle of Cab and fine rolls and butter but no desserts or coffee, was $85.26.  We were very disappointed with our meal. 

Aspen 2013-1 & 2: Takah Sushi, as good as ever; The Trecento Quindici Decano, disappointing; and bb's Kitchen, charming chow, princely price.

As is our habit, we arrived on a late plane to Aspen, getting us in in just enough time to get over to Takah Sushi, but were surprised to find we could get in easily (a Saturday night at 9) as opposed to waits or sitting on the stools as in prior years.  We wondered....has the recession finally arrived in Aspen, was the crowd thin due to the horrible weather, or was it just an off-year?  Who knows?

In any case we shared some edamame and a very good white wine from Chile.  Colette liked the gaspacho soup and the Viet Namese spring rolls with shrimp (this year they were pre-rolled, unlike last year; she asked for additional mint to enhance the flavor plus additional peanut sauce).  I enjoyed the sashimi assortment; both mains were Gold Standard.

With no desserts or coffees our bill was $99 before tip.

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As Colette and I looked over the eatAspen website's terrific accounting of new places (or chefs) since we were here a year ago, she said, "Let's eat at a new place."  "That sounds nice" says she about The Trecento Quindici Decano, where the St. Regis has installed yet-another chef with yet another schtick, this time Thomas Riordan and David Viviano cooking "traditional Italian dishes."

We started off with the clams al forno on a huge bed of kale - the clams had a strange taste (? truffle oil spray) but the kale a terrific dressing; then Colette had a dish of Trentte pasta with thickly diced pancetta and a very spicy chili sauce (to my taste not hers), but my cavatelli were soggy and doughy and the homemade sausage and greens sauce merely ordinary.

With a bottle of Chianti and no desserts or coffee, our bill was $86.35 before tip.

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bb's Kitchen is another of our favorites from years gone by, with creative cooking and good service.  After their superb bread "bowls" ? boules, with cherry relish, Colette had the salt & pepper shrimp with kimchi, cilantro and Jasmine rice and I the crispy duck and even crispier duck leg with an Okonomiyaki Japanese veggie pancake and crisp cut cabbage.  First rate all.

With a bottle of Cabernet and no desserts of coffees, our bill was $109.30.  Good price-quality?  Humm.  Good quality, bad price.

Art NYC 2013: PS1/10 artists, James Turrell and Reginald Marsh and Co.

At this point in life I don't need another Monet show or Picasso retrospective, I like seeing stuff I've never seen before.

So, Philistine that I am (no hate mail folks, I admit I'm an art dinosaur) I found the show(s) at MOMA's PS 1 to be the Whitney Biennale Redux and the James Turrell at the Guggie to be ho-hum (Colette and our Brooklyn Heights friends, on the other hand, loved it).

But, but, but, the Reginald Marsh and Friends Swing Time show at the New York Historical Society was really interesting - from floozies to bums, from Dames to dummies.

Well worth visiting until September 1st.

New York: M. Wells Dinette at PS1/MOMA in LIC and WD's Alder on 2nd - inventive food - take that Barcelona, Copenhagen and Paris.

Well, Colette and I found ourselves in deepest Queens (NY) at PS 1, MOMA's latest outreach where a young French Canadian (you'll recall my Mom was a Canuck and my Dad one several generations removed).  Our oldest friends, downstair's neighbors for 20 years in the 18th, have been at M. Wells Dinette 8-9 times and said we just had to come.

The chalkboard menu changes each day although our friends had had several items listed before.  We ordered willy-nilly from what seemed to be firsts and mains and desserts and each was better than the last:

-Honeyed beets with citrus

- Spicy, incredibly spicy (for me OK spicy) corn soup

- A tomato tart (pizza-like)

- Oysters on the half-shell with a Bolognese sauce

- Sweetbreads cassoulet with oven-roasted tomato slices

- Veal brains

- Beef tartare with a soft boiled egg on top

- Escola fish with a ratatouille

- and a Peach Cobbler.

With these 10 dishes, all inventive, different than any such I had ever had, and 2 bottles of wine, 4 coffees and superb service (from a staff of 6-8 in a cantine/school-type setting), plus 4 glasses of Sortilege, a Maple Syrup liqueur   (offered, not because of my fame but our hosts' custom) our bill per couple was $99.62 before tip.

Go?  An incredible meal, a few subway stops from Manhattan, I cannot think of a reason why not.

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For dinner (yes Dear Readers, in NY we "do" dinner for various complicated reasons) we went with two other friends, long associated with my "employment" at the website that cannot be named, to Wylie Dufresne's second place after WD-50, Adler on 2nd.

It was another astonishing meal, consisting of:

- Several pumpernickel crostini (yes with trout roe, kale and carrots)

- Lightly-smoked salmon (like Zabars and Russ & D's don't have) with a pine nut granola, tahini yogurt and nectarine that looked all the world like sliced raddish

- Pickled beets with a "ricotta" made from coconut milk and Thai basil

- Baby tomatoes with peekytoe crab, fried nam and edaname (which was the only weak dish in an evening of joy)

- Foie gras on a Ritz Cracker (yes folks) with watermelon sliced on top,

- Slices of beef tongue with yucca, cippolini and chimichurri dashi,

- Fried quail, which I couldn't fully appreciate because I was winding down at this point

- Bass with a salsa verde - ditto

- And four desserts, among which were two ices from his new shredded ice machine (Tootsie Roll and Grapefruit/chamomile), deconstructed cheesecake with huge cherries and Root-beer Pudding), not to mention the side of chopped spiced, marinated veggies.

The only downside was the noise level - we had to yell at one another rather than enjoy a conversation.

So, with all this plus a lot of cocktails consumed by our hosts, a bottle of wine Colette and I had and 2 Sazeracs our bill was $126.30 a couple.

Go?  This is not molecular cooking, this is spectacular cooking.  When some of the mainstream writers in France wake up to what's really going on in NY, this is where they'll come, but by then, of course, it'll be too late.

La RaLLonge in the 18th: Pluses & Minuses.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three of us went back to La RaLLonge in the 18th tonight - I know, I know, I don't eat out at night because of my vampire-phobia, but we have to go back to the US of A for work, meetings and family obligations and I'm not going to clean the kitchen again.  So it was off to the Table d'Eugene's second again.  And again we ordered 2 tapas apiece.

I cannot upload the pix, but in brief, the only exciting dish was/were the tempured langoustines; the quail was pathetic, the croquettes of ham/etc blah, the tartare of salmon so-so, the crab/gaspachco/avocado so what and the fruits in cream dessert not much of a much.

With 1 1/2 bottles of wine, no bottled water, and no coffee or tea, our bill per couple amounted to 60 E a couple.

Pirouette in the 1st: Thank you chef Tomy Gousset, the brothers Frechet and Thomas Chaput.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My great and good friend Randy Diaz, blogger sans frontieres, believes fervently that a restaurant meal is a total experience and I argue with him saying it's all about the food not the welcome, decor, nappery, wine, price, etc.  But our meal at Pirouette today is bending me Randy's way.  We came by and decided to sit outside, spring or summer finally having arrived and the welcome was incredible, the setting divine and the carte offerings all tempting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We ordered up our firsts: our friend the historian turned international finance wizard turned home builder/restorer had the heirloom tomatoes with jelley, anchovies, fromage blanc and edible flowers; Colette the beets with ricotta and yellow lemon accompaniment; and I the girolles with (what ?) apricots and crisped country ham.  But wait.

Suddenly like Victoria's messenger riding (just like in the Threepenny Opera) comes a helping of shaved oxtail, marinated beans and what was described as pickles but seemed to be daikon to me.  "The chef would like you to try this."  Wow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For mains, our friend had the grilled seiche, which was the only thing all meal I found unexciting; Colette had the chicken with cold navets and girolles; and I had the sweetbreads with shaved fennel and confited tomatoes - fab.  But wait......

Victoria's messenger appears at my elbow - "The chef hopes you like the daurade."  And indeed with a perfectly crisped skin, we did indeed.

Finally, Colette being the only one who hadn't pigged herself out on all the ordered and offered dishes, had the rice pudding with beurre sale, a preparation different than what she has had in the past and she liked it even better. 

Our bill with two bottles of wine, no bottled water, nice bread and three coffees was the equivalent of 120 E a couple.  Great total experience Randy, Tomy Gousset, the brothers Frechet and Thomas Chaput.

Ze Kitchen Galerie: Q. (Cedric) "Better than ever?" A. (me) "Yes."

Well, Chef Ledeuil never ceases to surprise.  Today we went with two friends from S.F. who live here part-time and have been wanting to come for years.  Along with the usual bottle of home-brewed water we were served, not the customary olives, but watermelon and ham along with our coupes (offered). While one of us questioned its complimentarity, if there is such a word, I liked it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After our usual long indecisionary perusal of the carte about what dishes sounded most interesting and innovative we ordered: Colette - the mussels with vegetables, herbs and a Thai tomatoe sauce;  one friend had the linguine with a delightful spicy sauce and two of us enjoyed the zucchini flowers stuffed with crusaceans, aioli and ginger.  At some point one of our dining partners said "Terrifically spicy, but not too spicy, just like I like it."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For mains we had the rascasse, salmon trout and quail dishes, all of course in interesting sauces that required much sharing.

For desserts there were two portions of cherries and rhubarb and 4 of a coconut/vanilla milk and fruits (offered).

With 2 bottles of Costieres de Nimes, good bread and 2 coffees our bill amounted to 108.40 E a couple.

as we were getting up to leave Cedric inquired:  "Better than ever?"  My response "Yes."

Manger in the 11th: What a difference a month makes.

When I ate here with my two food-friends whom we've been coming to Paris with since 1968 all three of us thought that meal was outstanding.  Not today with two other food-wise friends and ironically when looking at my prior review I realized many of the dishes had the same names but were totally different.  What's happened?  Stay tuned.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The three others a table ordered the heirloom tomatoes with chevre and were very disappointed ("bland, nothing special, so"), Colette also had a white gaspacho made with almond milk that had never seen the Spanish border and i had the only winner, a tartare of maigre with a soy-ginger sauce that was quite good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For mains, we had a cloyingly sweet cod supposedly with red curry, that other than the sweetness, was a big nada, and two of us had the featured special of the day, a BBQ's lacquered duck whose skin was crisp as it should be but so overly basted with soy that its salty content is impelling me to drink water 3 hours after.  The saving grace was a bowl of what I would call shrimp fried rice but my Philippine friend said was what any Filipino grandmother (and he) could cook blindfolded.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For dessert we sort of shared a plate a cheese which wasn't bad, a clafoutis of cherries  and a tarte of seasonal fruits both of which were nothing to write home about.

With 1 1/2 bottles of a slightly chilled red Loire, one Coca, good bread and three coffees our bill amounted to 88.25 E a couple.

Go?  sorry but I'm changing my rec of last month.  The wait between firsts and mains was insupportable, the changes in dishes I loved before (maigre & cod) but the chef had tweaked in a negative direction and the general lack of curiousity about our liking of the food, prompts me to say a loud "No."