John Talbott's Paris

En Vrac in the 18th: Stop reading, you'll never go despite the great wine & food.

6.4 En Vrac, 2, rue l'Olive (crnr Rue Riquet) in the 18th, 01.53.26.03.94, open 7/7, has been open 2 Metro stops from me for 2 years and i keep meaning to go, but.....  Well, today, I need to install a new computer, get Freebox wifi and ethernet connected and reinstall software for my printer so I whined, until my friend the Silicon Valley computer whiz refugee gave in (maybe the promise of free grub did the trick).  He had a Thanksgiving feast at 15h00, so I said "Hey come at 11, get it installed in twenty minutes and then waste an hour at this wine bar nearby 'til you have to go to get your stuffing stuffed.

I arrived about 11h55, walked right by En Vrac, a bit understated eh?  An oyster-boy outside, located in a formerly crummy/crumby nabe that is becoming boboized, and after breathing in a paper bag, calmed down realizing that indeed  this "was the place."  It's kinda cool, 10 aluminum vats of wines from everywhere from the Loire to Alsace and racks of bottles.  The comptoir is replete with pots of soup and potatoes cooking away, cheeses and desserts galore.  Ahhhright!

 The menu consists of said soup of the days, on weekdays a plat du jour and both stuff out of cans (sardines) and cooked (pig's feet).  While we debated we had a glass of Beaujolais Nouveau (3 E, right), not much of a much ("horrible" my computer genius pal said his friends said) and a bottle of Costieres de Nimes (7.60 E + 6 E corkage).

The food: my friend had the smoked herring with said potatoes and rocket; I had the giant pig's foot with similar accompaniments; and we both shared a portion of St Nectaire and a "Savoie camembert-type cheese."  Delicious all.  Especially with the crusty bread I'm sure comes from one of the Best Bakers of the last Five Years who sell their wares a block aqway.

The bill, with no bottled water, but a bottle and a glass of wine and one coffee, was 43.60 E. 

Go?  Me, but not you desoite the fact that M. Thierry Poincin (ex-L'Estaminet) has a winner on his hands; the wine, the buzz and the boboisity is contagious and the dB level (85.3) manageable and best of all there are no "pesky Yankees" - "Metro Marx Dormoy, where on earth is that?"

Paris Pix: This must be the right place!

Paris Pix: Are we there yet Dorothy?

Paris Pix: The Madeleine in full fall splendor.

Eating in France as a resident versus a visitor.

Recent threads on Chowhound prompted me to think about this issue.  Some suggest that visitors often plan on eating three meals a day, prompting residents to question the practice.

A bit of history.   I’ve been eating in France in three different modes:

- As a 1-4 times a year visitor

- As a 80% resident

- As a 365 day a year resident.

And there’s a big difference. 

When my wife and I came 1-4 times a year, we ate breakfast, lunch and dinner, sometimes at starred restaurants for all three meals.   And just French food.  Food that comes highly recommended by friends or guidebooks. We also ran from town to town (in France), museum to museum, and sight to sight.

However, during our 365 day a year stays, the pace was the opposite, we ate out only at lunch (having breakfast and dinner at home) and, after a few months, got a hankering for other than French food – Thai, Chinese, Viet namese, Sushi, pizza.  We ate at both old favorites and new places.  And now we took middle-of-the-week trips out of town all over France as well as to surrounding countries.  And we rarely ran from thing to thing.

The 80% mode was, as one might expect, a compromise between the two.  When in France, eat French because next week or month it’ll be Italian in New York or Italy, Middle Eastern in DC or Spanish in Spain.   And eat almost all the time at new places, saving the golden oldies for my wife and special friends.   And the pace remains relaxed, if you don’t see the Braque show this month, it’s still going to be there in December.

So on reading titles of new threads that say – A weekend, 3 days, a week, a month in Paris, Bordeaux, Burgundy and so forth I temper my reaction to my historical experience and try to empathize with the need to cram everything in, go to only the best of the best or best price-quality and live it up.

Reviews of reviews: The week of November 18th, 2013.

Monday-Tuesday, Philippe Toinard in A Nous Paris, reviewed and gave 3/5 dots to Le Café des Abattoirs, the newest venture by Rostang and daughters, 10, rue Gomboust in the 11th, 01.76.21.77.60, open 7/7, serving herring maki and cauliflower soup but largely meat such as beef, kebabs and chicken on 32, 38 and 45 E menus; while his colleague Jerome Berger awarded 3/5 dots to the tapas/etc. BAT, coordinates given previously.

Tuesday, in Le Fooding, Yves Nespoulous reviewed the restaurant Clamato, 80, rue de Charonne in the 11th, a new seafood bistrot by the Septime gang, 01.43.72.74.53, open evenings from Wednesday through Sunday, costing 16-35 E for items such as Utah Beach oysters, saumon à l’unilatérale and Saint-Pierre au beurre d’agrume

In Wednesday’s Figaroscope, Emmanual Rubin awarded 2 hearts to 3 places, the previously mentioned Café des Abattoirs (see above) in the 11th; the vast cantine B.O., 20, rue Ampere a La Plaine-St-Denis (93) sitting besides Luc Besson’s Cinecitta 9-3, open til 7 PM (midnight Wednesdays and Thursdays) on weekdays, serving chicken two ways and panna cotta for 40-60 E; and the fancy cocktail/counter-food Artisan, 14, rue Bochart-de Saron in the 9th, 01.48.74.65.38, open evenings except Mondays, serving leek tempura, braised endives, ham and brandade.  Also tested were the 1 heart Bar a Burger in the 10th and newest New Jawad in the 16th. 

The Dossier this week by, Alice Bosio, Hugo de Saint-Phalle  and Colette Monsat dealt with places near Pigalle where one can satisfy one’s hunger at:

Buvette

Ito

La Cantine de la Cigalle

Le Depanneur Pigalle

Artisan

L’Atelier Saint-Georges

Pigalle

And also Prive de dessert, Pain Quotidien, Les Rillettes

 

In addition, Alice Bosio gave five places in which to celebrate the Beaujolais Nouveau:

La Buvette de Camille

Les Roquins

En Vrac

La Brocante

Le Barav

And Francois Simon devoted his Hache Menu to the mini-glass place – Nano where he says to go.

Thursday, in L’Express, Francois-Regis Gaudry wrote up Caillebotte, coordinates given before.

Paris Pix: Rue Deguerry in the 11th

Paris Pix: Graffito

Paris Pix: Some pumpkin, eh?

France seized by the American Food Craze.

I’ve been coming to France from the United States for over 50 years.

In the beginning the food/cuisine here, pre-Julia Childs, was seen by me as exotic; things as silly as La Vache Qui Rit and canned foie gras, were astonishing revelations to a boy raised on boeuf bourgignon and coq au vin as haute gamme.

But the day and week this was written I saw pop-corn, burgers (and a huge line outside Blend), hot-dogs, bagels from a truck, American sweet-corn, pumpkin. 

And we’ve been bombarded by marshmallows, catsup and everything that the great French food critics made fun of 20 years ago.

So a bit of backstory: Remember when the French Language Police barred words like weekend and the internet and OK?  I do.

Now the American pollution, however, has crept into the food world. 

And I say “Yuck.”