John Talbott's Paris

Chez Minna in the 10th: Unpretentious, unexpected & under-rated.

7.0 Chez Minna, 20, rue d'Hauteville in the 10th, 01.71.37.97.04, closed Sundays (Metro: Chateau d'Eau) has been open a month and already is chock-a-block packed with young folks working nearby.  It offers superb Corsican cuisine and has a menu incomprehensible to those without a Corsican-French-English dictionary or a keen ear, for example, the veloute of prataoili is a mushroom of Paris soup, the vitellu avec une crème onctueuse de thon, vitello tonnato, etc.

I ordered up some superb Corsican wine and took one look at the plate of awesome slices of said veal and gasped but we shared it - the veal was melt in your mouth and with the tuna sauce and extra-supreme bread, made the best roast beef sandwich I've ever had.

 

For mains, the youngest daughter of an old, old fried from residency, studying theater in Paris, LI and LA, had a mammoth piece of beef with a great puree and terrific wine sauce and I struggled through two really good pieces of lotte with black squid ink rice with squid slices.

My guest ordered up the café gourmand (here called gustosu) and I had the chocolate half-ball (baballe, but no one would throw it to a dog) full of clementines and strawberry (on Nov 30?).

With no bottled water, one bottle of wine and another coffee, our bill was 88.50 E.  dB's = 82.2.

Go?  This is a find, as yet known only to the locals - thus go while you can.  Great Corsican food is hard to find.  This is the real deal.

 

Reviews of reviews: the Week of November 23rd, 2015

Monday-Tuesday, in A Nous Paris, Philippe Toinard gave a rare 4/5 dots to the previously mentioned 41 Pasteur in the 15th.

Tuesday in Le Fooding, they reviewed Bones & Bottles in Lyon.

Wednesday, in Figaroscope, Emmanuel Rubin reviewed his usual 5 places giving three hearts to the 4th in the Cantine du Troquet franchise – this the Cantine du Troquet du Cherche-Midi, 79, rue du Cherche-Midi in the 6th, 01.43.27.70.06, closed Saturday lunch and Sundays, 01.43.27.70.06 where for 25-45 E one can have such dishes as cabbage stuffed with pigs’ feet, sausage parmentier and a tarte tatin.  He also gave out 2 3-heart ratings to: Chez Minna, 20, rue d’Hauteville in the 10th, 01.71.37.97.04, closed Sundays, where for 35-45 E one can get boar pate, farm pig chop and safran macaroon; the previously mentioned La Meduse in the 10th, the Top Chef’d Café Pelican, 61, rue d’Hauteville in the 10th, 01.47.70.07.08, closed Saturday lunch and Sundays, where for lunch there are menus for 14-20 and 30 E a la carte for tapas (4.50-13 E), duck hearts and trout; and the Greek Evi Evane Mezes, 66, rur Mazarine in the 6th, no telephone.

And in his Hache Menu, Rubin wrote up La Belisaire for a lievre a la Royale.

The Dossier this week by Alice Bosio, Colette Monsat and Hugo de Saint Phalle was about the best delivery-food and rank ordered them: Tok Tok  Tok, Foodora, Deliveroo, Takeateasy, Toqueville, All Resto, Pages Jaunes Resto, Resto In.

Another Dossier by Anne-Charlotte De Langhe, Marie-Sarah Bouleau, Mathilde Visseyrias Colette Monsat & Alice Bosio gave a listing of the new seafood restaurants including: L'Amarré, Étoile-sur-mer, Le comptoir iodé, Salt, La Méduse, La Marée Jeanne, Juste, L'Huîtrerie in the 15th, and in 2016 Happy Oysters and Bistro Urbain.

Saturday, in Le Figaro, Stephane Durand-Souffland wrote an article on Le Clarence in the 8th, where Christophe Pele, ex-Bigarrade now serves menus at 90 E for lunch and 190-320 E for dinner.

And Sunday, Aurelie Chaigneau in the jdd raved (7.5/10) about the previously mentioned Uptown in the 18th; notified us that La Regalade St Honore (7.5)  has expanded and moved across the street from 123 to 106 and is now open 7/7; and returned to Roca (8).

La Meduse in the 10th: "John, why do these French critics all agree with each other and over-praise the same places?"

4.5 La Meduse, 177 quai de Valmy in the 10th, no telephone but they respond to reservation request emails very quickly, (Metro: Louis Blanc) open 7/7 sounded really nifty when Le Fooding and Figaro wrote it up and my Franco-Romanian/Romanian-French friends agreed that the write-ups made it sound right up our alley: music by Brubeck & Simone, food by O Divin & Mary Celeste and service "gentiment hipsterique" (NB Julot). 

The place is so cool it only has one red and one white wine, each 28 E; we chose the Loire and two of us had 6 oysters apiece.  Now it's difficult to screw up raw oysters but they managed to by adding harissa to the shallot/vinegar, aka mignonette, sauce, thus ruining the power of the bivalves - once scraped off, they were fine though.  Our other friend had the sautéed encornet stuffed with a taboule of  chopped-to-infinity cauliflower and almonds with a caper-lemon sauce that was "so what."  At this point, my one pal, who had just survived a week of Brit-food started to get grumpy.

So he thought, as did we all, his magret de canard would right his dingy, but it, coming with a "tarama" of beets, radicchio and raspberry-pepper sauce only increased his colere and our sautéed St-Jacques, sliced in half with heliantis (again), nuts and passion fruit were weird and made no sense as a dish.  At this point, he began a diatribe about French food critics all being sheep and how one could only trust the British press and so forth.  Well he had a point.

We skipped dessert and as usual picked up the bill for past favors - but I added up the items and with two bottles of wine and no bottled water but OK bread and terrific butter and coffee, it should have come to 141 E for three or 64 E.

Go?  Did you really read this?  Heavens no despite the noise level of 86.4, great location, good ingredients and hipsterish service and clientele.

Fulgurances L’Adresse in the 11th: Wow, what innovative cooking.

7.3 Fulgurances L’Adresse, 10, rue Alexandre Dumas in the 11th, 09.81.09.33.32, closed Sundays and Mondays (Metro:  Rue des Boulets) is the brainchild who run the culinary magazine of the same name who are bringing in new French chefs every 6 months - the first Chloé Charles, ex-Septime, ex-Agapé Substance, ex-L'Epi Dupin, & ex- L'Astrance.  The menu is challenging, broad and most interesting.

 

The first amuse bouches were made from leftovers of yesterday: a silky smooth soup of mushrooms with a sprinkling of magic herb and fried leaves of veggies that would have been thrown out.  Then my friend had the cuttlefish thinly sliced with an egg, sliced leeks and anchovies while I had the smoked steamed eel with broccoli, clementines & buckwheat - both inventive, filling and oh so healthy.

 
 

The third amuse bouche was a squid and other things concoction; then Madame had the beef with parsley, héliantis and layers of sweet onions and moelle and I the daurade (line-caught) with grilled cauliflower, grapefruit, watercress and seaweed.  Again, quite delicious and terrifically innovative.

Before dessert of course came a pre-dessert of zucchini and egg whites; then apples with Chantilly & coriander and poached pears with sesame and chocolate cream.

 

With no bottled water, a nice bottle and glass of wine and a super-excellent cookie with our coffee, our bill was 124 E.  Now we had the 44 E meal served dinners and Saturday lunch - weekdays its only 22 E - with an acceptable sound level of 82.4 dB.  And everyone (save 1) in the cuisine and salle was female.

 

Paris Pix: Geometric patterns

Reviews of reviews: the Week of November 16th, 2015

Monday-Tuesday, in A Nous Paris, Philippe Toinard noted that the Bistro Volnay, three dots, same coordinates, has passed hands after 7 years from Magali & Delphine to Philippe Marques ex-Senderens, who is a wine expert but also serves for 34 & 38 E lunch and 65 E dinner, dishes such as pied de cochon & ris de veau and Saint-Nectaire;  and Jerome Berger awarded 3 dots to the previously mentioned L'Amarre in the 11th.

Tuesday in Le Fooding, Tina Meyer reviewed Uptown, 18, rue Francoeur in the 18th, closed Mondays, Brunch Sundays, 01.84.05.62.79,  where an ex-Agape chef serves items such as Black Angus steak, cabbage and exotic desserts for 36-50 E. Paris

Wednesday, in Figaroscope, Emmanuel Rubin reviewed his usual 5 places giving three hearts to the previously reviewed La Table du 11 in Versailles and 2 hearts to the previously mentioned AG Les Halles in the 1st and the Singaporean Warung Makan in the 9th.  One heart each went to the vegetarian Le Veganovore, 55 rue de Paradis in the 9th, 0148.24.90.06, closed Sundays where 10-15 E gets you soup, rice and a lemon cream as well as La Tarte, 5, rue de Damiette in the 2nd, 09.73.53.37.82, open til 6:30 PM but closed Saturdays and Sunday at dinner – cost – 10-15 E for various tarts, pear-goat cheese, Lorraine, and chocolate.

And in his Hache Menu, Rubin wrote up La Coupole for old times sake.

The Dossier this week by Alice Bosio, Colette Monsat and Hugo de Saint Phalle was about the new breakfast places in town and included: Season, Capucine, Hotel Bachaumont, Gros, Caffe Stern, Coffee Club, La Maison Plisson, La Bourse et La Vie

Also Wednesday Heidi Ellison’s Paris Update liked Le Mazenay, 46, rue de Montmorency in the 3rd, 06.42.83.79.52, closed Saturday lunch, Sundays and Mondays, where for about 40 E she enjoyed great service and good food – escargots, oysters, partridge/sweetbreads/liver parmentier and chocolate tart.

Thursday, in L’Express, Charles Patin O'Coohoon wrote up the previously mentioned 41 Pasteur, Francois-Regis Gaudry the Thai Mr K in the 2nd and Mina Soundiram wrote up the previously mentioned Bistrot Montcalm in the 18th.

Paris Pix: Lest we forget.

Paris Pix: The good old days.

Paris Pix: Infrarouge

Paris Pix: Passion in Paris