John Talbott's Paris

Les Premices in the 9th: One of the most splendid silky meals of our lives.

Les Premices in the 9th is a place we've found to provide some of the most consistently sumptuous food that can be found on the planet.  We invited a couple, one of whom has written more cookbooks than there are Right Bank arrondissements, to join us before I had to return to the E-U for my musclo-skeletal issues.  We all independently had taken a look at the 36 euro 3-course "menu" of the day and decided that it was a winner; but of course we started off with a fine Bordeaux and an amuse of micro'd herbs and veggies that set the stage.

So,  a series of surprising dishes appeared:
- a velvety pureed soup of mushrooms and duck foie gras  (AMAZING!)
- melt-in-the-mouth slices of milk-fed leg of lamb (outstanding product!)  with its own sauce . The vegetable, which none of us were familiar with was a root of chervil - never had it before, it was very good!
- a wonderful,  creamy slice of Brie de Meaux with a truffle center, and
- two small  King's cakes with almond ice cream.

Our bill, with 2 bottled waters, 2 Bordeaux, fine bread, 3 coffees and one tea - was 256.50 E or 128.25 E a couple.

Review of Reviews: The week of January 4th, 2016

Monday-Tuesday, in A Nous Paris, the crew reviewed three places already mentioned and tested here: L’Escargot 1903 in Puteaux, La Meduse in the 10th and La Table de Cybele in Boulogne-Billancourt.

Tuesday in Le Fooding, Adrien Simon reviewed the Restaurant Palégrié, Hôtel du Golf, Les Ritons in Corrençon-en-Vercors.

Wednesday, in Figaroscope, there was an article on what cultural events we can look forward to, mentioning Daniel Rose’s third restaurant in Paris – Chez la Vielle; Julien Foulin and Ludovic Dardenay will open a garden extension of GrandCoeur and a cave a manger/table d’hote in Bonvivant; the opening of the Ritz Club; a new trattoria La Trattoria da Roco, a brasserie in Versailles and restaurant in Les Halles by Alain Ducasse and a rooftop lunch place at Mama Shelter.  (A number of other publications and sites mentioned these and other openings.)

Alice Bosio and Colette Monsat judged the best chouquettes in Paris, deeming La Patisserie Cyril Lignac’s the top.

Emmanuel Rubin reviewed his usual 5 places giving two hearts to four places: The Hotel Le Grand Amour, 18 rue de la Fidelities in the 10th, 01.44.16.03.30, open 7/7 (brunch weekends) where there is an 18 E formula at lunch and it’s 30-40 E a la carte for items such as pate en croute, veal cutlet and profiteroles; Strogoff, 37 blvd Bonne Nouvelle in the 2nd, 01.77.13.47.99, closed Sundays, with a 19.50 E lunch formula (a la carte 30-40 E) for items such as Palta tartare, duck; Du Coq a l’Ane, 28, rue Croix-des-Petits-Champs in the 1st, 01.42.36.74.10, closed Saturday lunch and Sundays, serving dishes such as marinated salmon, sausage and a fondant of chocolate for about 30 Euros; and an off-shoot burger joint of Le Ruisseau, called Le Ruisseau Burger Joint, 22, rue Rambuteau in the 3rd, 01.43.70.02.21, open Tuesdays-Fridays at lunch and weekends all day.  A single heart went to the sino-viet-nippone  Les Convives in the 1st.

He also reviewed the long-awaited Café de l’Homme (in the museum of the same name at the Trocadero), costing a head-snapping 80-90 E.  “Go?” He asks.  “Later” it sounds like for the view alone.

And Wednesday as well, in Paris Update, Heidi Ellison reviewed the Café Pelican, coordinates given before.

And Sunday, Aurelie Chaigneau in the jdd rated the already mentioned Freddy’s (6.5/10), Biondi (8) and Il Brigante (7).

Restaurant AG in the 6th: Even without Alan at the helm, AG sails on.

The Restaurant AG, named for its owner-chef Alan Geaam, in the 6th opposite the Marche St Germain, has been a fine destination of ours over the past few years and seemed the perfect place to host a friend of ours who lives straight north of it.  While Chef Geaam is off settling his AG Les Halles, his team back home is carrying on quite well; despite the reputed drop in foreigners to Paris since the attacks, the place was humming today. 

The amuse-bouches of cheese balls atop a salmon mousse + fluff - they were perfect, served as they were with my favorite Bordeaux, recalled better by our friendly wait-guy than I.  As a first our friend had the carpaccio of cod with coques, leeks, pickles and aioli which was a wonderful presentation of contrasting flavors.  I forget the décor - seen above left - it's calming and again- perfect for the time and place.

For her main, Colette went back to the ardoise and had their special entrée - tuna snackee, beets, red cabbage and black sesame; while our friend and I had the cotes of veal with its reduced sauce, sliced Chioggia beets, lettuce puree and what I originally thought were pig's feet but alas, were only pied de mouton mushrooms (quite tasty indeed) - but this would be my only quibble of the day - the veal was simply not under-cooked enough, even though they tried by giving me a double cut.

Colette then had a fabulous dessert of roasted pineapple, coriander and mandarine sorbet which she generously shared with us.

Our bill, with two bottles of wine, no bottled water, "so-good" bread at butter and three coffees, was 134 E or 89 E a couple.

 

Les Affranchis in the 9th: A very good "second choice" for a Sunday lunch.

Les Affranchis in the 9th is a place that, as I noted last April, was one of a series of successful restaurants at this address. that I couldn't figure out why the need to change chefs.  Today, we were scheduled to go to a place neat the Place de La Republique, and at the last minute I realized no matter how we went we'd be stuck in the Hollande/Hollyday/Honorifics crowd memorializing Charlie Hebdo.  So it was back to the drawing board and our friends from the 9th cleverly reached into their GPS pocket and came up with it.  The décor is charming and we sat, admiring it while awaiting our friends.

After staring at the menu for a while, we decided to have some wine and ordered up a nice bottle of Languedoc Red.  Our friends arrived and they shared firsts of a bar ceviche and Jerusalem artichoke soup before heading to the mains.

Among the four of us we shared two portions of lieu jaune with butternut squash and turbot (overcooked but not in a way that was offensive because the exterior was nicely crusted) with celeriac.

We finished with an apple cheesecake and chestnut ice cream.

Our bill with 3 coffees was 214 E or 107 E a couple.

 

 

Bouillon the Restaurant in the 9th: Winter's coming, warm soup's good, ummm.

Bouillon in the 9th seemed like the perfect spot to warm up on a cold day - warm welcome, warm soups, warm friends, what could be better?

Our friends both ordered the eggs with black truffles and I had their first bouillon with duck foie gras, celery-coriander and smoked vinegar; with it we had a pleasant St Pourcain.

With our mains we switched to a pleasant white wine.   Colette was aiming for another great scallop dish and this one did not disappoint;  one friend went for more truffles, these with pasta and the other chose the scallop dish. 

Our friends shared a chocolate tarte, which was fine, but Colette chose the deconstructed lemon and meringue and I the French toast with a banana "chip", both of which overstripped their concept.

Our bill, with no bottled water but 4 coffees, was 221 E or 110.50 E a couple.

Coretta in the 17th: Crispy, crunchy, contemporary cuisine.

Coretta in the 17th is a beautifully sited place but given a temporary musco-skeletal challenge (preventing me from climbing the steep staircase with goofy hand-rails) we decided to sit downstairs where the front door was not able to be closed, leading to a brisk breeze until the ovens heated up in the open-kitchen area where over 8 staff-members were cooking-plating-scurrying around behind the comptoir, a view every bit as exciting as the view over the MLK Jr. Garden from the 2nd floor.

Our friend and I started with carpaccio of raie wrapped in micrcotomed slices of Japanese radishes which everything one could want in a starter - crisp vegetables and fresh fish.

For mains, Colette had beautifully cooked scallops with tasty mushrooms, but she was not delighted by the squid ink addition,.  Our friend and I had crunchy sweetbreads with parsnips (which the chef graciously substituted for butternut squash which neither my friend nor I craved). 

Colette, having noticed that the daily menu had one of her all time favorite desserts, a floating island, and it was both unusual and very good.

Our bill, with fine bread and butter, two bottles of wine. no bottled water, but 2 coffees, was 184 E for three, or 122.66 E a couple.

 

Louis in the 9th: "This is the best meal this year.....ah....in two years."

Louis in the 9th has provided some of the most exciting and innovative food of 2015 and it looks like 2016 will be a banner year too. One of us chose the large menu (6 dishes) and two of us had the menu with 3 dishes.    As usual the amuse bouches were full of mouth-tingling spices and elegant textures.   Colette's first, a cromesqui-like surrounding to a modernized escargot in parsley and butter was delicious.

Then in a flurry of a magician's art appeared a vacuum-duo with cilantro and ginger on the top and broth underneath, resulting in a mouth-burst of flavor, an oval of foie gras and sea urchins with soft boiled eggs.

Then Colette had the good-as-it-gets cod with a heavenly fluff, the other two of us the tender-as-can-be veal and Colette (who had ordered the 6 course "Louis 6 temps" menu had silky chicken - both came with ideally cooked vegetables.

The pre-dessert and desserts were a lemon mousse with green tea sorbet, roasted pear with sliced pear and ice cream and a sorbet with exotic fruits (kiwi, pineapple, mango, etc.)

We finished up, or at least I did, with coffee, mignardises and a soft calvados (offered).

Our bill, with all that and fine bread and one bottled water was 164 E or 109.60 E a couple.

La Bourse et La Vie in the 2nd: Figaro finally fingers Daniel Rose first (well just after Charlotte Rampling).

La Bourse et La Vie in the 2nd, is by now, on the food routes of many visitors to our fair city and with this morning's Figaroscope's listing of Daniel Rose's soon-to-open third kitchen, Chez La Vielle, situated across the alley from Spring, they recognize "l'Americain's" opening as the second significant cultural event of 2016 to look forward to. 

But I'm getting ahead of myself, because we went to La Bourse et La Vie.  All three of us decided to skip the firsts and went straight for the cod with cabbage, an entrecote/frites and fried quail; all cooked with Daniel's "neo-classique" vision and Marie-Aude's expert sourcing and exquisite care.

Desserts we shared were a lemon sorbet with olive oil, thyme and chocolate and the tart of today - a tarte Tatin.  a wonderful meal we all enjoyed!

Our bill, with no bottled water but two bottles of wine and three coffees (offered), was 130 E for three, thus 86.66 E a couple.

 

Les Marches in the 16th: Old boy, old school, but oh boy!

Les Marches, 5, rue la la Manutention in the 16th, 01.47.23.52.80, open 7/7 (Metro: Alma), is that place you've looked at a thousand times when peering down Paris' second longest stairway besides the Palais de Tokyo.  It used to be called Les Marches du Palais but for several weeks has been under new management although they kept the former place's truck-stop menu and décor. for instance, chalk-numbering the tables.

Four of us entered almost simultaneously and were greeted warmly by a staff which is definitely not old.  For firsts, as befitting a seasoned bistro, we ordered a green salad with tomatoes, lentils and a frisee salad with its traditional lardons and egg.

Then off to the mains: tournedos, an entrecote/frites, cod and a paleron of veal - all nicely sourced and cooked, even down to the noodles with my paleron.

To finish off, Colette had and shared a lack luster Ile flottante.  And, of course we had some wine to wash all of these hearty dishes down.

Go? Yes, indeed, if you're near the Palais de Tokyo/Trocadero/etc., and/or crave a meat and potatoes truckers' type food.

Les Fables de la Fontaine in the 7th: Something fishy going on here.

Les Fables de la Fontaine in the 7th with its new Armenian chefesse has certainly hit Paris' food scene with brio; today it was packed nigh to the gills.

We went with two of our well-published friends and together had a risotto special with black truffles, a crusted egg yolk with crusty leeks and haddock and oysters chilled in a cucumber jelly and lemon caviar with Granny Smith slivers.  All three presentations were stunning.

 

Then the Professor had the oysters, his cook-book writing wife the risotto and Colette and I had the sea bass with mussels and coques.

For dessert we shared a pannacotta with speculos, coffee sorbet and Chantilly and a sable with lemon sorbet and lemon cream.  Again the presentations were an eyeful of joyous food.

Our bill, with good bread and butter, 1 liter of very good St Bris, 3 coffees and one tea, was 230 E or 115 E a couple.