John Talbott's Paris

Premices in the 9th: As elegant and interesting food at reasonable prices as one can find in town.

Premices is a place we've been coming to for 2.5 years; a while back I said "Within seconds after arriving, the amiable chef, Alexandre Weill, an HEC grad (equivalent to Harvard/Stanford Business School) who also graduated more importantly from the Ecole Ferrandi, the Restaurant du Marché, Ambroisie, Apicius, Bigarrade, the Ritz and Troisgros was at our table chatting us up in perfect English and explaining the dishes of the day."  Well, he was at the door on this terrible rainy day and once more explained what we had in store.  Both Colette and I were captivated by the "menu" and for good reasons.

The first was one of the most luscious lobster bisques ever, off set by chilled ginger cream; the a poitrine of veal, fallingoff the knive and fork, with its own sauce, girolles and celeriac puree; and finally an assortment of sorbets and ice cream: pistachio, praline, wasabi, lemon grass and mango, each more interesting than the last.

 

Our bill with two amuses and 3 mignardises, plus a bottle of Bordeaux and 2 coffees, excellent bread but no bottled water, was 115 E.

At the end of the meal we were admiring the wonderful painting of a female matador and just as the chef was writing out the gallery in the place des Vosges exhibiting more, our Le Cab appeared.  So we'll have to return soon.

Papillon in the 17th: "This isn't your first time here, Sir, is it?" "Nope, third."

Papillon in the 17th has quickly earned a place in my heart with its friendly staff, inventive cooking of an ever-changing menu and reasonable prices.  Colette and I entered a few seconds before our friend and saw for the first time a private room in the back for 13 with an intriguing sculpture of a boy who reminded me to the puppet in the Met's Butterfly.  But onto the food:

Our friend ordered smoked salmon, radishes and New Zealand aka summer spinach while I had the menu's line-caught mulet with seaweed and wasabi - terrific both.

For mains, our friend had the pig raised on a farm near Utah Beach, Colette chose the St Pierre with spinach and red onions and I had the menu offering - lacquered short ribs of pork with beans onion and arroche (mountain spinach).  Again all were superb, as we've come to expect.

For dessert I shared my excellent mixture of warm parcooked pineapple with chilled banana slices and sorel leaves with the table and we hall had their signature madeleines.

Our bill with 2 bottles of wine, no bottled water, terrific bread and 3 coffees was 175 E for three, thus 116.66 E a couple.

Reviews of reviews – The week of May 23rd, 2016

Monday, in A Nous Paris, Jerome Berger gave 3/5 dots to the previously mentioned Le Petit Keller.

Tuesday in Le Fooding, Miss Marple, Virtus and La Louve were reviewed.

Wednesday, in Figaroscope, Emmanuel Rubin joined Alice Bosio, Colette Monsat and Hugo de Saint Phalle in listing restaurants with terraces:
Hughette
Le Café de l’Homme
Le Moulin de la Galette
AG Les Halles
Anicia
Hotel Grand Amour
Monsieur Belleville
Restaurant T
Matsuhisa
Le Balcon
Les Terrasses de la Reserve-Hotel Gabriel
Meriggio
Clasico Argentino Panoramas
Maison Becquey
La Louve
Popine
Le Compere
Champeaux
Hotel Providence
La Fontaine de Belleville
And soon:
Le Rooftop du Mama Shelter
L’Orangerie
Lazare
Passerini
La Table d’Hugo Desnoyer
Le Flow
Loulou

Also Wednesday, Heidi Ellison in Paris Update reviewed the previously mentioned Za in Les Halles.

Thursday in L’Express Francois-Regis Gaudry reviewed the previously mentioned and reviewed Champeaux in Les Halles.

Sunday, in the jdd, Aurelie Chaigneau reviewed and gave 7.5/10 to the previously mentioned juice-oriented L’Essentiel in the 14th; discovered (6) the previously mentioned La Louve in the 9th; and returned to the Vietnamese Palaquin (7) in the 17th.

Champeaux under the Canopee in Les Halles in the 1st: Not bad, not bad at all = pas mal de tout!

Champeaux under the Canopee in Les Halles in the 1st is a brasserie open 7/7 and thus one of the rare good places open for Sunday lunch; thus we found ourselves there again and luckily the clinking/clunking railway-type announcement board was devoted to a Mother's Day message rather than the specials of the day, etc.  We three spent some time deciding on what we'd have, distracted by the allure of the soufflés.

We started off with the rather ordinary amuse-bouches; Colette then had the haricots verts a la parisienne ( a crème citronnée on the beans and covered with lots of shaved mushrooms of Paris on top; our friend had the warm, warm as in cooked, vegetable salad with tender basil; and I had the escargots with sorrel and horseradish, mushrooms and crispy rye.

Our friend had the Vol-Au-vent weekend special; Colette continued to soldier on with her mound of beans; and I ventured forth with a tartare of beef called "bien assaisonne" which I think was made pepper-spicy for Yankees rather than mild for the French - it came with rather good frites and a nice green salad.

For desserts the ladies had a soufflé with Cointreau and lovely orange slices and caramel beurre sale with pistachio ice cream.

With a bottle and glass of wine, no bottled water, good bread and 3 coffees, our bill was 151 E, thus 100.66 E a couple.

La Table d'Eugene Sue in the 18th: Nicer than a nice neighborhood place.

La Table d'Eugene Sue is a place that has achieved some acclaim in/on the blogosphere but to us here it is just that neighborhood joint that happens to have 1 Michelin star, which most of us in the area shrug off as outside interference (some of us think that the Republic of Montmartre still exists). 

For firsts we traded bites of a crusted egg with girolles, green asparagus and wild asparagus and lobster sauce as well as two ample filets of rougets, perfectly cooked with avocado and lemon sauce.

We also split the mains: lieu jaune with petit pois, mousserons and a crustacean sauce as well as fabulous and perfectly cooked veal pieces with white asparagus, gourmande and cesar sauce with tarragon and bacon.

Boringly perhaps we ordered two desserts: the grapefruit, bergamote, cardamom and alunga chocolate as well as the sorbet of Granny Smith apples with goat cheese/briocciu, lemon and coriander.

With two bottles of Beaujolais Villages, no bottled water, nice rolls a 3 coffees, our bill was 230 E for 4 or 115E a couple.

I don't know how or why but I do know where there's an alarm clock in the middle of the WC mirror - bizarre!

 

Mensae in the 19th: Well worth the journey to a place where "the octopus is so tender" and the desserts worthy of "another one."

Mensae in the 19th always reminds me of the mensas I went to as a backpacking student in Italy in the 1950's that offered you a first, pasta, main, fruit, dessert and wine for some ridiculous price; while the Latin root might be the same, the difference between those places and this is more than two generations of progress.  We went with another couple enamoured of it today and it puts out some great chow at some great prices.

For firsts, we ordered the entrée du jour - a soft egg with bacon cream, a soup of petit pois with sheep cheese mousse, and grilled octopus that Colette and I both deemed the most tender this year - my frying pan full of frogs legs in oil, garlic and parsley missed the photo-cut despite its quality.

For mains, we went with the confited whiting (merlan) and petit pois, the plat du jour - roasted yellow chicken with a risotto of petit pois; the quasi de veau (perfectly cooked) with grilled while asparagus, pleurotes and veal juices with Tio Pepe; and another dish to "share" - the sautéed sot l'y laisse with a juice so reduced it was like Tio Pepe.

For dessert, Colette and I shared the strawberry-pistachio concoction - the pistachio puree was divine!  Colette liked it so much she ordered the dessert of the day to take home for dinner - a deconstructed meringue lemon tart.  Our bill with 2 bottles of wine, one bottle of fizzy water and 2 coffees was 206.50 E for four, thus 103.25 E a couple ( we owe our friends some Euros due to our math miscalculations.)

Les Arlots in the 10th: "Not pretentious...solid food....really serious."

Les Arlots in the 10th is a place I ate at only a few weeks ago and when I walked in, I was greeted extra-warmly by the front-room guy Tristan Renoux, ex-Au Siffleur de Ballons, and soon asked if I wished to talk to the chef, Thomas Brachet (ex-Maison Blanche and Beef Club) and new (woman) sous-chef; he, whose excellent English was acquired by listening to American folk-songs and honed in a London discotheque.  He is most proud of his ample-sized kitchen, which is glisteningly new, having replaced a not so great couscous joint.  Man, I was ready for lunch.

The chef sent us all out a nifty amuse of liver mousse, not your grandmother or bar mitzvah's chopped liver; followed by a cucumber salad that was also not your usual one and a lovely veloute of petit pois and asparagus soup with crème fraiche.

We more or less went our separate ways with: the tasty entrecote, cod with a carrot puree and a terrific confited duck leg with potatoes - all represented old yet new food at its best.

The desserts were also special: chocolate, caramel and whiskey between 500 (not mille mind you) feuilles and a fruit with honey mixture.

The master of the wines, one Tristan Renoux, is every ready to describe and provide what one wants and his choices of a Chinin white and Tuscan red went perfectly with our choices.  They, with the offered amuses and an Armagnac offered as well, plus two coffees and nice bread came to 151.80 E or 75.90 E a couple.

 

Caillebotte: Painter and Gardener in Giverny: It's always nice to see his captivating art in a bucolic setting.

One tends not to see more than one Caillebotte at a time in regional museums and a gathering of more than a dozen is always a treat; last summer there was an exhibit at his family's home in Yerres which is on a river where he swam and rowed. That exhibit was is as fine as the current one in Giverny.  We all have our favorites: The fabulous Rainy Day, iconographically made into an umbrella, the Bridge over the tracks at St Lazare, the Boulevard Seen from Above, the Boating Party and the Floor Scrapers - don't their titles just cause your occipital cortex to shoot out their images to you?

A 3 Wow's exhibition until July 3rd.

Le Jardin des Plumes in Giverny: "And what time would you be leaving then?" they asked. [PS The answer, it matters not, they work at their own pace.]

Le Jardin des Plumes in Giverny is a place we loved a year ago, sitting in the garden and eating their lunch "menu" for 38 E, at our leisure; well, this year the garden was all buttoned up despite the high temperatures and blue skies, the "menu" had bumped up 10 E and we were asked almost upon sitting down what time we had to leave.  (PS Spoiler alert: if the kitchen had matched the wait-person's promise, we wouldn't have minded, but why ask if you cannot deliver?  In any case.......

We ordered promptly and admittedly were served 6 amuses each and got our wine promptly but then we sat twiddling our thumbs, and twiddled and twiddled, eventually asking for bread to satisfy our hunger.

For starters, our chauffeur and Colette had the green asparagus, creamed olives, lomo and a gazpacho of asparagus; and I had sardine rillettes with marinated eggplant and fennel.  Both very tasty.

Our seconds (which took forever to arrive) were a nicely sourced and cooked merlu with petit pois and camembert sauce (Colette said it was superb!) and a wonderfully prepared filet mignon of pork with corn sauce and electrifyingly off-setting multi-colored tomatoes.

We shared three of their fine desserts: a ganache of chocolate with blackberries and licorice with black sesame seeds and mint marshmallows; confited cucumber with strawberries; and rhubarb and a house-made chausson.

With a bottle and a half of wine, good bread and butter, no bottled water, a nice assortment of mignardises and 3 coffees, our bill for 3 was 216 E or 144 E a couple.

Le Radis Beurre in the 15th: A perfect meal for me; some glitches for the ladies.

 

Le Radis Beurre in the 15th is a place I went to a few weeks ago and loved, so when a Birthday loomed for an exigent food-writer friend of ours, she picked this among the 3 possibilities I offered.  As we were walking to it, we noticed long lines of cars on the streets that looked strange - whoops - having taken our car back to the US it didn't occur to me that there was a gasoline strike that the government refuses to easily break by releasing the storage stocks - so - long lines.  But onto the food.

After a long wait for our order to be taken (Prob 1) we ordered and for firsts, Colette had a the soup of watercress, apples, perles fumes and herbs that I thought was the winning cold soup of the summer and our guest and I had tiny wraps of pigs feet with a green salad and another winner - the dressing, not to forget the crusty bread (which I assume came from down the street at Le Moulin de la Vierge where I bought more for dinner).

For mains, the Birthday Girl had a steak (10 E supplement) which she asked for rare (she's French, so its arrival as thin pieces of overcooked entrecote was not because of a language issue - Prob 2) (and which needed salt which it took forever to get - Prob 3), Colette had the rabbit leg with carrots which she did not find stellar - BUT BUT BUT I had what sounds simple but turned out divine - larger than petit, petit pois topped with sautéed to perfection duck livers and incredibly tasty girolles.  This one dish more than made up for any problems we had.

Finally, Colette had a "great, wonderful" rice pudding with caramel sauce, our friend had the strawberries "Charlotte" with crème cru, crème citron and noisette crumble and I had a better-than-good baba with "Diplomatico" rum.

Our bill (which our wonderful waiter took off the 10 E supplement for because of the over-cooked, under-salted beef), with a Chateldon, coffee and beautiful butter was 154 E for three, thus 102.66 a couple.