John Talbott's Paris

L’Arcane in the 18th: I have the feeling I’m being followed.

L’Arcane in the 18th has apparently become one of the followers of the formula given in the book “Food Business: La face cachée de la gastronomie françoise” to whit, to paraphrase, find a food desert with lower rents, have a talented chef and serve inventive food at reasonable prices.  Well Laurent Magnin and wife have hit the jackpot.

Today we went again and Colette on entering and hearing a nearby couple speaking English, said “are they looking at you as if they know you?” Sure enough, they were and did.

Anyway, Madame, after welcoming us said the Chef, while serving the same bookend dishes, would serve us different entrees and plats than a week ago. Now that’s attention to detail.

 

Once again, every dish had multiple ingredients and spices, herbs and edible flowers, so here’s the presentation:
His signature smoked oyster on a smoked purée
Crab and citron mini-pseudo-sandwiches
Quail and mushrooms with a side-dish of a mushroom risotto with Parmesan
A different layered dessert with sorbet, cracker, figs, lime and meringue cigarettes
Nougat with red fruits and pistachio halves
Mignardises

And once again, the surprise lunch menu of 3 dishes, contained at least 6, some lost between my camera and the pc.  And everything was terrific.

Our bill, with no bottled water but a bottle and glass of Les Darons (we had the last in their cellar, but by the time Colette is able to return, we suspect will be restocked) and 3 coffees, was 132.50€.

L’Epuisette in the 9th: not a destination restaurant, but very, very good seafood small plates.

7.5 L’Epuisette, 73 rue de Rochechouart in the 9th, is another place it was impossible to make a reservation at, so I wrote them an email vis their Facebook page suggestion, which they said they’d respond to in an hour.  PS, Nope, but we showed up anyway, and there was room.  It’s a charming setting, with good service and while called tapas, the dishes were more like small plates to me than bar tapas in Spain.

I asked our wait guy how many dishes to order, “2-3 per person, 5 a couple” was his reply.  Actually we wound up ordering and eating 8 for 4 of us plus 4 desserts.  He was spot-on.

Among them were accras balls, calamari beignets, finger fish, with translated on the English Menu - “dog sauce,” sweet potatoes fries, mushroom fricassee, 2 poulpe in butter and ceviche.  All superb.

Our desserts were a chocolate mi-cuit and tarte tatin.  The chocolate was good but the tart tatin was unremarkable.

Our bill with a bottle and glass of their house white, a Chateldon at 7.50€ and coffees, was 140€ or 70€ a couple.  DB’s at 81.5 were aggravated by the lack of sound baffling and wacky loud music. (it was turned down a bit when we asked)

Go? Absolutely if staying in the 9th, but don’t expect le Cinq, this place serves up great neighborhood seafood small plates but they're simple, well sourced, cooked and presented - no frou frou here.

Les Grands Verres in the 16th: today the servers were over-stretched and maybe the chefs as well.

Les Grands Verres in the Palais de Tokyo in the 16th got rave reviews from me and a fellow blogger a month ago.  Today was a different story.  In between, I’d received indications from trusted friends/eaters that there were various service and cooking problems.  However the setting, walls and iron-work are impressive.

I had trouble making* a reservation on line (website said while at lunch it was open, you couldn’t reserve) and on the telephone (call at the end of the week, 4-6 pm only, except they didn’t answer and there was no message* machine hooked up).  I finally succeeded on line and bizarrities of all bizarrities, I got three reminders today within a few minutes.

When we arrived and were seated, we realized we should move 20feet over to a quieter table but the  hostess had vanished without asking is this ok.  So we moved which she admonished us for, saying the table was reserved, but let us stay.  On the other hand our waitguy brought over great amuses - tapenade, pickled veggies and very spicy wafers.

We looked over the carte and while last months firsts looked and were exciting, today’s were banal so we ordered mains and desserts, starting with cod with very tasty greens (the carte said spinach but they were more like kale), and pork shoulder with mustard seeds, both of which were good but not dazzling.  There being no salt on any table, we had to ask and getting it was a major chore (an example of how short staffed they were). 

To finish, Colette had a roasted pear crumble and I, a semifreddo of halvah with a load of pistachios and fresh figs, both of which were fine.

Our bill, which it took ages to get, after the coffee, equally slow, with a bottle and glass of wine and fine bread, was 105€.

Alliance in the 5th is a delightful experience in every way: great welcome, good service, astonishing food and reasonable prices.

 

 

Alliance in the 5th is a place Colette and I have frequented enough since it opened that they know us but I hardly think that’s why it’s so great.  We went with an old treasured French friend who was equally impressed.  Note the really cool table sculpture made from pear skins and plaster.

Rather than give you a detailed explanation of the 8-10 different items we were served on the supposed 3-course “menu dejeuner,” I’ll give you some food porn, as my friend/colleague Meg calls it:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ll spoil it a bit by saying that despite the Chef Omiya saying he changes ingredients every day, so what I had, you wont get, today tempuras, pumpkin cream, merlu, beef and almond cake counted among some of the ingredients.

Our bill, with two bottles of a fine affordable Bordeaux and great house made bread and 3 Peruvian coffees in super-cool cups, our bill was 187.50€ or 125€ a couple for an incredible experience again.

Vava in the 18th scores again. Bigly.

Vava in the 18th is a place a fellow food writer and I found excellent last month and I was resolved to return with others to confirm our judgment.  Spoiler alert: we were correct.

All of us passed on the first although that octopus was mighty tempting and instead went to the rouget with, you guessed it, this month's accompaniment - Paimpol white beans, razor clams and poulardes, fantastic pieces of beef with eggplant topped with marrow and pigeon both lightly cooked and confited, fantastic.

Everyone ordered dessert but our bilingual waitguy nudged me into having some aged cantal and was I pleased, although the caramel and cream millefeuille, lemon meringue and yuzu delight and fig tart were also pretty damn good.

Our bill, with their water, 2 bottles of Bordeaux, 3 coffees and one tea, was 218€ or 109€ a couple.

“Wonderful food” but the noise precluded we old folks' easy conversation in a room packed with young’uns.

 

eels, spelled with two small e’s, in the 9th, was an astonishing revelation a month ago, and I returned today with Colette and two Editor colleagues from the 4th and....

We started off with "good but not great" heirloom beets with beet sauce, a foie gras concoction and superb smoked eel bits.

Then the ladies had superb shrimp tempura and the men, perfectly cooked duck breasts with cepes and veggies plus harissa.

Our friends had to hustle off to meet their handyman and Colette and I thus ended with a “boring” apple and quince dessert and an interesting chocolate with caramel beurre sale one.

Our bill, with two bottles of St Emilion, a 2.50€ filtered water and 4 coffees, was 193.50€ or 96.75€ a  couple.

Ze Kitchen Galerie in the 6th: William Ledeuil greets, treats and repletes with tongue tingling repeats.

Pre - as we approached Ze, our wonderful chef-host, unpredictably appeared on the street in front of us welcoming us.  "Wait a minute, I thought you were in China" I say. "No not yet."  He walks with us, chats, opens the door, greets the voiturier, takes my coat, who ever heard of a starred chef taking coats? Then he goes to his traditional "station," facing the kitchen, facing it and the salle, monitoring the dishes as they roll out. What a guy!

 

We were eating today with a longstanding internet correspondent and fellow blogger, his companion and two French friends of theirs dating from 40 years.  One asked "what's good here?"  Colette says, "I dunno, every time we eat here we're astonished.  Have what you'd like."

True to his generous spirit, the chef sent out bowls of Thai bouillon, oh my, what tastes, what tingles, what treats.

Then we had between us, raviolis of beef with spicy beef sauce and mussels and cepes.

Then, voila, out came comp'd cocos of Paimpol with small pieces of delightful shrimp.

For mains, then, we had the fish of the day (rouget) with eggplant and Colvert duck, beautifully cooked, all with his signature spicy sauces/bouillons.

To finish up, we had cooked apple pieces, which the chef said he made like a tarte tatin, white chocolate, and a vanilla ice and ahem, one other.

With their filtered water, 2 bottles and a glass of Sorcieres, and 5 coffees, our bill was 409.59€ thus 136.50€ a couple.

At some point all of us looked up across the street at bizarrely dressed models - "whoa, it's Fashion Week."

Review of reviews – the week of September 25th 2017

Monday, in A Nous Paris, Philippe Toinard gave 3/5 to the fusion restaurant Amadae in the 2nd; Jerome Berger did not rate he Mexican Condesa in the 9th; nor did Alexis Chenu rate the Japanese-Peruvian Le POD in the 4th.

Tuesday, Matthieu Jauniau-Dallier, in Le Fooding, reviewed the Asiatic Bien Venu in the 9th.

Wednesday, Emmanuel Rubin in Figaroscope reviewed his usual 5 restaurants: giving 3/5 hearts to Wim a Table, 45, rue Des Moines in the 17th, open 7/7, 01.42.29.10,41 (Metro: Brochant), cheffed by Wim Van Gorp, the genius behind Comme Chez Maman, down the street, where he serves food along the lines of Camdebord's Comptoir du Relais for 30-40 € for items such as cepes, lamb samosas and Scottish salmon.  He gave two places 2 hearts, an African epicerie-dinette BMK in the 10th and an Israeli place Salatim in the 2nd.  In addition he rated 2 places worth one heart, the Cambodian Ensor in the 10th and a light food Cafe Renoir in the Museum de Montmartre in the 18th.  His Hache Menu reviewed the previously mentioned Italian Ristorante National in the 3rd.

In their Dossier, Colette Monsat and Hugo de St Phalle mini-reviewed BBQ/Rotisserie places including: Clover Grill, Maloka Fogo & Brasa, Brutos, La Table de Marie-Jeanne, Braisenville, Melt, Carbon and Flesh.

In her Paris Update, Heidi Ellison reviewed the previously mentioned  Kitchen Ter(re).

Sunday, in the jdd, Aurelie Chaigneau reviewed the dim sum Yikou in the 10th (7/10) ; the aforementioned Wim a Table in the 17th (6.5) ; and the aforementioned Accents in the 2nd (7.5).

Coretta in the 17th: great for us, disappointing for our friends.

 

Coretta In the 17th has become a great Sunday lunch place for us.  Today they were packed, turning people away, bringing in yuge groups of families, tra-la.  

The amuse-gueule was a lovely soup of crustaceans with blobs of crime fraiche, loved by all, as were the bread and butter.  But then we diverged.

We started off with the langoustines snackees, again lovely and poulpe, tender but I agree with our guests, a bit bland and blah.

Then the ladies had the cod, thought by them and me to be fine, and the gents - sweetbreads, soft in the center and crispy on the exterior, which I also liked but my old friend found not exciting.

For dessert we all shared two brioches with caramelized exteriors and caramel sauce and ice.  Plus nummies with our coffee.

Our bill, with three different bottles of wine, no bottled water and three coffees, was 245€ or 122.50€ a couple.