So, a very trusted food and wine friend said Coinstot vino had a new chef and while he’d only eaten there once and intended to eat there again 3 days ago he wasn’t able to get together a quorum/minion so I was on my own. But it’s Monday and I have to find a place my friend from 1953 who lives/practices in the 4th can get to easily. I telephone, no reservations at lunch “but if you come early it’ll be no problem.” Of course, for once my buses, 60 and 85, worked perfectly and I’m in the passage des Panoramas at 12h10.
I wait and when the clock strikes 12h30, I ask for the carte des vins, “there isn’t one,” the wait lady says. “I’ll send by the human wine list.” Ha ha. He comes over and I’m all set to hate him. No wine list. In these days of computers and printers? But rather than try to upscale me towards the top of the price list, he asks what I might like and in what price range. Then he gives me two generous taste pours. Ok, slate is wiped clean.
5.5 Coinstot Vino in the 2nd, 26 bis Passage des Panoramas, O1.44.82.08.54, (Metro: Grands Boulevards) closed Saturday lunch and Sundays, is a place I went to a long time ago with another wine guy and the food was French and not awful but not worth going back to at 5/10. Today, though, the ardoise showed 2-3 (one a pizza)-3 and 3 pizzas. Oh, oh, and my backups on the passage were all uninspiring- Tondo at Racines, more Italian, Canard et champagne, not too bad, and the Bistro des Panoramas, where I’d never been. But I ordered some wine and waited and waited and waited. And read Figaro.
After an hour and a half I decided my pal had fallen, injured her hip or suffered an internet meltdown. Well, it turned out it was all of the above. Albeit not all today. So I ordered the calzone with ham and cheese and spicy early arrugula,
And it was not bad for non-French food although I had to bring it to life with a lot of salt and spicy olive oil.
Having finished, I ordered a coffee and the check, and who appears? My old friend. She orders a pizza. She likes it. And the wine, as in Cana, seems to flow like water.
The bill? Well I think I heard the wine guy who had no wine list say there was no check but it was 69€? My friend antied up, which I didn’t protest my back reaching the point of no return. db's were awful = 85.6
Go back? For an Italian pizza place, it was not bad but not what I expected. But there's always this place nearby.
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