John Talbott's Paris

Coup de Tete in the 19th: "There's a lot of creative energy here." [created by Lorraine Sourdille & Jaime Corzo Lemos]

Pre: So, what is that above?  It's a sketch by Jaime Corzo Lemos of a dish when he was a chef at Flaubert, copied from Sophie Brissaud's article in Food&Sens with permission from her.  Sophie has been mentioning the Coup de Tete to me for several months and my association as a soccer nut was to Zinedine Zidane's headbutt of Italy’s Marco Materazzi, which prompted me to go out and buy a shirt which someday I'll make millions from selling on eBay.  But no, while it does mean just that: according to Behance it refers to "three things: a head-butt, a spur-of-the-moment impulse, and it is the title of a well known french film from the 60’s [and] This parisian bistro of the same name, imagined by Lorraine Sourdille, incarnates these three meanings to a T.

7.1 Coup de Tete, 107 Rue de Belleville in the 19th, 01.48.03.31.36, closed Sundays and Mondays (Metro: Pyrenees), looks like a million other places in town, but one senses pretty quickly that it's different.  The chalkboard, while offering 2 courses at 15.50E has interesting sounding dishes and when the Chef, (ex-Alléno et Rostang), whom I'd also known, he reminded me, at the Verre du Moutarde circa 2013-4 in the 17th, offered to let him do the ordering, all three of us let him rip:

First off we had marbled foie gras with sliced Colombian (he's from Colombia) mangoes; then a pile of tumeric/espilette infused hummus with pomegranate seeds and a squid ink lace; then a corn-husk (unpictured) hollowed out to accommodate two acepas (Colombian tortillas), one with chicken and bananas, the other with guacamole, plantain and cheese; and finally tapioca decorated with mixed fruit and a chocolate dessert.

Our bill, well, ahem, our bill..... it seems that because of the fame of our host, the two bottles of wine, four courses and 3 coffees were offered.  But you can do the math: if two courses are 15.50E, a bottle of wine per Le Fooding is 27E and coffees came with it, you're not breaking the bank.  Db's = 86.8

Go?  Are you kidding?  Since I've been using a cane I've had two chefs help me into a car: Jaime Corzo Lemos and Pierre Sang Boyer - now that's service.

Bistrot Le Square in the 19th: there are still these great quirky little places serving gastronomic food high above the city.

6.9 Bistrot Le Square, 7 Square Bolivar and 27 rue Clavel for the less spry, in the 19th, open 7/7, (Metro: Pyramides), 01.45.96.05.66, has had a makeover and new chef since the rentree and is a place my dear friend in the 20th and I in the 18th are equidistant from.  It’s apparently well-known for it’s spacious terrace and cocktails but there were enough suits and ties to convince me that it’s not just for the neighborhood hipsters.  Every dish had about 4-6 ingredients and I worried about that but I shouldn’t have because it wasn't as fussy as it sounded.

It being a brisk fall day, the chestnut soup was perfect for my friend, while I was very happy with my salmon tartare.  She then had a chicken ballotine flavored through with chorizo with piquillo cream, roast peppers and garlicked sweet potatoes while I had octopus, which hadn't been beaten to a pulp enough but was still quite tasty.  We wound up sharing a black chocolate fondant dessert.

Our bill, with a bottle and glass of wine and two coffees was 68.50€.  I measured the noise level but it was insignificant, we could easily talk with one another.

Go?  Well, it’s highly sophisticated food on a quiet street with a stunning view but is a bit out of the way for almost anyone.  But make no mistake, it's bistronomic food, a word BTW coined by a former inhabitant of the area.

Bicyclette in the 19th: A great team in tandem.

 

Bicyclette in the 19th was a great little place I fell upon a while back and is totally full of young local folk. The host is quite proud of his wines and he encouraged me to photo the wine chalkboard since distance vision was not so good. 

For firsts we had the bokchoi with a lovely cool sesame sauce and slices of pressed boudin noir with salad.

Then the table split between the roast vegetables with wild rice and perfect egg and 7 hour lamb with cauliflower and chickpeas.

Desserts were a matcha cake and mousse of fromage blanc which Colette decided really went best together, although then what does one do with the roast apricot?

Our bill, with a bottle and glass of wine and three coffees, was 90 or 60 E a couple.

La Bicyclette in the 19th: Astonishing food, prices, clientele and location.

Pre: I keep thinking that at 83, decrepit and failing, I should give up this nonsensical quest for new places in Paris with astonishing food, prices, clienteles and locations - and then, like two days after a marathon, I say to myself "No, I want to do this again/forever."

7.9 La Bicyclette, 5, rue de Chaumont in the 19th,, 06.10.40.33.12, closed weekends (Metro: Jaures) is way off the beaten culinary path, even for me, just over in the 18th.  But it sounded interesting: owner/front guy Bertrand Disset from the Bataclan brasserie, chef Slavica Marmakovic (ex Sunset and Clamato, two of my faves).  It has a 3-2-3 "menu" for 19 E at lunch with intriguing sounding products, ingredients, spices and herbs from all over the Mediterranean, but hey if Novak Djokovic got to be #1 eating this stuff, count me in.

First off, the chef sent out a bouillon of vegetables and herbs that was pungent and had my fellow blogger and I trying to identify what was in it; hummm, cumin, parsley,....  Then she had the panzanella with smoked ricotta, described by Wikipedia as "a Tuscan chopped salad of bread and tomatoes,.... sometimes also onions and basil, dressed with olive oil and vinegar."  Simple, eh?  Nope.  Complex.  And I had coques with spinach and cedrat, again you would think simple but it was not.

For main courses we both had succulent lamb bits cooked as kebabs with a yogurt sauce or a flatbread that was astonishingly-surprisingly tasty with shaved turnips; followed by a rhubarb-lemon crumble and roasted pineapple between pastry leaves.

Our bill, with a bottle and glass of wine and two coffees, was 77 E a couple.

Go back?  Despite the weird location, indeed!

Le Cadoret in the 19th: “Not a place for culinary discovery” my oldest French friend concluded.

5.6 Le Cadoret, 1, rue Pradier in the 19th, 01.53.21.92.13, closed Sundays and Mondays, was described by Aitor Alfonso in yesterday’s Le Fooding as “retrofoodisme” and that’s pretty accurate.  I entered to a room half full of folks who were clearly locals and by 13h00 it was fully full.  It’s a 2-2-1 deal so we agreed to split the offerings.

My friend started with eggs Mimosa that I thought were fabulous and I had a very good terrine de campagne with toasts, both of which were also good.

For mains, she had a tender onglet of beef with not bad fries and sauce that I didn’t like, while I had two pieces of carrelet sautéed in butter that were better than ok with carrots and a cousin of Jerusalem artichoke.

We finished up with two lovely pear Fontainebleaus.

Our bill, with a bottle of terrific Pinot Noir and two coffees was 60.40€?  Noise level 81.6dB. PS they had real cloth napkins.

Go?  If I lived in the area for sure, but it’s a long way from home.  But those Thai fish are tempting and they had real cloth napkins.

La Bonace in the 19th: a very disappointing second visit, weigh my two reports before going.

Preface: a few weeks ago I ate at La Bonace in the 19th and had a lovely, no, terrific meal. When Colette, my wife of 56 years comes to town, we go to the best of my last quarter's finds, usually those rated over 6.8/10.  I admire folks who go eight times, before writing places up, but the New York Times has never seen fit to reimburse my expenses the same way they did my great late friend Johnnie (R.W.) Apple's or even Sam Sifton's.  So here's my second take on a place I told my readers to go to last month.

1.0 La Bonace in the 19th was as welcoming this month as last but the carte looked suspiciously less adventuresome and more tilted to vegans.  Oh, oh.  In fact, very little spoke to me, a fat-loving carnivore, but with two lovely ladies out by the Canal d'Ourcq, what could I do?

Well, for firsts, between the salad of crudités and the tabouli with parsley and lime, there was no problem, I ate the bread and had a glass of wine while awaiting the main show.  The ladies unenthusiastically ate some of their tabouli.

Then Colette had the bland merlu with a ton of lentils, which she tried to improve with salt, pepper and lemon without success, my co-blogger friend had the grilled eggplant and polenta that she deemed overcooked, and I had the strips of echines de porc on somethings I'd rather forget, which could not be improved by salt, pepper or appeals to Buddha.

For dessert, Colette and I had melon, strawberries and Greek yogurt, and our friend the coco tart, neither exciting to the palate or bone.

Our bill, with two bottles of decanted Moisset and 3 coffees, was 109€ or 74€ a couple.

Go back?  No, and let me count the ways; blah, veggie food, lack of sound-baffling, and no cushions on the designer furniture to buffer one's aching spine from hard wood.

La Bonace in the 19th: A perfect rendering of the "Food Biz" formula.

A number of years ago, 3 food writers published a book anonymously (supposedly) called “Food Business: La face cachée de la gastronomie françoise” that dissected the culinary problems in France and suggested solutions for Paris restaurants.  In brief, they suggested you find a food desert, a talented chef and have reasonably priced farm to table food.  Well, somebody at La Bonace was listening.  It's located in an area where mingle davening kids with yarmulkes and ripped jeans, adolescents in burkas and women with red dots on their foreheads.

6.6 La Bonace, 7 rue de Nantes in the 19th, 09.80.66.43.20 (but they don't answer or return messages nor use a reservation service), closed Mondays, (Metro: Ourcq, but the 60 bus is better) has been open 3 months to wall to wall local customers but scarcely one reviewer.  It's on a street I've never been on, which faces the canal and a restaurant on the Eastern side I liked somewhat last year.  The menu changes every day and is a 2-4-2 deal at 18 €.  All the wines are bio and the beers, artisanal.

 

I settled on the rilettes of fish, more like a tartare, with anise that when corrected with salt was stunning.  Then I had the lingue blanche which I misread as tongue until clarified by my charming waitperson.  It was sort of soso cod until I ate it with the chive butter and then the whole thing came alive.  My dessert was a small pot of warm-hot strawberry "salad" with a crumbled sable that was a perfect closer to the meal.

 

My bill, with a 1/2 flask of Loire red, no bottled water, decent bread and coffee, was 34€, you read that right, 34 €.  DB's = 86.1. Btw, despite its being able to fit 38 covers, it didn't seem crowded at all. 

Go?  I will, but how many of you will schlep up to Ourcq?

Maison Becquay in the 19th: 70 minutes between starter and mains: insupportable; but the view and comradeship almost justified it.

1.0 La Maison Becquey, 34 quai de la Marne in the 19th, 01.45.26.97.79 (Metro: humm, Bus #60), open 7/7 from 8 AM - midnight (now that tells you something eh?) was a new opening I read about somewhere that sounded interesting.  Well, it is; it's on the Canal de l'Ourcq between Stalingrad and La Villette and it has all the makings of an ideal harbor in this bustling city - bikers, runners, skateboarders, etc; inside the restaurant are acres of wine bottles, a big station clock and about two dozen baskets of precut baguettes (whoa, won't those dry out in two hours?).  The menu and carte are not terribly exciting; in fact the listing of a Texas bagel signals that all is not well here.

Only one of us ordered a first - a tartare of black radishes and beets - Ok.

And then we waited

And waited

And waited

70 minutes: signaling to the wait-staff that we could see the chickens on the spits inside the lovely open kitchen, so what was so difficult about bringing one down and serving it?

Yet still we waited.

Luckily, my friends had just gotten back from their summer visit to California/Nevada and we had a lot of catching up to do and two bottles of wine to go through.

On the other hand it took forever - 70 minutes, in fact.

So our main dishes arrived:  To give credit where....., JJ's beer cooked bar was nice and moist and warm; but R's spicy chicken was neither spicy nor moist - it was over-cooked and tasteless - my chicken stuffed with mushrooms and cream was difficult to dissect and while the farci was good, it was cold - the saving grace were the fries - not brown and crisp - but yellow and fatty - marvelous - it gave me a whole new view of how fat enhances meals.

Dessert; are you kidding?  And wait another hour.  And put up with the noise - 79.5 dB, that is the sound of a garbage disposal.

Our bill with 2 coffees offered to make up for the 70 minute wait, artisanal bread and no bottled water, was 91.20 E for 3; thus 60.80 E a couple.

Go back?  Who are you, the KGB?

Mensae in the 19th: Good, very good, consistantly good and pleasing to the soul and palate.

Mensae in the 19th always reminds me the two other meanings of mensa - a bunch of brilliant people and a reasonably-priced restaurant for Italian students - because it's a combination of both - a place serving brilliant food at reasonable prices.  And so it was again today.

 

As firsts, Colette had the poulpe snacké with various herbs and flowers and I had the steak tartare (cut by hand) which was really spicy (as I like it) with other various herbs and flowers.

We both had fish for mains: she the cod with fennel and me the lieu jaune with tiny zippy clams that set off the fish beautifully.

As careful readers may know, I'm not a great fan of rice pudding but Colette is and so I ordered some up today to share and with the crumble the chef used today I could become a convert.  It was terrific.

With no bottled water but pichets of red and while wine and two coffees, our bill was 103 E for another fine meal.

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.)