John Talbott's Paris

Les Parigots in the 10th: Disappointing but cheap.

Les Parigots in the 10th is a place I'd been to a couple of times and my wife had vetted so when she suggested we eat near Republique, it seemed sensible.

The four of us ordered what seemed to me to be smart and diverse courses: a boeuf Bourguignon, chapon, beef tartare with frites and lamb shank.  The chapon de Bresse was way overcooked and dry; the fries with the beef were good but the lamb was not lamb but overthehill mutton, thus to me, awful.

For desserts we had: a Belle Helene pear, a lemon tart and a runny chocolate; all OK no better no worse.

Our bill was really really reasonable - with a bottle and glass of wine and 4 coffees it was 101.40 - Whoops - they forgot the desserts - thus 127.40 E or 63.70 E a couple - still quite cheap.  But because of the flat notes, its no longer on my list.

Bistro Brune in the 10th: better than ok, but not much.

5.4 Bistro Brune, 70 rue du Faubourg St-Martin in the 10th, 01.42.08.16.81, open 7/7, (Metro: Chateau d’Eau) was a place suggested by a wine-maven friend who is just back from a month of wine tasting in Burgundy.  It’s welcoming, fresh and nice in a relative food desert.

My friends both started with the very reasonable “formule” of 18€ which featured a crudité salad, while I had lovely Puy lentils with ham.  Nothing bad and nothing mind-blowing.

Then they both had onglets of beef with fine small potatoes and I had a perfect chop of pork with very tasty sautéed vegetables.

To finish up we each had a spoonful of lemon ice, meringue and raspberries.

With a bottle and glass of wine and two coffees our bill was 104€ or 69.32€ a couple.

Go? I suppose if you live around the corner, although it’s a kind of louche area.  As the Beatles said "It's nothing to write home about."

Bouillon Julien in the 10th: Old school cuisine in an old time setting at old affordable prices by an old hand.

5.2 Bouillon aka Brasserie Julien, 16 rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis in the 10th, 01.47.70.12.06 (they never answered the phone when I called but their website says in English something like “Don’t worry, we’ll always have a seat for you,....maximum wait 15 minutes) open 7/7, (Metro: Strasbourg-St Denis) and their leaflet boldly states that 112 years after its opening it still serves authentic bouillon food at a lower price than the great restaurants of Paris, naming 6 starters less than 5€, 6 mains less than 11€ and 75 cl wines from 10.20€.  Its rebirth is the work of Jean-Noel Dron, who directs many restaurants in Strasbourg, Nancy and Reims including three in the Flo group (one reverting to its original name Floderer)

Four of us started out with traditional starters which all had modern twists (the place has a new owner and new chefs): a cold cucumber soup, leeks vinaigrette, confited vegetables and a salad frisée with big lardons and not entirely frisée greens.

Then we had a fish and chips, rumsteak with peppercorns and 2 huge rabbit thighs with purées.  Sure tasted like chicken to me.

To top it off we had one Camembert, one rice pudding and one prunes in red wine spiced up with cinnamon and I think ginger.

With no bottled water, but 4 coffees and 2 bottles of Bordeaux, our bill was 120.30€ for 4, or 60.15€ a couple.

Go?  We’re steering our visiting granddaughter and friend(s) here this weekend.

The Dude in the 10th: Most creative resto in Paris 2018 moves; fans weep.

The Dude in the 10th opened, it seems like yesterday, with both a great front--room guy and cuisine chefs, and after another spectacular meal with another more famous blogger and our spouses, we were literally shocked when they informed us they were closing at the end of the month and moving elsewhere.  "Yikes, Wait, I don’t believe it, It can’t be, holy cow!"

We started after a long interchange with the amiable bilingual front room guy and began with chickpea fries (offered), watermelon squares with black pepper and olive oil with creme fraiche and pain gua bao made with squid ink stuffed with incredible strips of gravlax after which we surrendered.

For our mains (everything is made to be shareable) we had a poitrine of pork, peche du jour (today mackerel) with apricots and sardines grilled on a kebab stick with vegetable hummus.  We not only surrendered, we offered up our first born children.

For dessert we shared a chocolate black Forrest cake with cherries and a rhubarb, strawberries and rose baba presented by the pastry chef.

After finishing our coffee and our friends declaration that they would “highly recommend it” the chef came over and informed us they would be closing at the end of the month and relocating elsewhere, hopefully by Fall.  We went nuts.  “Is that what they really said, did I misunderstand, it can’t be?”  Luckily, he, Geoffrey Rembert, gave us all his card with his phone and email, 07.81.60.91.10 and [email protected], Facebook @chefgeoffreyrembert.  And we will await his relocation with great anticipation.

Our bill, with their filtered water, 2 bottles of wine and 3 coffees was 131.70 for four, or 65.85€ a couple, A COUPLE!   Shout out the news...get to The Dude very soon so you too can enjoy a wonderful meal before the end of July.

14 Paradis in the 10th: No one over 35 here.

14 Paradis, 14, rue de Paradis in the 10th, 01.45.23.57.98 (Metro: Cadet), open weekdays and Saturday night, is a place you might pass up on this street of restaurants in an obviously hopping neighborhood.

My intended dining partner had GI problems today so I went through this internal debate: as a single taster, do I order dishes that stretch the chef's talents or what I really want on a cold day?  I split it down the middle.  First I had a superb gratinee of onions which was sort of like the best onion soup in the city but without the soup.  Then I had pork cheeks with parcooked veggies that were quite good but too much for my poor stomach's size.  I got ready to order the dessert, a brioche, not perdu, but retrouvees (now what could that be?) but alas, they were out of it and my amiable waitguy insisted to have the yogurt with apple bits and that was a big mistake, it brought the meal down from interesting to ordinary.

The bill for a couple with a bottle of wine, no bottled water, but 3 courses and 2 coffees would come to 104 E (PS they had 2-2-2 formulas at 17 E and 3-3-3 menus at 38 E).  db"s 80.9

Return?  Hummm, with so many great places opening, it'll be diown on the list, but for my grand-kids, sure.

eels in the 10th: another son of Ledeuil's is launched, another star is born.

Background: A dear couple who live in the neighborhood told me they'd walked by this really cool new restaurant and we should eat there.  Doesn't take much arm-twisting to get me on board.

7.8 eels, 27, rue d'Hauteville in the 10th, 01.42.28.80.20, closed Sundays and Mondays, (Metro: Chateau d'Eau).  It is indeed cool, located in an ancient couscous joint, and everyone seemed not only quite pleasant but as if they knew me and they certainly looked familiar to me.  But from where?  It soon became clear, KGB and before that Fernandi.  A look at the carte also made it clear that this was serious food, every dish had four ingredients.

Dangerously, all three of us ordered the same thing to start - sliced warm pieces of eel, but hey, its their signature dish, how could one not?, with a hint of licorice and a sauce vierge.  To say this was astonishing would be insulting, it was way beyond that.  For our mains two of us had crevettes, not rubbery, or wet or raw, but perfect, with all sorts of carrots, grapefruit slices and a saffron bisque and our other diner had lamb two ways, a piece of very properly undercooked quasi and some confited shoulder, with smoked caviar d'aubergines and a cumin sauce.  And some Italian black truffles thrown in.  Pretty damn good, both.  For dessert we all had the roasted mirabelles, quetsches and Reine Claude's, with a sweet clover cream, also outstanding.

With a bottle and glass of wine, their filtered water and two coffees, plus 10€ for the truffles, our bill was 220.50€ for 3, or 147€ a couple.

Go?  I cannot tell a lie, even though I'd like to tell you to go elsewhere, but this is the revelation of the reentree.  One complaint: the DB's were high and talking difficult due to lack of sound-dampening.  Hats off, though, to chef Ferrand and front-man Felix Le Loucram.

Les Parigots in the 10th; When the Resistants took my reservation and didn't show up I was crazed, but....

Prepost: I had reserved several days ago at Les Resistants in the 10th and my guest checked that they were open on Saturday, but there was no sign of life at 12h30 when he and I showed up.  No shutters up, no note saying "death in the family" or "Electricity off" or "Oven exploded", nothing.  I had no back-up, so I whipped out my iPhone, and saw there was a place I'd heard of (rated 5 hearts in Figaro) called Les Parigots, just up the street.  Parigots, yes that rang another bell, "Parisians" it rang to me, Parisians.  Ok.  Take the plunge.

7.5 Les Parigots, 5 rue Chateau d'Eau in the 10th, 01.42.00.22.26 (Metro: Republique), open 7/7, looks like a thousand other red-themed Paris bistros/brasseries that one passes by each day without noting.  But this one is different, you'll see.  First, the electricity kept failing then coming back, then failing again.  Normally if this happened 6 times, I'd getoutader, but remember, this was sort of Plan B, I had no Plan C.  So we sat and they flicked the breaker box, and life illuminated, went on.

 

We looked at the menu and decided easily on what we wanted; first, both of us had the encornets with parsley which were superb, really good, with a dense brown bread from the quarter than was way better than average.  Then my friend had the beef hache, really best of beef, cut by hand, with an egg on top to mix in with the Worchester, Tabasco and other condiments.  I had an equally great jarre de porc with fries, actually both of us had fries which were not much of a much.

Our bill, when it came after all the electricity outages, my electric-shocks of back pain, and 2 wines and coffees, was 105 E.

Go again?  Well, if caught short near Republique this is the place; plus look at their card - just like a Metro ticket - pretty cool eh?

L'Etoile Nord in the 10th: "I want to go because this guy can't cook."

2.0 L'Etoile du Nord, 8, rue de Dunkerque  in the 10th (inside the Gare du Nord), 01.40.36.54.36, open 7/7 (Metro: Gare du Nord) has been open 2 months to a lot of PR buzz but scarce serious reviewing.  A couple of weeks ago a more serious food writer suggested we go because she was curious given the fact that she doesn't think Thierry Marx knows how to cook.  She later had a "must-make" business conflict so I induced Colette to try it.  Despite the Gare du Nord's interior ugliness, the glass enclosed two-story restaurant/brasserie is quite nice.

I started off with the leeks (on the 25 E 3-course "menu") which were way undercooked and tough and not helped by chunks and sauce of oranges.

Then after a very long long wait we got our mains: Colette had a duck filet in a casserole that she deemed quite good, but my fish n' chips was in such a tidy square it could not have been prepared today.  In addition the chips were stone cold and thus gelatinous and yucky.

In addition to the long waits, when the staff spilled a few drops of wine they did not clean it up and after our main course the crumbs were not removed from the glass table. Also,  the music was loud disco stuff and there was no sharp knife for the duck.

Another long wait ensued - we alerted the waiter and instead of bringing the dessert, he brought the bill!  Finally the dessert arrived; it was supposed to be an ile flottant, but I've never seen a square island; it too was not up to par.

When the check arrived, it was for 3 palerons of beef..........

Our bill, when it finally arrived...., with no bottled water nor coffees, but a bottle of wine, was 76 E. 

Unfortunately for us. our friend's warning was accurate.

Go?  Not even if this were the only restaurant to open in 2017.

Bonhomie in the 10th: "I guess we're going to get beets" my friend said.

 4.9 Bonhomie, 22, rue d'Enghien in the 10th, 09.83.93.86.31 (Metro: Chateau d'eau, Bonne Nouvelle) open 7/7, was a  place I read about that sounded lile a "normal" place that I and my camera would like; so I invited a food friend and met him there.

Well, after taking a picture of the outside, inside and three menus (blue, red and green - I kid you not - all of which seemed to start with chopped beets which I assumed would be blue, red or green) my camera and I recorded each dish but both of us were unwilling or unable to transfer impressions of all the vegetable ones, of which there were many or much, to my blog.  Thus what you have is what I liked in this sea of vegetables, which started with chopped beets, warm cauliflower and warm bread:  a slice of root vegetable my friend got, the poulpo and then cod I got, and the bean soup he ended with.  All were vegetarian, which we are not and I won't be for quite some time.

Our bill with a bottle of vino verde and 2 coffees, was 75 E.  dB = 85.8.

Go?  I sincerely hope my camera and I have dissuaded you.

La Fontaine de Belleville in the 10th: "No way I'm going to eat bar food" my friend said. So I went alone.

Backstory: Two weeks ago I suggested that a long-term expat here join me for lunch at a formerly "outdated café-bar" (according to Le Fooding) near Belleville renovated by the gang from the Brulerie de Belleville and Ten Belles. "No way," she said "I'm going to a bar for lunch, I want real food."  I explained that the jdd and Le Fooding said it now served "brasserie food French style."  No dice!  So today I went alone.

 

4.0 La Fontaine de Belleville, 31-33, rue Juliette Dodu in the 10th, (Metro: Colonel Fabien), 09.81.75.54.54 (but no reservations), is open 7/7.  The carte is pretty much soup and sandwiches with some charcuterie and cheese thrown in for good measure.

I started off with a plate of Bellota chorizo that was ultra thin and very tasty.

Then I moved on to a croque-monsieur that had sourced cheese and ham, making it high end, albeit not as much as sophisticated as that at Le Marloe.

The coffee, as one would expect at a brulerie, was especially good.

With two glasses of Bordeaux, two types of bread and no bottled water, my bill was 32.30 E.  dB level was 88.3 (from Louis Armstrong and his era).

Go?  If I lived across the street, which a dear friend did for many years, maybe after a tough day's driving, otherwise unh unh.  Lots of English was being spoken (not just by Anglophones) and read (The Observer) and it's gay/lesbian and Bobo friendly

Mangling French Addendum: At some point the nice wait-person asked if I was disappointed (decu) in the sandwich and I, thinking she said pleased (plait), said "yes" which was honesty creeping past my ears and tongue.  Oh well, at least I was amused.