John Talbott's Paris

Baieta in the 5th: Julia Sedefdjian’s new place is a keeper.

7.5 Baieta, 5, rue de Pontoise in the 5th, 06.27.91.12.62, closed Sundays and Mondays (Metro: Maubert-Mutualite) is in the former Itineraires space but much as I loved Sylvain Sendra, especially in his 11th digs, Julia Sedefdjian’s move here from the Fables de la Fontaine has restored feng shui to the rue de Pontoise. The place is sparklingly new with cool light fixtures that have spoons instead of sockets and great new seats.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After an olive oily foccacio topped with an olive and shredded onion accompanied by the cup of Bouillon, Colette had the very good, crispy on the outside, aile de raie and potato balls.  I had Chef Julia's signature dish, bouillabaieta, her take on bouillabaisse with housemade rouille and crispy thin slices of their terrific bread (The butter was great as well).

For dessert we shared a chocolate concoction called a chocotube with chocolate 3 or 4 ways - quite special.

With a bottle of wine, their filtered water and three coffees our bill was 117.00€

Go?  For sure.

The Kitchen Ter(re) in the 5th: “Who cooks when the chef’s not here?” I know, I know.

The Kitchen Ter(re), 26,boulevard St. Germain in the 5th, 01.42.39.47.48, (Metro: Cardinal Lemoine), closed Sundays and Mondays, and since it opened 6 months ago has run as smoothly as his first two places ZKG and KGB with or without him.  We were warmly greeted by his senior staff whom it seems we’ve known forever and feted with some champagne of the season. 

Then they treated us to some hand cut steak tartare with Thai Bouillon on the side, spicy and perfect for the cold rainy day.  Colette had scallops with seaweed and I had bits of pork sausage and mushrooms, both with unusually named heritage wheat strain pastas, that we had to be shown dry examples of to recall.  

Finally Colette had their signature cappucino dessert and I the chocolate, also classical Ledeuil.  

Our bill with a bottle of wine, their filtered water, terrific crusty bread and two coffees, was 90€.

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.

Kitchen Ter(re) in the 5th: Some say it's the best resto of the rentree; no dispute.

Kitchen Ter(re), 26, blvd St-Germaine, 01.42.39.47.48, closed Sundays and Mondays, (Metro: Cardinal Lemoine) has been fingered as the best restaurant of the rentree, one can quibble but it's certainly up there.  Today, we returned with an expert chef and her friend and our greeting equaled that given to the Pope, were he in town.  The champagne and hugs were nice but to hire the Garde Republicain to come by was a bit much. For the first time this week, my wife said "I don't know what to order."  My wife of 56 years, I was stunned.  But she got it together and we progressed.

Firsts were marinated raw fish, caviar of lime and ginger, Paimpol beans with green curry, tomato and galanga and Thai bouillon with tiny pieces of eel perched on top of tiny rounds of potato.  Superb and so Ledeuil.

Then 3 different pastas (shown to us before, above) with mushrooms, red curry and soubressade; mussels, cuttlefish and parsley; and lacquered quail, kimchi and tamarin.

For dessert we shared two portions of gianduja chocolate, coffee and miso among us.

Our bill with no bottled water save their filtered ones, 2 bottles of a fine Rhone and 4 coffees was 192€ or 96€ a couple.  The champagne and Garde Republicain were comp'd.

Aside from the incredible welcome, hugs and attentive service (night and day from yesterday, yes I mean you Millesimes 62), Himself came over and excused himself to eat with his bread and pasta suppliers, hey, be our guests, I give you some pix of the art, so very different from Ze and the pastel colored fan.

 

The Rotisserie d'Argent in the 5th: still a "zombie restaurant?"

So some history.  I've eaten at this spot for a number of years, too many to count, and it's always been pleasant, nothing bad, nothing spectacular, but always popular with the Yankees.  In 2011, Alec Lobrano coined the term "zombie restaurant," and in his thread's comments, the Tour d'Argent and its offshoot restaurant, the Rotisserie de Beaujolais, were fingered.  Well, earlier this year it reopened as the Rotisserie d'Argent and quite frankly, after Emmanuel Rubin, usually a trustworthy critic, gave it 1/5 hearts, I ignored it. 

Until two very trusted sources went and one urged me to go, specifying that their best offerings were for two apiece - they had both the cote de boeuf and the epaule d'agneau: she preferred the lamb and said the radishes with butter as a first were most worthy.  I yawned.  No, she explained, they were shaved Japanese and French radishes, with butter or butters with herbs and such.  Really different.  Ok, I'm sold. 

Ok, now the problem is I had made no plans to meet anyone today, far less made a reservation. So I called a co-blogger who is one of the few folks I know who trusts me enough to go places on a whim at my crazy say so.

5.9 La Rotisserie d'Argent, 19 quai de la Tournelle in the 5th, 01.43.54.17.47 (Metro: Maubert-Mutualite), open 7/7.  As I approached I saw a voiturier, whoa, man, this is not what I expected.  I entered and the front room guy had a bow tie straight out of a Gene Kelly musical - wow - plus he treated me like Gene Kelly even though I was wearing my Tom Wolfe white suit.  My game companion arrived, we sat cote-a-cote facing the river, cool.  What could be better in Paris on a beautiful Sunday than to look out on the Seine?

We ordered, "the lamb shoulder, please, one of us likes it raw, the other no longer moving." Our terrific waiter with another Gene Kelly tie, quickly figured out we were weird and said that the chef can do it roughly that way.  Terrific. "Anything first?"  "Yes, the radishes we've heard so much about."  "Oh oh, we're all out."  "What, out of radishes?" "How about some great escargots?"   "Ummm, ok."

So the escargots were barely ok, less garlic but more butter than usual, but sad to say the lamb was simply not up to par.  There were almost raw pieces and very done pieces, as promised, but they both required "adjustment", 

Pause, my co-diner had asked for mustard but I missed that because I was busy worrying about a woman my age who had just fallen on the floor and insisted on getting up rather than accepting my profound medical opinion to rest there a while, while the Securite guy, whom I thought was a Pompier, insisted she get up, 

No, that was later, but anyway, back to the lamb, let's say it needed a lot of adjustment with salt, pepper and very strong mustard and even then was nothing like my wife can do.  We finished with an ile flottante, she insisted on it, it was fine, but she didn't really want it and I was only sacrificing my body for Colette.

Our bill, with a bottle of wine, get this - called Baby Bad Boy - and two glasses rewarded for my medical intervention on the woman who disregarded my medical advice, NOT x2 and two coffees, was 129€.

Go? Been asleep, eh?

Le Kitchen Ter(re) in the 5th; William Ledeuil and his incredible team scooooooore again.

Background: Ever since he cooked at Savoy's Les Boquinistes in the 6th, then moved next door to establish Ze Kitchen Galerie, then opened KGB (Kitchen Galerie Bis), adjacent, we've watched and eaten his consistently surprising food - in other words, while the dishes change all the time their quality stays at the same high level.  His third place, Kitchen Ter(re) - un, bis, ter, got it?, opened a week ago, and we were only slightly surprised to be greeted at the door by his wonderful lieutenants from Ze and himself, all in blue not white.

8.0 Le Kitchen Ter(re), 26, boulevard Saint Germain in the 5th, 01.42.39.47.48, closed Sundays and Mondays, (Metro: Maubert, Cardinal Lemoine) has been touted as a bouillon and pasta place with Asian spices - but don't be fooled, this is Ledeuil doing his Top-of-the-line French food by French chefs using some foreign ingredients - everything from harissa to kimchi. We were greeted terribly warmly and given the almost impossible to decide between menu.

However before that he treated us to coups of Charles Heidsieck champagne and an incredible tomato gaspacho, which they insisted we'd had before at Ze.

Then the four of us ordered the beef tartare, mostarda and soubressade, Galician octopus with a strawberry and Nepal pepper sauce and what were essentially beignets of soft shell crab and shrimp with black sesame.  Incredible!

Our mains were a dish of chicken with harissa and confited lime, Iberian pork with kimchi and girolette, and girolles with a Thai pesto and pecorino sauce.  Did I taste everything and figure out the  tastes?, no: did the cooks among us figure them out?, yes.

We finished off with a strawberry "cappuccino" with pistachio and wasabi, a strawberry, peach and melon sorbet "fyord" and an intense Gianduja chocolate, coffee and miso delight.

Our bill, with 3 3-course and 1 2-course menus, their filtered water and two bottles of red and white Rhones, plus 3 coffees and one tea, was 192€, or 96€ a couple.  DB's = 87.8. Annoying music - nil.

Go?  Please don't, I want to go back and if you all flood the place, I'll be left outside in the cold with the smokers.

 

Alliance in the 5th: where chef Omiya continues to deliver great products, with surprising textures and tastes accompanying them.

Alliance in the 5th is one of those places that is consistently good by being surprisingly different each visit.  By now the chef, Toshitaka Omiya and his delightful front room staff know us but at this level of the game there's no way he is giving us anything special, except a friendly welcome.  That results in everyone in the small place being happy and leaving with a smile.

He started us off with two amuses, one a minibrioche and the other a crisp pastry clam shell with a dollop of anchovy; then a crab and broccoli concoction with a surprising sauce.

The fish course consisted of lieu jaune with haricots verts, intense apricot that perfectly completely complemented the blander fish and almond slivers that didn't add anything to the fish, IMHO. The sauce that accompanied the lieu was light and very flavorful. Then came two pieces of tender as can be spring lamb, wow! (with a wonderful sauce)

Desserts rolled out equally impressively; citrus fruit with mint, a vanilla mousse with shaved black olives (it may sound bizarre, but it was anything but), a chocolate mousse with nuts and perfectly lovely warm from the oven financiers.  Did I forget one chocolate at the end?

Anyway, our bill, with three bottles of wine, rec'd by the gracious front room major domo, no bottled water but two coffees, was 219€ for 4 thus 109.50€ a couple for what is called a 3-course menu.

Le Reminet in the 5th: sometimes the best ones are the old ones.

 

Le Reminet in the 5th is a place we've been coming to forever it seems, and has never disappointed. The younger members of our family were down at Notre Dame today and so it was a logical choice.

My son in law chose to have some oysters first and given his Chesapeake roots, his praise was noteworthy.

Then all of us had a main which consisted of 3 lemon soles, quite yummy, 2 line caught sea bass, equally so, and I could not have been happier with my piece of shoulder of cochon de lait.

We ended with 2 creme brûlées, a pavlova of litchis, a panna cotta and an "exotic" coco-spoom.

Our bill before our 50% discount for booking via La Fourchette was an eye popping 382 but we actually only paid 226 € or 75.33 € a couple, which for 2 bottles of wine, 2 of coke and 4 coffees was a fine price-quality.

La Table de Marie-Jeanne in the 5th: "If they had put as much money into the food as the decor; this might be better," my guest said.

5.0 La Table de Marie-Jeanne, 4, rue Toullier in the 5th, 01.42.49.87.31, closed Sundays and Mondays (Metro: Cluny), is a place whose original stone walls, new colored tiles, huge rotisserie and clever animal decorations causes you to pause at the amount of money spent on them.  My friend, the French person I know who is most knowledgeable about all things food, was there way before I was and had ample time to size up the situation - well she said "I hope they put as much money into the food as the décor (which is stunning)."  We wrestled with what to have, centering on the cotes de boeuf at 70 E for two.  Wait a minute, that's 70 E a kilogram; Whoa!  Let's look at it before buying. "Unh unh, that at least 2 kilos, no way I can eat even a quarter" I said.  OK, Plan B, the coquelet.  "We only have one left, I'm sorry" the waiter said.  "So be it.  I'll have the sausage."

 

Her coquelet was moist and properly under-cooked but needed salt; my sausage was way over-cooked and was enhanced by the sauce; and the mushrooms we both got we nice but again needed salt as did the potatoes.  For dessert we each had the chocolate cream, which was the hit of the meal.

 

Our bill, with a bottle of Cotes de Bourg that opened up quite nicely as we ate and one coffee, was 89.50 E.

Go back?  For the décor?  You're kidding.

Alliance in the 5th: How a simple dish turned into a feast.

Alliance in the 5th is one of those places whose magical cooking draws you back for reasons you can't put your finger on; it's simple, complex, multilayered and elegant.  Neither Colette nor I were seeking a big meal so we ordered one dish each and a light dessert- yah sure.

Our light dishes were a piece of fish from the waters around one of our favorite places - Noirmoutier - and sweetbreads in butter and the dessert a vanilla mousse.  But around them were a flurry of vegetables, soups, desserts and chocolates that dazzled the palate.

Our bill for this feast with one bottle of wine, no bottled water, but 2 espressos was 136 E.

And as a treat I'll leave you with this bathroom art: