John Talbott's Paris

5.1 Les Fernandes, 18, rue Guisarde in the 6th, 01.43.29.52.18, (Metro: Marbillon) open 7/7, looks like it's been around forever, with its raw wood and plethora of chalkboards and perhaps it had, but it advertises that all its dishes are made from scratch and the wine selections seemed reasonable to a rookie like me. I arrived a bit before my old friend/colleague who is in the midst of a move from the south back to Paris because of the silly tradition/law/rule that one must give up administrative hospital responsibilities at 65, no matter how competent, wise and able you are.  Anyway I had a lovely glass of white wine from Gascony and considered my options.

Originally I thought of shrimp and snails, but switched to osso bucco, which my friend also chose, followed by a "chocolate "tulip" with cream and red fruits.  I found the red sauce on the veal's knuckle too intense but the dessert was first rate.

Our bill with a bottle of Bordeaux and aforementioned glass and two espressos with tap water, was 90.50€. dB's = 71.1

Go?  It was ok, but not worth a return trip.

5.1 Les Fernandes, 18, rue Guisarde in the 6th, 01.43.29.52.18, (Metro: Marbillon) open 7/7, looks like it's been around forever, with its raw wood and plethora of chalkboards and perhaps it had, but it advertises that all its dishes are made from scratch and the wine selections seemed reasonable to a rookie like me. I arrived a bit before my old friend/colleague who is in the midst of a move from the south back to Paris because of the silly tradition/law/rule that one must give up administrative hospital responsibilities at 65, no matter how competent, wise and able you are.  Anyway I had a lovely glass of white wine from Gascony and considered my options.

Originally I thought of shrimp and snails, but switched to osso bucco, which my friend also chose, followed by a "chocolate "tulip" with cream and red fruits.  I found the red sauce on the veal's knuckle too intense but the dessert was first rate.

Our bill with a bottle of Bordeaux and aforementioned glass and two espressos with tap water, was 90.50€.

Go?  It was ok, but not worth a return trip.

The Butchers of Paname in the 6th: really nice folks, nice meat and pleasant prices.

 

5.8 The Butchers of Paname, 9, rue de l'Ecole de Medicine in the 6th (Metro: St Michel, Odeon), 01.42.39.99.49, closed Sundays is a place I ate at only yesterday it seems when it was La Cave des Cordeliers but a friend who is an expert spotter steered me here and I ate with another blogger on a rainy afternoon amid a sunny reception from the great staff.

They have an incredibly priced menu, 3 dishes for 24.50€, which today consisted of a lovely tomato gazpacho, with basil, a piece of lamb, supposedly the tenderest portion of the thigh and bio strawberries with whipped cream.  My partner had this and I think she really scored.

Unfortunately I had the other lamb described as a rollatine of deboned shoulder, both falling apart and crusty, which it was.  But for me it was too far aged toward mutton than toward milk fed.  Both came with darned good mashed potatoes with slices of pickled red onion on top, great!

Our bill, with a bottle and glass of wine, no bottled water and 2 coffees, was 68.30€.

Go?  I think so even though I probably will not, given the plethora of new meat places, despite the fact that the Jiminy Cricket on my shoulder says I should to make amends for the 25.50€ error in our favor for the undercharged wine.

Semilla in the 6th: it's been a while.

Semilla, in the 6th, a part of what I think of as the Fish Empire, was pretty damn good when it opened and was suchlike today for our gang.  From the outside, it's hard to identify it but once inside the welcome is very warm, and the language, bilingual.  After I translated the French carte for our family, one of our wait-folks did the same for a neighboring table of visitors from the East, I asked my daughter "so how good was my version?"  "His was much more descriptive" she said, diplomatically.

For firsts, among us we shared a ceviche of daurade, a platter of confited tomatoes and one of string beans.  

Then two of us went with the beautiful rouget that looked like a real fish, three with a faux filet (that came with potatoes so enriched that my cook-daughter suggested they had added a few potato flakes to pounds of butter and cream) and I had hard to beat slices of leg of lamb with my first eggplant of the summer.

The grandkids ended up sharing strawberries marinated in something.

Our bill, with no bottled water but two bottles and a glass of wine and 4 coffees, with great chocolate truffles, was 300€ or 100€ a couple.

L'Escudella in the 7th: another inventive, unusual meal.

L'Escudella in the 7th has become a consistently great place for us since a loyal reader pointed me to it earlier this year.  Today, only one table for two was not reserved, and I suspect between folks at UNESCO and the Ministry of Health, this has become a very popular place (with a lunch plat du jour costing 15€, how can it not be?)

Madame greeted us warmly and indicated several people had come on recommendation of my blog and very quickly delivered amuses which when I was 7 years old I called codfish balls, that came with an intriguing sauce.  Colette had two starters; green tomato gazpacho with verbena sorbet followed by a perfect egg with chorizo; and I had a langoustine ravioli with fluff, followed by a divine pigeon breast and foie gras crom'equis.

Then, surely having overheard Colette talk about how she wished she had room for the Brillat-Savarin on cherries, the chef sent out a dish, delicious, followed by two orders of Paris-Carcassone (a version of Paris-Brest), when only one had been ordered.

Our bill with a bottle and glass of wine, terrific bread and 2 Illy coffees, with very tasty mignardises) was 106.50 € for an unpredictably innovative meal that hit all the right high notes.

Ze Kitchen Galerie in the 6th: Another flawless meal with Ledeuil.

Ze Kitchen Galerie in the 6th remains one of our steadfast places where we and our friends can always count on tasty, innovative and talk-about-able food.  We went todays with one of our dearest friends just back from school holidays in Deauville.

Our dishes were so complex that it would be tough to list all their ingredients so I'll just hit the mains one in each: a Thai bouillon with carrots and ginger; escargots; foie gras, artichoke and peas; seiche and eel; rabbit with asparagus; wagyu beef; quail with foie gras and vegetables; daurade and vegtables (unpictured); and a pepper ice cream with chocolate and caramel.

 

Our bill, with 3 glasses of champagne (offered with M. Ledeuil's apologies for not being there today), their filtered water, bread, coffees and a bottle of wine, was 175 E or 116.66 E a couple.

Aux Pres in the 6th: Lignac breaks all the rules in presenting old dishes, but the Yankees seem to love it.

So, here's the blow by blow as Howard Cosell would say:

It's pouring drenching rain from Tempete Zeus (that gets your attention, doesn't it?) and I'm schleping my poor body with one cane over to the Rue du Dragon to one of Cyril Lignac's newest places.

Now I have a checkered career with Cyril or he does with me; I hated "Oui Chef", I cannot tell you why - it's concept, his arrogance, I couldn't stop watching but I hated every minute and vowed I'd never eat at his place(s).  But a dear friend talked me into eating at his new place in the 11th and we hated it.  So why did I go here today?  Pure masochism.  And to be honest, the reviews and a personal rec from a trusted friend.

I enter 27 Rue du Dragon, the Bar des Pres, and nope, there's no record of my reservation.  None, nul, a non-person am I.  "Try next door" says the helpful bar guy.  So, I schlep my poor body and soul next door.  Et voila, I do have a reservation here, at Aux Pres.

6.8 Aux Pres, 27, rue du Dragon in the 6th, 01.45.48.29.68, open 7/7, (Metro: Got me, but the 95 Bus is good).

The place looks like one of many, about 1/2 full of lots of Yankees who speak no French, ordering burgers and frites, Yikes, what have I gotten into?  I look at the Carte, hummmm, not bad, crusty shrimp and crispy sweetbreads, my sort of stuff.

So the shrimp comes out in a bowl, they are all cut up and decorticated amidst a sea of wonderfully spicy Japanese seaweeds, yum, but not what I expected.

The sweetbreads, crispy skinned, cut up again, in a bed of carrots and spinach, with butternut to the side, not what I expected, but.......

At this point I'd already observed one Yankee lady startled by her cheeseburger expressed surprise and then another French woman besides me looked at the tower of shredded cheese on hers and shrugged the equivalent of WTF, and I leaned over, which I never do and said in French "Bizarre, eh?"  Translation "bizarre, eh?" and she agreed or vice versa.

So, I ordered a dessert knowing at this point it would not be my French Mother's version of pain perdu, and it was not.

At some point I had pulled out my handy dandy decibel meter that showed 85.8 and a sharp waitguy asked what it was, so I was outed either as an EC noise inspector or busybody.  Whatever!

Ok, my bill, for a couple, with no bottled water but a bottle of wine, awful bread and two coffees with their madeleines, count on 133 E.

Go back?  Were it not for the prices, yes.  Ah, screw it, I'll come back.  And go next door too.

Quinsou in the 6th: Wonderful farm to table food and superb house made bread from heirloom flour.

7.5 Quinsou, 33, rue de l'abbe Gregoire (yes, just down the street from Cezembre which I rated a 7.6 just recently) in the 6th, 01.42.22.66.09, closed Sundays and Mondays (Metro: St Placide) is another place started by a chef, Antonin Bonnet, who has left the Sergent Recruter and also been a victim of the Jeune Rue fiasco.  The name is that of a small bird in Lozere that rarely sings and its one of the few places I've eaten at that prints the name of the heirloom flour producer providing the makings of their superb bread.

It's one of those places with a superbly priced "menu", here 3 courses for 35 E, along with a few other dishes which alone are about the same.  We two writers on food, though, liked the sound of the "menu" and so let'er rip.  We started with a soft egg on pork belly (ventrèche) and kale - terrific; then lieu jaune which by itself was very good but with the mussels, sweet butternut puree and white wine sauce was even better; and a dessert of incredibly light Tonka vanilla cream on a shell of chestnuts and chocolate that topped the meal off perfectly.

Our bill, with a bottle of wine, no bottled water but 2 coffees, was 115 E.  dB's 84.1

Go?  For sure.

Cezembre in the 6th: Wow the price-quality here in Tourist Town is exceptional.

Cezembre in the 6th is/was a place I loved a few weeks ago and repeated today with a famous blogger/food writer; she and Colette beat me to the place because of the rookie bus driver I had and numerous double-parked UPS/etc. vans.  In any case, our charming English-speaking waitguy had explained the possibilities of the 1-2-1 28 E 3-course "menu" to my companions and they briefed me on it.  The primary choice was the main - merlu (hake) or chicken - and predictably I went for the meat and they, the fish.

So, we started off with Chef Anthony Hamon's superb Breton version of langoustines on an intense parsnip puree with shitakes, chives and teeny tiny slices of chorizo.  Then it was onto the Merlan (hake) on a dense yummy risotto and chicken with a dense-intense veal sauce.  Finally came poached pear bits with kiwis, caramelized peanuts and salted caramel ice cream.

Our bill with no bottled water but 2 bottles of wine (a Loire and Rhone), great bread and fine coffee, was 146.50 E for 3 or 97.66 E a couple.

Ze Kitchen Galerie: It just keeps getting better and better.

 

Ze Kitchen Galerie in the 6th remains one of Colette and my favorites and we were delighted to share our enthusiasm with two folks from the old neighborhood autumning in Paris.  Despite our living 7 clicks away, this has always seemed to us to be our neighborhood cantine where one always encounters a warm welcome, delightful service and ever-surprising food from a 3-star chef (don't worry, the Michelin will eventually catch up).

Said chef started us off with a light cold cucumber soup; then I moved on to octopus with a nifty spicy sauce; and then we were all treated to another soup, this of coconut milk, girolles, beans and lemon grass.

Our mains consisted of a lovely piece of cod, succulent strips of lamb and squid slices with tempered vegetables sprinkled lightly with salt - truly delicious to the nth degree.

Desserts consisted of the innovative presentations of figs, plums and white chocolate with wasabi "cigarettes".

Our bill, with their filtered water, plus 3 glasses of wine and one of beer (all offered) and 3 coffees, was 106.25 a couple.