May 09 yam’Tcha Shan Gout Frenchie Passage 53

[John Talbott]

May 09: yam’Tcha, Shan Gout, Frenchie, Passage 53, Marcab, Reminet, Nominoë, Volnay, L’Invitation, Issé, Titalina, l’Atelier Mazarine, La Baignoire

Flawless, almost to a fault.

8.0 yam'Tcha [sic], 4, rue Sauval in the 1st, 01 40 26 08 07, closed Mondays and Tuesdays, has a lunch menu at 30 €, tasting menu 65 and dinner 45 €. There are no choices but you are asked if you have any food issues. They asked if we wanted to start with the house aperitif, which is 9 €, but I only learned that on scoping the wine list; instead I chose a Bordeaux at 25 € and my charming partner shared one glass and then did the tea pairings pleading jet-lag – 12 € for 3, which are delivered with a mini-lecture by Chiwah Chan, the husband of the chef – one Adeline Grattard who worked at the Aleno-era Scribe + l’Astrance under Barbot. I’d asked several friends/critics/etc if this was Asian or fusion or world food and been told it was Asian-inspired and it is. They brought a “welcome” tea – oolong – most welcome. The amuse bouche was/were microtomed Japanese radishes much like one is served in ryokans before dinner. Delicious, light and almost ethereal. The first course was cold asparagus (that had been cooked and marinated, I suspect, in a very dilute rice wine), again delicious, light and almost ethereal, with a small but most adequate piece of sauteed foie gras, you’ve got it – d…, l… and e…. How foie gras can be so light I have no idea. The main was a large piece of mackerel, most unfishy, atop cabbage and an emulsion of capsaicin, of the very light type: d, l and e. Afterwards, I chose the cheese, a mixture of mixed gorgonzola and mascarpone with olive oil and she had strawberries and ginger ice cream with a ginger tuile. The coffee produced another sticker shock – 4 €. However, with two menus, 1 bottle of wine, 4 teas and no coffee or bottled water, our bill was still only 97 €.

Can’t you find fault here? Yes, it’s very polished and perhaps too flawless and given the fixed menu(s), it would probably better to do what Spring does, insist that everyone come at a set time and serve dishes promptly, instead of clearly causing customers to wait between courses until the laggards catch up.

Go? I suspect you will whatever I say.

Best Chinese meal of the year, century, two centuries? Could be.

7.8 Shan Gout, 22, rue Hector Malot in the 12th, 01.43.40.62.14, closed Mondays, a la carte about 30 €, is one terrific place. Now, I rated yam’Tcha ahead of Shan Gout numerically, despite the fact that I think it is better. What’s up here? Well, while I think that this is/was the best Chinese meal I’ve ever, ever had, and that counts Hong Kong and Chinese chefs in Sai Gon in the 60’s, China in the ‘70’s, San Francisco and New York since the ‘50’s and Paris more recently, I don’t want certain schmucks going here and ruining it. It’s a gem; 24 covers, in an area Aurelie Chaigneau, in the JDD, calls the [sic] “no man’s land of restaurants,” chef’d by a guy so guileless that when he grabbed his coat to leave before any orders had been taken, my mouth opened with horror, my face fell and I tumbled to the floor: it’s OK, Monsieur, he assured me, I’m just going out for the (fresh) fish, be right back. The whole experience is an experience. The outside looks like a Chinese antique store, sign in Chinese hanzi, aka in Japanese – kanji, all over, who knows it’s a restaurant (Ans. The neighbors my friends). Enter, cool big-tummied Buddha one can’t resist rubbing for good luck, sit at beautiful/industrial/appropriate tables; incredible menu, a sort of cross between Taillevent’s wine list and the dioramic displays outside Japanese restaurants; when opened it’s a butterfly (as my eating pal noted), had pictures and descriptions in French and English (not always in concordance, for example porc = fish). Oh well. Amuse bouche: slivered apples with basil – basil? in China, come on guy, get a grip; well, it was great. We order. My partner has a really, really, sensitive intestine (I knew this, I cannot even leave her my raw veggies when I go away, did my bringing her here reveal some deep-seated hatred of French women my age? – I dunno, ask a Baltimore psychoanalyst.) Judge, judge, I didn’t know many of the dishes were Szechuanese. OK, she ordered noodles with sesame sauce and cabbage and told them to hold back the peppers (they did); sounds like standard but tasty Broadway in the 80’s food, eh?; un unh; incredible, no sesame sauce like that ever I’ve had. I had what the aforementioned Aurelie Chaigneau in today’s JDD, said was their plat de resistance – slivered cucumbers with peppery oil – ordered medium hot (whew, I don’t want his hot hot) - simple, dumb to order, why am I doing this? Divine, sliced cucumber with hot sauce? Yah. Then my guest had chicken with chestnuts; now, I do wok’d chicken but it doesn’t taste anything like his tender tiny bits with succulent chestnuts. I now run out of superlatives. My sliced pork Szechuan-style was also without fault. At some point, I’m talking with Madame and I say this stuff is really good and she says - read the intro to the menu (which I thought I had); no MSG, old recipes, simple approach. Jadis I thought; we may have a new generation that’s going back to the future. Now the bill; best meal of the year, best Chinese meal of the century, best chef I’ve watched work in years (Sorry, Daniel), 100 € a person, right? or 500 € a couple? Nope. Four dishes, one bottle of Bordeaux, no desserts (they don’t have ‘em), no bottled water or coffee = 46.90 €. That’s one reason I’m rating it so low.

Don’t go, please, there are no tablecloths, no voituriers, no fortune cookies, please don’t go.

This year’s Ze, Spring, Afaria, Bigarrade?; Maybe.

7.0 Frenchie, 5, rue du Nil in the 2nd, 01 40 39 96 19, closed Sundays, Mondays and Tuesday lunch, is chef’d by an ex-Jamie Oliver Fifteen, ex-New York but very French guy and serves only “menus,” which are product-driven and market-available, at lunch it’s 16 for 2 dishes and 19 € for three - dinner menus for 27 or 33 €. We chose the pea soup (with a zing) and heirloom tomatoes which were – isn’t there a synonym for terrific? Then we both had the deconstructed paleron of beef on a bed of fab carrots. I ordered the pannacotta with strawberries and rhubarb and ? candied ginger crisps; simply the best dessert in years. With three coffees and a bottle of their cheapest, no bottled water, the bill was 62.40 €, I jest not.

Go? Am I speaking Urdu or what?

Another next great thing.

6.8 Passage 53, 53 Passage des Panoramas in the 2nd, 01 42 33 04 35, closed Sundays, a la carte 38-44 €, serves what Alexandre Cammas of Le Fooding called “half-terroir, half-Japanesy food.” Well, 50% of the staff is Asian and the raw fish is certainly sushi-grade but it could pass for French too. I went today with my closest food pal who has an unerring eye for the good stuff and she loved it (I did too). The menu on weekdays at lunch consisted (at least the day before we were there) of many of the things we were offered today for firsts and desserts but the one main was a breast of Bresse chicken (at 19 € I’d certainly go for it). Today, a weekend, off the carte, she ordered two starters; the first, a pea soup that I found less interesting than that at Frenchie but his “signature” veal tartare on a bed of chopped chilled oysters and chives was nickel. Meanwhile I had the best carpaccio of daurade ever with a touch of oil, baby tomatoes, teeny halved artichokes and chives, followed by pigeon, very undercooked and also of the highest quality. We split the cheese/dessert course; the comte and goat with mango confiture were super as was/were the pannacotta with litchi and bay (yes bay). With a bottle of Cahors, 2 Illy coffees and no bottled water our bill was 103.60 €.

Go? Most assuredly, except for the goofy chairs (hey, they call it a restaurant/lounge) - it was flawless.

I came with a prejudice and was pleasantly surprised.

6.2 Le Marcab, 225, rue de Vaugirard in the 15th, 01.43.06.51.66, open 7/7, has a confusing set of menus for 16, 25 and 35 € and a englassed list of wines by the glass as well as a printed list by the bottle. From the outside it looked swank and inside swanker and the website and wallpaper are scary. But the folks and food are anything but. The chef, Yann Le Port, looks about 12 and he and the waitstaff were most charming. That gets most of my prejudices out: open 7/7 (unh unh), many menus (whas’this?), weird wallpaper; oh, and only one review that I’d seen, that by Emmanuel Rubin of only 2 hearts, although today he gave it a 6.5/10 in his Spring finds, the equivalent of Frenchie, Barbezingue + Petit Champerret which I really like. In any case I went with a far-from-snooty friend from snooty Cambridge and we loved it. We decided to order one 16 € 3-course and one 25 € 4-course menu and shared a lot. The firsts were a vichyssoise with lox and foie gras (fantastic) and raviolis of asparagus with lentin du chêne mushrooms (equally). Then came another hot first, a filet of rouget with a (I swear) parmesan sauce and smashed potatoes that were divine. Our mains were a beautifully cooked ample piece of cod with a thick tomato Provencal sauce/condiment and a piece of veal (overcooked for me but I wasn’t asked) with incredible thinly sliced spring veggies and a puzzling (wild thyme) topping. Desserts were a great strawberry and rhubarb crumble with a delicious “crumble: and a sort of apple napoleon. Coffee came with lukewarm tiny chocolate moelleux’s. With one apero, a bottle of wine, the two menus, coffee and no bottled water, our bill was an astonishing 69.40 €.

Go? Trust me not the warning signs; yes.

Well, well, well: what a surprise!

6.0 Le Reminet, 3, rue des Grands-Degres in the 5th, 01.44.07.04.24, now open 7/7, lunch menu 14 € except weekends, a la carte 40-50 €, is a place “our gang” used to love, then fell on hard times, changed owners/etc., was revived and given a back-of-the-hand review by E. Rubin in March ’07 saying it had gone from bistronomic to touristy. But an article in ANP April 13th about good value local places (tables solides) put it in the same category as Le Gaigne, Passage 53 + Firmin and that was good enough to get my juices running. Plus Berger/Toinard noted that the chef had been through Polynesia, Madagascar, the Antilles and St Martin so I expected an exotic twist. The exterior and business card are unchanged but inside it’s totally different and has a different “feel” to it. First, the host knows almost all the diners; second, the menus and cartes are very limited but look good; third, it has a real neighborhood feel to it (anti-tourist M. Rubin, at least at lunch); and they have a big kitchen staff for this size resto. The pricing is weird. The 3-course lunch menu is 14 € but the two entrees are also 14 €, so there’s no use going farther. It’s a 2/2/2 deal; and I chose the tuna salad, perch and choc mousse. The tuna “salad” was unlike any I’d had before: a mélange of tuna and potatoes and dressing on top fennel and carrots rapeed; quite good. I ordered the perch because my buddy Paga says he can never find it and alone it would have been blah, but with the veggies and fluffy sauce, it was terrific. The chocolate mousse was also quite fine with drizzled chocolate sauce and the bread warm and inviting. The wines run from 4.50 € a glass to a Ch. Latour for 2,690 €. Thus, depending on what you choose in food and wine, one person can spend 23 € for the menu and two glasses of wine or 77 €+ for a la carte and say, one of their “coup de coeur” wines.

Go? I’d say so, though on weekends it could get pricey.

And, now, for something completely different.

5.0* Nominoë, 13 rue Castex in the 4th, 01.42.72.95.35, closed Sundays, with apologies to Monty Python, is truly “something completely different.” It is small (12 counter stools and 8 seats), 100% Breton, except for the coffee, and features only a few dishes but all from producers whom the owner knows. Since I arrived early he offered me a Breton aperitif, a pommeau, that was perfect. My friend and I each started with three oysters from the owner’s brother-in-law M J.J. Bescond of Beg ar Vill, that were eaten without lemon, etc, just good bread and good Breton butter. Then my friend had smoked andouille with smashed potatoes (with herbs) and a mixed salad and I had the chalkboard special - chicken with a terrific spicy Concarneau cider sauce, tagliatelles and a similar salad. We finished with two portions of nice far with a caramel sauce. With this we tried two Coreff beers, a stout that wasn’t like the stout we’re used to and a bitter like beer that was. My friend spirited off the bill but I think I saw that it was 57.30 €, a very fair sum. As we were saying goodbye the host showed us two whiskeys that were Breton as well.

Go? Well not as a destination or if you need chairs and tablecloths, *but for a nice simple Breton meal, sure!

Fine for businessmen but just not exciting.

5.0 Le Bistro Volnay[sic], 8, rue Volney [sic] in the 2nd, 01.42.61.06.65, closed weekends, was described as an old place chef’d by a new guy who comes from Chez Michel (of course, you never know at what level or for how long) but it sounded interesting enough to try with an old friend, indeed my oldest continuous French friend. I approached the place with trepidation, whoa, next to the Park Hyatt, fancy entry, all suits and ties and all men, most (around us) speaking English, an imposing menu, with hefty supplements for anything not on the “menu.” The waitladies were described by Philippe Toinard enticingly and they were indeed most welcoming. There is a 24 € 3 course meal to be had at the counter that my pal briefly considered but we had a lot of catching up to do that such seating would make talking awkward. So we both had the 3 course lunch menu at 38 €. She started with razor clams in butter and I with a fine salmon tartare with a great assortment of fresh herbs on top. Then she had lamb chops that were not really as tasty as they should be at this time of year and I had a veal stew with spring veggies in a cocotte that was good but not great either. She had a clafoutis of apples, quite unusual and good and I an equally good chocolate cake, both with ices that were OK. Our bill with 2 Illy coffees, a bottle of wine and no bottled water was 98 €.

Go? After the other places I’ve been hitting this year, I really cannot recommend you rush to it. There was nothing wrong, just nothing really great.

May Day, May Day, not really.

4.8 L'Invitation, 82, rue Boileau in the 16th, 01-46-47-87-19, menus at lunch 35 & 42, a la carte: 50-60 €, closed weekends, was a compromise place that was open on May Day when three of us were debating about and searching for a new place open on this first of the May holidays that seem to shut France down (when I originally asked one of the other two about this place he wrote “Who gives a f*** about a former Lavinia chef?!” but he eventually came around.) May Day 2009 saw the zillion unions march together for the first time since 1968 and the price of muguets (lily of the valleys) zoom to 2 Euros a bunch since their introduction in the 16th century as a good luck marriage charm. The place is run by a husband and wife team, ex–Lavinia as he said, hence a good selection of wines. We chose not to do the 42 € forced choice menu (the goat and artichoke starter and strawberries and rhubarb dessert sounded OK - but the main?) We more or less shared things off the carte: a vastly oversalted crème brulee of white lentils with foie gras ice cream/semifreddo that was great in concept but gagging to eat and an Ok but not great salad of raw asparagus chopped like scallions with a half a Canadian lobster (that’s right, ½). The huge piece of Basque pork was terrific and the beans with it even more so (but again a heavy hand had been on the salt cellar) and the carpaccio of veal (on everyone’s menu this spring) was fine. We had no desserts or coffee but tried lots of wines – a Riesling, Cotes du Rhone, Mosse and Gavi – and the bill if we’d had just one plain bottle and the four courses would be 102 €. The cannelés post meal were quite fine too.

Go? Well since the “May Day” ship cry derives from “m'aidez,” I suppose.

The second coming of who? I don’t think so.

4.0 Issé, 45, rue de Richelieu in the 2nd, 01.42.96.26.60, closed Sundays and Mondays, is a place all the critics have been falling all over themselves about, calling it the nouvelle cuisine Japonaise. Well, so, I went with probably excess expectations of really neat, new stuff not seen in Japan, San Fran or NY. The place is impressive and big, stark and has some very noteworthy features – ie stones on the floor of the loo – how do they clean the….. (stop it John). With my bad knee, connected to my bad ankle, connected to my bad heel, of course they seated me limpingly in the dank basement where the music blared incessantly – only American songs – if I’d heard “my boots are made for walking” or “I’ll be there” one more time I swear I would have screamed. While there’s a 12-14 piece carte, one does tend to go toward the bento with Lord knows how many ingredients, all tastingly described, in order to sample the genius of this guy. I started with the tempuras of artichoke and other veggies, ok, then the salmon, ok, then the grilled eel, wait a minute, this should be neck-snapping and it’s only ok, and on and on. Except for the “spaghettis” of agar-agar and shaved radish, I could do as well or better even in Baltimore. And, and, and, the confit de canard was disgraceful; banal, huge and no better than at the “traditional French” resto next door. They were out of all the “interestingly priced” wines, but glasses were only 7 € (sputter) but the desserts were a level above; a “cheesecake” and crème of what seemed to me to be white chocolate. But one doesn’t come to a Japanese restaurant for cheesecake. The bill with the bento and 2 glasses of wine but no bottled water or coffee was 39 €.

Go? Occasionally the big boys, when they haven’t been outside Paris for a while, fall in love with bland food.

For this neighborhood, a real find.

3.0 Titalina, 73, rue Duhesme in the 18th, 01.42.59.33.47, closed Mondays, is a place I’ve passed time out of mind since it opened in January but today on the way to lunch, foe some reason it caught my eye; I went over; scoped the ardoise and developed an appetite over the next 9 hours. The sign says Cap Vert – Portuguese; so after lunch I ran back and Googled Cape Verde food and got fish and Brazilian type stuff. OK. [backstory: while not a sensible neighborhood, we have our fair share of Antilles/African/etc. places and my buddy Paga and I have been known to indulge ourselves at a place that thankfully closed, in N’Dole and spicy chicken wings, a variety of wings that the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, a block from where my father and I practiced sorcery, never knew.] In any case, I drifted down there and took my obligatory pix and installed myself (all alone for the night). They had no fish, no fish?, isn’t this what your country is known for?, but only one chicken and one lamb dish. I asked what was typical Cape Verde food; the lamb! Hum! Expecting nothing better than what I had in the frigo - cold chicken and beans in garlic, I commenced. The cook-type guy ambled up; like some hot sauce?; you know, I almost brought over some harissa or Tabasco in case, but didn’t. Sure. Well, it was delicious, better than any lamb stew I could make and I’m ashamed to admit it: but (1) it was gutsier than my lunch at yam’Tcha which left me with a trou, (2) the rice and potatoes (halved) – albeit super carbos - Dr Sears, sorry – were terrific, and (3) the “sauce,” which thinking I had a French palate, they warned me off, was perfect. My bill (wine no bottled water or coffee) was 18 €; take that Tim Geithner!

Go? For the world, nah! But for the ‘nabe, yah and tomorrow they insist they’ll have fish.

Bobo, Branché, Boring.

2.8 l’Atelier Mazarine, 43, rue Mazarine in the 6th, 01.43.54.12.43, open 7/7, costing a la carte about 40 € (weekday lunch formula at 18 € and le “snacking chic” on weekends), was my typical Hail Mary pass. In the middle of a 3 or 4 or 5 day holiday weekend, let’s hear it for the ponts of May; I needed a new place to take my oldest Parisian friend. I poured over my notes, documenti and websites – places were either closed or “old” or undesirable. So this place, which is in another cursed location, changing hands every few years (La Soumman, Bistro Mazarin) accepted my reservation and to update what E Rubin said, weekends are no longer devoted to brunch, but “le snacking chic. It’s a nifty looking place with a cool bathroom and cool tables and of course cool slate for plates. I suspect at lunch it’s very bourgeois and at night very bohemian; with a huge wine and alcohol list but much smaller “snack” list. Most of the stuff is ordinary sounding (scrambled eggs, salad, jambon, risotto, haché) but there is a plat du jour, poisson du marche and dessert du jour. While I liked the sound and price of the beef filet plat du jour, our waitress warned me that it couldn’t be underdone (how did she know I eat raw beef?) but the entrecote could – so voila! It was OK – thin and tough but big - and the two hearts of lettuce were great but the fries were disgraceful – soggy and blah. Madame ordered the fish, a very nice piece of lieu with an intriguing accompaniment of zucchini/veggies and slices of orange peel. To terminate (and as she said, to test their ability to do pastry) she ordered the café gourmand – the pastry and such was pretty bad and left unfinished by us both. I had a simple coffee – OK. That, plus a bottle of Orangerie Cotes du Rhone (which has a great distributor from the looks of how many places carry it) was 67.50 €.

Go? Unless your kid is learning French at Eurocentres nearby or you're stuck for a May Day weekend lunch, I think not.

It must be kid food, but it ain’t for me.-

0.1 La Baignoire, 151 bis, rue Marcadet in the 18th, 01-53-41-63-04, 2 courses = 24, 3 = 29 €. I had two possibilities for dinner; one, that featured “bio, natural, unfiltered, etc” wines, was recommended to me by my best buddy, but was way the hell up the “Mont” and the other is a place a new 20’ish friend of mine (very plugged in, interesting and knowledgeable) who lives in the area, told me about; it was an easy 10 minute flat walk. With my swiftly degenerating knees; I chose #2. When I called to make a rez, no one answered, I left a message, a guy called back 8 hours later (but I then later learned that this is their M.O., they don’t answer their phone – OK, no pressure, relaxed, they’re into Sarkoland’s “cool, cool, zen, zen, calme, calme.” As I strolled up, trying with my decrepitude to be “cool, cool, zen, zen, calme, calme,” I was greeted by the three principals all furiously smoking on the curb (they disappeared at various points of the evening to boost their nicotine levels.) However, the guys doing the cooking, who looked Mauricien to me, never left their stations. Ok, Barack smokes, but he’s trying to stop. Look at the ardoise(s), one every 3 feet. Sort of OK stuff; chose the scallops (wrapped in bacon) salad with ecrevettes (and salmon wrapped around goat cheese) on nice mache; if I were Jean-Pierre Coffe on “Panic in the Kitchen,” I’d advise them to lose the bacon and goat cheese, just present the fresh products unadorned. Then I had the lamb’s knuckle with sub-pathetic potatoes; a blander, more boring piece of meat I cannot recall ever having. Then, are you kidding, dessert? I’m outa there. By then, they’d turned away folks, were packed with Bobo’s and a few of their parents and when I walked home by the Cottage Marcadet, it was empty. So, go figure! Service?; the end-to-end, not-exactly-young, smoking waitress who had a non-charming whiskey tenor voice, had her shirt tucked out and hair unwashed, not exactly my idea of professionalism. The bill, ouch, you’ve seen my recent figures above, gosh, gee, with two dishes, a coupla glasses of wine, no bottled water, no dessert or coffee, no, sir, Mr. CIA-man, I’m not going to tell. Worst prix-qualité ratio of the year.

Go? If water-boarded, sleep-deprived and nude with jazz music played in my ears, I guess so, but save that, unh unh.

[Christopher Haatuft]

great reviews. thank you.

[Chanterelle]

Le Marcab pleased three of us very much. Make that four if you include the 9-year-old, who cleaned his plate and then fidgeted till mom lent him her phone to play video games -- but I was impressed at how kindly the staff accommodated him. Food was delicious and service was most welcoming. A really nice evening.

I've had very good luck with your suggestions on frequent trips to Paris over the last six months. Now my friends here always want me to pick the resto!