June 07 Grand Pan, Villa Corse 2, Léon, Véry, René, P Pascal, Juveniles, Georges, Panis, Escargot, Prosper, Oriental, Shandong A real find in a strange place, but hey. 7.0 Le Grand Pan, 20, rue Rosenwald in the 15th, 01.42.50.02.50, closed Saturday lunch and Sundays is to hell and gone, for me anyway, on a street that is nondescript quinzieme nada. The famous Muss’Bar was taken over by Christian Etchebest and his second, Benoit Gauthier, who looks about 10 years old (I know, I’m really getting older) a few weeks ago and already has notched 3 hearts and 4 blocks; it’s clearly hot; I reserved two days ahead and they asked for my phone number. It’s small (40 covers max, including the bar); very welcoming; all no-smoking and all French, and has lots of regular dishes (3 fish, several meats) plus 4 plats for 2 (beef, veal and pork), firsts and desserts (from light melon soup to a big éclair). My downstairs neighbor and I agreed to split the interesting-sounding stuff: so she started with a millefeuille of veggies draped with crisp belly bacon and accompanied by a pesto sauce and I the absolutely spectacular coques and mussels sitting atop a cold (perfect on this hot, humid day) platform of eggplant caviar. Then she had the daurade (whose skin was crisply crunchy) with a side sauce of intense tomato and maybe pepper – pretty damn good, while I had what said it was pork cheeks in red wine but looked and tasted more like a splendid beef or veal stew and fell apart on touch and was draped with foie gras with a tasty polenta (my guest announced it the best of her lifetime) side. We were unable to finish the sides nor order dessert but I’ll guess they’d be as good; they were huge and good-looking passing by. The bread and coffee were good, it has a bathroom where the lights turn on automatically and they have paper towels rather than that annoying blower. Bio wines start at about 13 E for a liter and our Chinon was just fine. Our bill = 55 €. Go? We’re taking our best French friend/colleagues there in three weeks exactly. Q. Do we really need another Corsican place in Paris? 7.0 La Villa Corse (Rive Droite), 141, ave de Malakoff in the 16th, 01.40.67.18.44, closed Sundays is the recently opened twin of its 15th Arr sib but according to the general manager, serves lighter food. It can run one 40-60 € and wines run from the 20’s on up but it also has a 25 € lunch menu with two dishes and a generous glass of wine, that my guest, the VIP food writer (more later) and I had. It reflected the much larger carte but was representative of its essential contents. My fellow diner ordered a soup of tomato and oranges with a quenelle of brocciu that was very, very tasty and I had a pressé of beef layered with carrot and turnip strips that had just enough jelly and had a sauce that set it off perfectly, alongside was a nice salad; then we proceeded to a veal stufatu with teeny tiny potatoes and black olives and two strips of perfectly cooked daurade on tomatoes, greens and spicy parsley; both superb. She finished with an olive and walnut financier that was good and came with ice cream and some fruit. The usuals – tapenade on toast, 3 breads, coffees and mignardises - were all excellent. Oh, the décor: Lord, my guest and I separately arrived at the same impression, although I said it was halfway between whore house red and elegant velvet and she thought the latter was more like late Corsican mafia housing. The downstairs book-covered room has low chairs that don’t allow someone of my height to sit without his legs crossed in front; the cigar bar on the right has couches and the main room and balcony, wicker-type chairs and banquettes with lots of pillows. (The no smoking section is off to the left on entering; one must ask, esp since the place is packed; I originally sat on the balcony and was assaulted with tobacco smoke finding its way north; realizing there was no ventilation, I requested to move.) When we finished I turned to her and said, “We’ll never come back, no?” and she said “Right.” “Why?” “The lack of warmth,” added to the rawness and boredom of waitstaff (one waitress looked at her watch more than once) and the stuffy-proper 16th clientele. But the more I think back on it, I think I will. There wasn’t a misstep. The bill? John? I knew I was leaving something out. Well, my famous-enough to be recognized co-diner so charmed the general manager whom she’d recognized from the Closerie de Lilas, where he’d worked for 10 years, that he comp’d us to the dessert and coffees, so I figure what was a 56 € addition should be more like 76 €. Still and all, not at all bad for this quality food in this fancy neighborhood. A. Yes Chez means Yeah in this case 5.5 N* Chez Léon, 40, rue Legendre in the 17th, 01.42.27.06.82, closed weekends, was described by Emmanuel Rubin as down home cooking with a modern flair. It’s the sort of place where everyone who enters (even the delivery and tradespeople), says hello to the room, everyone who enters (even me), is greeted like a regular customer, and where the couple next to me who trekked in from Marne La Vallée, didn’t talk with each other at all, but talked the ears off the bartender/waiter/?co-owner. In other words, it was my kinda place; and it was recently taken over and totally renovated with red chairs offset by stark white walls with stunning results. It follows Olivier Morteau’s immortal formula of taking a place in a culinary desert, putting in a good chef and charging reasonable prices. It’s surely a desert, miles from any metro stop; has a seasoned but willing-to-innovate chef; and charges 24 for 2 dishes and 32 for 3 at lunch and 28 and 34 € respectively for dinner. The wines come by the glass (4.50+), 50 cl pot (19+) and bottles (22€+). There are three specials a day, all of which looked great to me (a bunny terrine, cod with coques and a baba) but I chose three generous slices of foie gras de canard, under-sautéed perfectly (I thought the bread looked pedestrian but used to soak up the foie gras juice, it is juice, eh?, not fat?, it was perfect) which was served with a tartelette of turnips – yum. Then I had the thigh of rabbit which looked tough and overcooked, with cebettes (yes, I had to look it up too) but when one put the leek/scallion/baby onion-like cebettes on it, turned out to be just fine. Again, as I looked around me, both locals and Ile de France visitors seemed to be really enjoying their fish (four, I believe), meat (the rognons looked especially good) and veggies. I had ratte potatoes which I didn’t do much of, being on the End-Zone Diet, which involves tackling “Dr” Barry Sears behind the goal-line, nullifying all fat. Finally, I had the baba, which despite cold raspberries, was quite wonderful. Coffee good, long chat with owner/co-owner, who showed me around, bill = 4+€ for the foie gras, but without it, one could easily exit for 44 €. Should one go? Sure, but you won’t, recall, it’s in the desert between Villiers and the Pont Cardinet. A nifty place, if you’re walking in the Tuileries, and it’s hot and you’re hungry. 5.0 tho HS* Le Café Véry, in the middle (N-S) of the Tuileries, 2/3rds towards the Concorde/Jeu de Paume/Orangerie side, 01.47.03.94.84, open everyday from 10 AM, has been here for years my RFC (real food critic) friend tells me, but it’s recently been under the supervision/advice/ guidance of Gilles Choukroun, he whom I loved at Le Café des Delices and loved/hated at the l’Angl’Opera. In any case it’s one of a kind, sort of half-café, half-high end snack-food, half-really good stuff, so it winds up being 150% OK. We, being un-French-customized, started off with bottles of Chat. Delanoye and a Touraine. The menu has 1sts of tabouli and smoked salmon, 2nds of cod, salmon and veal and some desserts from Pierre Hermé – but we had none of those, instead they brought out everything at once, which was a bit disconcerting, but it was the waitress’s first day, she had never opened a bottle or poured a glass of wine (amazing in this day and age, but….). In any case the RFC had cheese balls in a Mason jar a la Aux Lyonnais with a piece of toast with tapenade (not bad) followed by a tartare MBC (ah hah, even he didn’t know what that was – turns out it stands for mango, basil & coriander) equally not bad. I scored tho’ I think, better, with two starters really – a so called exceedingly long chicken spring roll with a side basil sauce and a wonderfully spicily-again dressed pile of greens and a so called gazpacho which was really a dense, terrifically spicy tomato salsa into which one dipped spicy radishes, with a rondelle of butter on a strip of bamboo that I thought was something else until I bit into it – ohmagawd! Heaven. The bread and coffee were so-so but to sit there in the gardens, besides the sculpture, talking food, tennis and culture with my favorite RFC – it should count as a 10. The bill, ah, here my friends, we must do a bit of dissembling because the devil made us have a second bottle, so for ordinary human beings it would have been a mere 67.60 E. One caution, for some reason, the earth outside, if one sits there, is not packed but powdery and if you set your bag, backpack, etc down, you’ll regret it. Should one go? Under the circumstances stated above, do it, but it’s not haute gamme nor a destination place. It is what it is and Gilles has redeemed himself in my book. You can go home again. So long as you’re patient, which I’m not. 4.0 Chez René, 14, bvd St Germain in the 5th, 01.43.54.30.23, closed Sundays and Mondays is one of those old haunts that somehow fell off the screen, partly because we went only for the coq au vin. Thus, when it was announced that it was reopening under new management, I thought it might warrant a revisit. On my way there, I had to fight my way through a fair number of cross-dressed or transvestite individuals who were apparently getting a headstart on tomorrow’s Mother’s Day fete, and my tour up St Germain revealed a huge change in the restaurant scene (reported in our Faits Divers thread). In any case, they have a huge terrace spilling out on the street (which the Americans present preferred), that I don’t recall, and the interior seems bigger too (where the French, including disgraced former Mayor Jean Tiberi, who with Alain Juppé, took the political bullets aimed at Jacques Chirac, and his no-show, over-paid wife Xavière, smiling like they were running for office, chose to eat.) It’s all no smoking said the patron, once he finally had time to seat me (I’d just read François-Régis Gaudry’s review of the Grand Pan where he’d waited 10 minutes to be recognized/seated, so I figured it was not an anti-American statement). The cool, creamy-chivy amuse bouche was just right and the accompanying toast and roll quite a bit more than decent. I ordered the sautéed girolles, really looking forward to them, despite their price (19 € for 250 gm,) because they smelled terrific as they went by me; nope, he lied and said “we don’t have any,” not, we don’t have any more, “it being Saturday.” So I settled on rillettes which were standard and then the emblematic coq au vin, which was moist but needed a boost of salt (but since I was the youngest person in the place, I made no mental plaint, figuring they were keeping folks’ blood pressure down). I finished with 250 gm of strawberries from the “woods,” which were bigger than fraises du bois, with crème fraiche – very nice, albeit a bit chilly. The wait again between 1st and main was too long and between asking for the check and getting it long enough to prompt an offer of a second coffee (disclosure: accepted). The bill = 50.50 €; the judgment = it is what it is, no less, no more. Should one go? If you’re patient of personality, live nearby and want comfort food. A big but welcome surprise. 3.5 Petit Pascal, 33 rue Pascal in the 13th , 01.45.35.33.87, closed weekends was recommended to me by my favorite 18th Arr. cook book writer/blogger who offered to venture with me into the deepest darkest deserted corner of the 13th to try this place. I love this area because it features streets bearing the names of all the great French neuroscientists of yore: Pinel, Broca, Esquirol, plus a few great painters – Rubens, Veronese, etc. Coming in I was impressed by the number of chalkboards: one with charcuterie and cheese; one with wines, one with specials, one with starters, one with mains and the last with desserts. The place is run by two grey-helmet-headed women of a certain age who couldn’t have been more pleasant and their young chef was equally warm and appreciative of our comments. They had everything you’d want from about eight salads to five charcuteries to five cheeses and wines from their trusted sources as well as things such as lentils with sausage and chocolate mousse but no fish. Nothing haute, nothing edgy, nothing earth-shaking; just predicable and good. We shared the plate of charcuterie (which Le Fooding indicated was all from Cantal, but our hostess said it was wider in origin), in any case, it was better than the usual. Then I had the confit de canard and she had a salad Monegasque with lots of veggies; both quite nice. We skipped dessert but had coffee and our bill was 54.50 € for a meal I would eagerly return to if I lived in the nabe. Should one go? Just like I said I hate to do this again, but this is outside the ordinary ratings. 3.1 HS* Juveniles, 47, rue de Richelieu in the 1st, 01.42.97.46.49, closed Sundays was an ideal choice for my cohost and me after attending the book-signing/talk by our mutual colleague/member/friend Clotilde (Chocolate & Zucchini) at Brentano’s two blocks away. It’s non-smoking, run by a Scotsman and has cases of wine on the wall (a la Papilles + Chapeau Melon.) We shared crostini with a lovely sauce and melon slices with ham with some wine and had a nice quick bite to eat. The bill: I don’t know she picked it up. Quote from my hostess: “It’s a good place for a quick bite and a drink which is lacking in Paris.” Was it ever really so good? Hummmm 3.0 Chez Georges, 273, bvd Periere in the 17th, 01.45.74.31.00, open everyday, is another old haunt that’s been around for years (1926) and has recently undergone a facelift. Since the group that took it over (Menut) also runs the La Grande Cascade, Garnier + Le Ballon des Ternes, one would expect quality and consistency. One would also expect a packed house on Sunday, especially a Mothers’ Day and they were indeed turning folks away; one who wanted to sit beside me and smoke, when no one inside was and only one person outside was. Now, truth be told, I don’t think I’ve been in 20 years but it wasn’t disgraceful then, just “mature.” Rubin says that he had the herring with oil and blanquette de veau and baba; and that pretty much sums up the menu. It’s traditional, classic and predicable. Me, I had the salad frisée, which I haven’t had such a good version of since 1968 at the original Aux Lyonnnais. But then it was downhill – Slight diversion: in the 1990’s, one of my daughters lived in New Zealand and asked me to grill a leg of lamb that she’d bought that was of “export quality” because she feared what the Kiwis would do to it. (Indeed, like the old joke, they killed every lamb twice, once in its demise and then in its cooking.) Ok, back to earth. Here, I ordered the leg of lamb with beans and a huge, perfectly cooked leg came out – it was beautiful, undercooked, rare to the extreme of blue, just like I love it – but, but, but, it was it was utterly tasteless, tasteless even with its juices, roasted garlic and beans – cardboard, pathetic product, awful; how could they? At 23 €; oh man. So I needed my protein and manfully scarfed it down. Now, though, I’m forewarned; watch what I order for dessert. Figuring defensively: I ordered the prunes with armagnac; how could one foul that up? Ans: by undercooking the prunes so they were al dente. Jeez. Ordered coffee: Illy, ristretto/serré – yes. And, the mignardises were terrific. Bill, ouch, 60 €; for that crap? Plus, I had to listen to the mixed-cultural couple next to me speak poor English and poor French, interchangeably, as they struggled to find a common language, and watch them feeding their dog with food from their plates with their fingers and forks which they continued to eat from themselves. Disgusting! Should one go? If you’re stuck at the Palais des Congres, as I am once a year, I’d advise you to run to the nearest alternative site. Oie, how did I get here? It’s not a new or renovated place? Ah yes, the King of Bistrots told me. 2.5 Chez Panis, 21, Quai Montebello in the 5th, 01. 43.54.19.71, open everyday, looks like any dump on your street corner, with a banal décor, a banal menu and a banal clientele (lots of tourists: French inside: UN outside) and you’ve passed it a million times without ever thinking of entering. There is strangely no desk/table/bar book at which someone greets you nor any reservations taken/needed. However, the welcome was warm and the waitpeople are the super hustle/bustle type. The tables are bare, the smoke continually swept into “no smoking” by fervent puffers and a carte replete with sandwiches, salads, omelets and pastas. But it was cheap, so how bad could it get? For instance, wine (offered by the ¼ + ½ liter and full bottle) was at max about 19 € for 75 cl. The article I read in The Paris Times said they had “reliable classics like French onion soup,” so I ordered that, and is was surprisingly not bad; crisp toast ovals with tasty cheese, although the bouillon lack the depth I associate with the dish. Then I had a salmon with sorrel sauce, safe bet eh?, which it was. Good product, slightly undercooked, but accompanied by a timbale of zucchini slices that was nul, tasteless, not worth two bites. I chose to not test their dessert list and got my bill = 30 € after a coffee, I said it was cheap. Should one go? If my daughters and kids were coming again to France this summer, I’d say yes, although, truth be told, one can eat at pretty much the same level on any block in the city. A 1950’s country truck stop in La Defense 1.0 l’Escargot, 18, rue Charles Lorilleux in Puteaux (essentially La Defense), 01.47.75.03.66, closed Saturday lunch and Sundays, has two menus; offering two dishes for 22 and three for 29 €. In a prior life, I directed a team that examined professional candidates for an advanced credential and I always cautioned the examiners to see two candidates before rating/grading the first so they’d have a better sense of the spread/range. Well, today’s meal set the floor/platform for the month of June. I invited as my guest the contemporary “hostess with the mostest” (does that date me or what?), Phyllis/Felice Flick, thinking that I was doing her a favor by inviting her to walk a mere 400 meters from work to dine at a place I was convinced would duplicate, if not exceed, my charming meal at Pere Lapin just a stop or two further down Tram line #2 in Suresnes last September; wrong! We met at Mitterand’s great arch and while a crow might fly 400 meters to the resto, we walked forever through the most bizarre set of lobbies, underpasses and passerelles I’ve ever seen (PS we had maps from Michelin, Mapquest and Yahoo and they were of no help). The restaurant is in a dumpy neighborhood, looks dumpy from outside and is dumpy within. The bread, however, looked great. The menu was most ample, with daily specials, and the wines were reasonably priced (18 € up). We started with light firsts; she had fine minces of bar cru with “fresh” mint that looked weeks old; I had fine ecrevisses with a great tangy sauce but served with extremely tired salad leaves. Then we both had wonderfully crusty meat, char-grilled - she had a fine product, the entrecote with an OK béarnaise sauce, but I had a dreadful product, a carré d’agneau – but both of our potato dishes were pathetic: undercooked, soggy and tasteless. To add to the roller-coaster experience, our shared crème brulee was great, ditto the coffee. Oh, yah, that great looking bread was awful too. The bill = 75€. Should One Go? Why? Did you just get divorced, widowed, abandoned and sleep on a couch in your La Defense office? OK. I understand Tagine anyone? Why did I leave Roland Garros for this? 0.9 l’Oriental, 47, ave de Trudaine in the 9th, 01.42.64.39.80, open everyday, moved recently from across the great 9th/18th divide into Roseland country (PM me if you don’t get the ref). It was always one of my quick bite/local last nite in Paris/once the apartment was clean, places. Now, tho’, it seems huge and important, equipped with the same furniture but lacking charm, intimacy and most of all, good food. So anyway, enough snide comments, what was the food like, John? It does indeed look much the same as when it won Pudlo’s 2006 best strange resto award; it’s double the size; and its customers, all French, high class Magrebian or elite neighborhood folk, are loud and packing it. I started with the brick of veggies whose pastry envelope was extremely good and probably cardiologically-evil, but whose insides were lacking (a 6 let’s say: 10 for the crust, 1 for the insides). Then I had the chicken tagine with confited lemon and olives; now, this is a dish I cannot master, but Colette has, albeit with a little help from Brooklyn. It was not much of a much (rating -2.) The wine, a Boulauane that advertised itself as good to serve with sun-dishes such as pizza, curry and Tex-Mex, was serviceable. The bill – ouch, but come on John, for two dishes and wine, stop complaining, 32.50 €. Should one go? Asleep again eh? Ah, why am I here, redux? 0.0 Chez Prosper, 7 ave de Trone in the 11th, 01.43.73.08.51. I was fully warned that this place was run by a charming couple from the Auvergne, served good products (Bertillon ice cream, Mariage Freres teas and good little wines) but was not fancy nor pricey. But my source forgot to tell me it was no good either. Well, maybe I’m a bit harsh, I can be. Start with the reservation: call, even at 11h30, the woman cannot hear me due to (not only my horrible French and accent, but) the roar in the background. Arrive: full, completely filled, wall to wall with kids (eg everyone is younger than me), seated at a table by the side and street – cleverly, almost the entire inside is non-smoking but the tables outside, surrounding the resto are arrayed like homeless people on the streets of LA, smoking non-stop. In front of me two women are without pausing to eat, alternating cigarettes and cigarillos – oie. The carte: replete with salads and croques of every type imaginable, meat and desserts; no firsts and no fish and no bread (at least for me). I figure “when in Rome,” so I order the special, a huge piece of Salers beef, perfectly cooked (blue) and utterly flavorless, made worse by the out-of-the-bottle poivre sauce but somewhat saved by a fresh salad with out-of-the-bottle dressing and hot house tomatoes. Now this place fails not only the “can I get better around the corner” test but the “can I get better at home” one. The saving grace in this disastrous meal was the sense of humor behind labeling a door in the men’s room “the apartment of Madame Prosper,” which I, like my late friend who was urinating at the White House next to the Secretary of Defense, the “most powerful man in the Western World,” asked me – Do you look? – I did. The bill = 29.80 €. Should one go? For empty calories, I think not. Even to find out if the guy, surreptitiously taking photos and notes openly was the famous critic I thought he was. Sorry guys, I don’t get it, but then that’s not unusual. HS* Les Delices Shan dong, 88 bvd de l’Hopital in the 13th, 01.45.87.23.37, closed Wednesdays, is a place my friends raved about a few months ago but I wasn’t about to chance a lunch (my main meal) on a Chinese place, with only this little cheering gallery, no matter how great they thought it was. So I finally figured out that I’d be eating nearby and could get takeout and have it at dinner. I did some research: not very reassuring: if one Googles Shandong food the second site one arrives at is Food in China that says: “Shandong food tends to be rather bland.” And then I recalled that when we were in China, it was strangely omitted from food destinations. Anyway, this was supposed to be a rarity, so I asked the charming ladies to give me two of the most typical Shang Dong dishes; and later had dumplings with pork and cabbage and hot sauce and sweet/sour shrimp. Well, the rice was good. The bill = 18 €. Should one go? If you’re invited by my pals who offer to treat you; frankly no. And don’t bother with the Flushing or Oakland versions either. New improved revised scale (subject to fickleness and change): 10 – The best you’ve ever had, eg Giradet in the old days. 9 – The places you went/go to because they’re destinations, eg Pere Bise 8 – The places that did their best in their prime Robuchon, Ducasse, Loiseau 7 – The places today beating the competition Ze Kitchen Galerie, Spring, Constant x3 6- The old reliables Repaire de Cartouche, Thierry Burlot, Bistro du Dome 5 – Fun neighborhood places Le Winch 4 – Places to go on cook’s night out Terminus Nord 3 – Places if you’re really stuck 2 Pieces Cuisine, Le Truc 2 – A pick-up meal Sale + Pepe 1 – Really hitting bottom le Nord-Sud 0 – Never again Auguste, The Place Ø- No kidding, you can’t drag me Iode HS* = outside classification, unfair to rate N* = a place that if one lived nearby in the neighborhood (N) would be a great place to go but gets a lower grade due to the schlep (perhaps unfairly). NN* = a place that if one lived nearby (N) in the neighborhood (N) would be a great place to go but gets a lower grade due to the horrible, immense, unpleasant schlep. NNN* = If I lived nearby it would tilt to the bigger grade.
