Ptipois

My intent was not to play at "my Chinatown is bigger than yours". You wrote that you haven't seen the Paris Chinatown; I live three metro stops away from it, and it is indeed very large (much larger than London's, anyway). Just try to experience it by grabbing your sneakers and walking around it. It covers one sizeable part of the 13e arrondissement, in a triangle inscribed between place d'Italie at the northernmost point, avenue d'Italie, the boulevard périphérique, and rue Nationale to the East, with some extensions towards rue de Patay. This would already be objectively a big piece of it, but if you add the growing extension to the suburban city of Ivry, and the second Chinatown at Belleville (smaller but busy), plus a tiny bit of one remaining around La Chapelle, and finally the original Paris Chinatown dating back from the 50's (rue du Temple/Arts-et-Métiers, this is a small one), that makes comparisons a bit pointless. And our friend is going to Paris anyway.

The Paris Chinatown in the XIIIth is very large. It has many shops, big and small, and no open markets. It extends to the South (Ivry) and I suggest you take a look at it. Take the métro to Porte-de-Choisy or Porte-d'Ivry and then walk North, or to Tolbiac and go down the rue de Tolbiac until you reach a bit crossing. Then go South on either of the avenues. The African market in Château-Rouge is quite interesting. It is quite close to the North African area in Barbès. There is a sizeable cluster or Sri Lankan shops around rue du Faubourg-Saint-Denis and La Chapelle, but it doesn't make much sense sending you there since you're coming from London. If you're looking for goood "ethnic" food, I recommend Ménélik, a great Ethiopian restaurant on rue Sauffroy (angle avenue de Clichy). Go for dinner, they serve freshly-burnt coffee.

A complex question. This is what I understand of the French unrefined sugar situation: CANE SUGAR Cassonade: partially refined cane sugar, medium-sized powder, more or less free-flowing according to the brands. Not a totally appropriate name though: it seems that cassonade, originally, is dried raw cane sugar. This one is lighter-colored. Turbinado sugar is rather close to cassonade. Color: light brown. Sucre roux: similar to cassonade. May be free-flowing or pressed into rectangular rocks (or into squarish, irregular rocks, i.e. La Perruche sugar rocks). Sucre brun: the name is not commonly used. Should be used though for raw cane sugar (sucre brut). Sucre brut, sucre muscovado, sucre mélasse, sucre brun, vergeoise de canne: THAT is the real sucre brun, and sometimes it is called "cassonade". Identical to piloncillo, panela, cane jaggery. It is the raw cane sugar, i.e. evaporated cane juice, containing the molasses. Color: from medium brown to dark brown. Comes as as granulated mass, more or less moist. May be pressed into cakes. The best qualities of sucres roux, bruns or cassonades may be found in health food stores and "épiceries fines". Sometimes Demerara sugar may also be found there. BEET SUGAR I won't mention the white refined versions, only the two local, interesting varieties: Vergeoise blonde: raw powdered sugar, fine-textured and moist, not free-flowing, obtained from beets. Much used in the North of France and Belgium. Color: light brown. Vergeoise brune: absolutely the same, only dark brown. Often, it is simply called "vergeoise". To make things more complicated, brown cane sugar may sometimes be called "vergeoise de canne".

Yes, it may be cut into slices when cold. You can buy packaged panisse in health food stores, it looks like the one you saw. Then you brown the slices in a frying pan with butter or olive oil. The traditional version is made this way: mix chickpea flour with water and salt, cook for a few minutes like a polenta. Pour into deep, small, round oiled plates and let cool. Cold panisse looks like a flying saucer. It is then fried crisp in oil, whole or cut into sticks. Normally, nothing. They're just fried like French fries and eaten on their own, or perhaps with a tomato sauce. Any time!

Yes, it is French. Not panisa but panisse, a specialty from Nice. A dough of chickpea flour and water baked on a tray and then cut in pieces. It does not traditionally receive toppings. It is very good. As for kasago, it is called a rascasse (precisely: Mediterranean rascasse) or chapon here.

The quality of the filtered Seine water that comes through the faucets varies throughout the year. It is generally OK during Winter, and it can get terrible sometimes in the Summer.

I entered the place before dinner time, just to ask for a card. It all looked so gimmicky. No smell coming from the kitchen whatsoever. The wines on the chalkboards didn't look tremendously interesting either, and the menu was sort of dull.

On Sunday evening, I went to say hi to Yves in his new hotel - beautiful hotel, by the way. He showed me a couple of gorgeous rooms and said that he wanted to do one thing at a time: first get the hotel business rolling to his liking before he takes care of the restaurant. He wants to devote his entire attention to each successive task in order to do it well. That made sense to me, so I didn't ask for a date, thinking that everybody must be asking him . Anyhow, whenever he opens his new auberge, I know he won't disappoint us. For now, I can recommend the hotel warmly. It is not easily spotted by visitors, being a small 17th century building at the root of rue Monsieur-le-Prince. The façade is narrow, the lobby is like a candy box, the staircases and elevator are minute, but the rooms are spacious, comfortable, quiet and tastefully furnished, with period furniture and beautiful oak eaves on the ceilings. The prices are not outrageous for a 4-star and this location: about 300 euros. So if any visiting e-gulleters should take a fancy...

When galettes are good in Brittany, it's because they are made kraz (crispy), the right way. Exported or improvised galette-makers all over France don't seem to see the point of making them this way. It is actually fairly difficult to make decent Breton galettes. Not fair. I had dinner at La Maison de l'Aubrac, and now I'm hungry again.

Rouen is not a place for galettes. Galettes are a specialty of Brittany, Rouen is in Normandy (and pretty far from Brittany too). They are no more a specialty of Chartres, though every French city has crêperies where you may order Breton galettes. That's probably in one of those crêperies that you had your galette experience. It all depends on the crêperie, some do it well, some don't, even in Brittany. That makes the galette geography a bit difficult to understand for visitors.

I've seen this place again last night (before going to dine somewhere else ). It is definitely facing the Palace, is a wine bar of sorts, is named "Le Zinc des Cavistes" and, as far as I've seen, looks like nothing to write home about.

Or where you can find the best Citrate de bétaïne in town.

Anyway, we've got our address ready for the Cinquième, havent' we?

Whoops... Sorry But didn't I see something posing as a large, yuppie-style wine bar last week or so, in the lower part of rue du Faubourg-Montmartre? Sort of not quite facing the "Palace" but almost. There is definitely a wine bar there but I didn't remember the name and thus I assumed it was L'Angevin. Do you know about this place? It is painted in beige and wine red colors and looks rather new.

Maybe I should just order Badoit

Wherever I live, that doesn't make any difference. Sometimes I think they have filters just to make the water taste worse.

Parisians are unequal when it comes to the taste of their tap water. Some arrondissements are blessed with natural sources (in the 16e, notably), but most are left with filtered Seine water which can go from okay to drink to plain yucky at times. No Cardin carafe is going to change this. I use Brita-filtered tap water for tea and coffee and I drink bottled water.

← I think it was porpoise.

L'Angevin, 168, rue Montmartre (Tel: 01 42 36 20 20) is what comes to my mind. But it will be rather in the same style as Juvenile's, only larger. See, that's exactly why I recommended Le Rubis in the first place , seeing that you obviously were a group expecting to "have a good time". Some bars à vins are clearly designed tfor this, some are somewhat stuffier. L'Angevin may be of the same sort. However, I disagree with your (albeit Parisian) boyfriend. Parisian waiters are not such monsters. You've probably just had a rude one.

Roughly speaking, the distinction lies between bars à vins and bistrots à vins. In a bistrot à vins (which is a restaurant), you may have complete meals at a table with entrée, plat, dessert. The choice of wines will be lavish and appealing, and they will be served many ways: by the bottle, by the fillette, by the pot, by the glass, etc., and sometimes "au compteur" (they put the bottle on your table and you pay only for what you consume). It is a bistrot putting a special emphasis on the wines. Examples: le Pré Verre, L'Ecluse, Juveniles. The bar à vins is more like a café specializing in wines and serving light dishes, mostly based on charcuterie, cheese, sandwiches or tartines. The wines play the main part. Examples : Le Rubis, La Taverne Henri IV, La Tartine. There is also the classical Parisian café with a particular emphasis on wines: for instance, Le Soleil d'Austerlitz on boulevard de l'Hôpital. It doesn't look different from any other local troquet or bistrot, only the presence of good wines is advertised somehow, like "Coupe du Meilleur Pot (year follows)" painted on a glass pane. This kind of place is quite different from the two others. It often serves food and plats du jour like any other café-brasserie. There are also restaurants where wine is a big thing (example : La Maison de l'Aubrac on rue Marbeuf) but their size, prices and general aspect place them in the category of restaurants, not bistrots. And much less bars à vins. When I think "bar à vins", I think of a place, often not very spacious, selling a large selection of wines by the glass and a few tartines or assiettes. Most of the time people don't sit there to eat but come there for l'apéritif, stand up by the counter or lean on it. They can sit down too but rarely for the whole evening.

I have no idea... Never heard of it. Where did you find the reference?

Great idea if car's an option: renting one for 2 or 3 days and do the whole Normandy-in-Spring thing. Apple orchards all snowy, fluffy cows, camembert, livarot, pont-l'évêque, calvados, cider, Easter lamb, milk-fed veal, butter pastry, poulet vallée-d'auge, duck with apples, Dover sole and outstanding seafood between Honfleur and Le Mont-Saint-Michel (and that's quite a bit of coastline). Unforgettable.

I recommend the reservation too. Juveniles is not a large place. I had thought of it, and of Willi's Wine Bar too, but those places are more restaurants than bars. The reason I recommended Le Rubis is that it is a true bar, serving a bit of charcuterie on the side, Loire wines being a specialty. It is typically Parisian (Juveniles being more internationally-minded) and an institution of some sort. As for Legrand, it is not actually a wine bar but a "caviste" that opened a restaurant area fairly recently. Hence the weird opening hours. I would recommend it for tasting great wines though.

Thank you very much! And thanks FB for the garlic rasam recipe. A chef friend of mine who has spent a lot of time in Asia uses long pepper in some of his recipes. One of his greatest hits (always on the menu) is slow-simmered suckling pig with "épices douces", i.e. cassia bark, star anise and long pepper, all whole. He binds the resulting juice with a bit of cream and serves with crunchy green cabbage. It is wonderful.

I'd pick Rouen as a great day trip close to Paris. 100 miles West, 1 hour 10 min by train, incredibly beautiful city center. As for restaurants, you will have a chance to try the original recipe of canard au sang (canard à la rouennaise) made famous by La Tour d'Argent in Paris. Either at the Hôtel de Dieppe or at La Couronne (one of the oldest restaurants in France). Of course there is more contemporary cuisine but I need to know more about this. I recommend that you rent a car in Paris and leave early in the morning so you have a chance to see the beautiful Norman countryside (I believe the apple-trees must be beginning to bloom) and circle around Rouen to see Jumièges, Boscherville and the pays de Bray.