Sep 07 Ferme Cocottes Estrapade Puces Landeau Edgr

[John Talbott]

Sept 07 – Le Ferme St Simon, Les Cocottes, L'Estrapade, Les Puces des Batignolles, F. Landeau, Restaurant Edgar, MiniPalais, Le Tournon, Chez Julien, Le Moulin de la Galette, Olivier, Le Chalet des Iles Daumesnil

In full August, walking past the Huîtrerie Régis, I spied their closing sign which was translated into English approximately thusly: “The oysters went to the beach along with everyone else and will return September 28th.” That says it all : Paris, August and you can park easily, sez Colette.

5.5 Old but new

La Ferme Saint-Simon, 6, rue de Saint-Simon in the 7th, 01.45.48.35.74, changed owner and chef and in September the carte was under the hand of an exMaison du Danemark chef, which may explain the abundant fish, especially salmon. The carte can early run one 40-70 € but they have two lunch deals; one three courses from a forced-choice carte for 36 €, the other two courses from the same carte with a glass of wine for 29.50 €. Three of us had the latter; one starting with the salmon wrapped around fresh cheese and dill that was pretty good and another the dried beef with marinated cauliflower that was incredibly good. Then all three of us had the cod with a fennel sauce that was quite special, especially the zucchini prepared three ways. (We chose not to try the other choice, the duck confit parmentier because were have confit de canard that evening; the other first, by the way was a lentil soup.) Finally Madame had the sorbets and ice creams that she loved. The amuse-bouche was a light chilled soup of celery with vegetables and the mignardises were a classic crème caramel and two cookies. With a bottle of Chardonnay (in addition to our three glasses included in the formula), coffee and Chat. Delanoye our bill was 133.60 € for three.

Should one go? Yes, so long as you’re not over three or are willing to duplicate dishes or order from the pricey carte.

5.0 Constant’s third offshoot

Les Cocottes, 135, rue St Dominique, no telephone but info is supposedly available from Le Violin, open 7/7 (except on Sundays in the summer), from 8:30-22:30. Although I had dropped by June 30th to see if it was open and what it looked like and in the process talked with Mr. C. I really hadn’t registered some things; for instance it occupies the space of my favorite jarré de porc source – CHARLES traiteur – and thus my guests tomorrow will have to make do with second-rate stuff from Bon Marché. I also hadn’t realized how railway car shaped it was; Emmanuel Rubin calls it a diner French-version, and it is, with tons of seats along the elongated bar and two tables for 4-6 with stools where the room opens a bit. So envision a long bar with 20 stools on the right, a wall on the left followed by two or three communal tables at the end and himself entering (with no bowing and scraping from the staff) with his two boys, spotting a scooter, a child now eating had parked near the door, mounting it and scooting the entire length of the boxcar, to his kids’ mixed horror and delight and the customers’ mild amusement. The guy does have a touch of the theater in him. OK to the food. As has been described elsewhere, the Cocottes does everything from breakfast tartines to cocktail tapas, from salads (3) to soups (4), from cocottes to desserts – I counted at least 40 dishes on the ardoise and 2 specials. The 9 box-wines are 3 per glass, 6 per 25 cl and 12 € for a 50 cl ficelle plus lots of bottles from inexpensive to pricey. Monsieur C himself treated a friend and himself to the one smack in the middle, commenting on it, proving that the former chef at Les Ambassadeurs can find good inexpensive stuff. In any case I started with a cold ptipois soup with strip of spicy salty chorizo and crème fraiche, then going on to the pigeon with big peas and delicious greens and scallions, finishing with a waffle with Chantilly and salty caramel. The meal was just as advertised, simple, honest and made from good products. It ain’t starred cooking nor is it meant to be; the place is largely intended for and patronized by locals; only at the end did 6 Anglos and an Asian customer enter. My bill was 44 €.

Go? One should once, just to see what he can do in these circumstances, but because of the seating, don’t go as a big group.

5.0 And now for something completely different….

l’Estrapade, 15, rue de l’Estrapade in the 5th, 01.43.25.72.58, closed weekends (I think) has had a new chef since July 10th, from the Bearn, Marc Baucor, who looks about 10-12 (but everyone does to me now,) but who cooks quite maturely what he calls “traditional cooking in our day and age.” I’d agree. At least from what I had. Because of my last visit, (although it seems like I’ve been here three times in as many years, a search shows I haven’t been since December of 2004), I avoided the jam-packed 18 seats inside and sat on what is so amusingly called the terrace but in that part of town is more like an inch of sidewalk. In any case, the chef offers a menu of two dishes for 24 and three for 30 € and there are a ton of choices. I chose to start with the Basquaise eggs with pleurottes in a vol au vent that with few slices of jambon gave the dish its boost. Then I had a rabbit stew with carrots and prunes and a cup of cumin-flavored carrot mousse. Not knowing the chef had started as a pastry-chef, I ordered the chocolate “suicide,” really a fine moelleux with an envelope of dried fruit and pastry filling that is apparently a béarnaise specialty – it was delicious. With a pot of Bergerac and coffee and two supplemental charges, the bill was 50.50 €.

Should one go? Definitely if one lives nearby, maybe if one is touring near the Pantheon.

4.0 This is what it is, a fine neighborhood bistro

Les Puces des Batignolles, 110 rue Legendre in the 17th, 01.42.26.62.26, open 7/7, is on a street that while not as hot as the Rue Paul Bert in the 11th, is doing OK with three Japanese places, a Spanish/Corsican one and a Belgian beer hall in transition. And of course, a couple of French places, the best-known, Le Bistral, around the corner. I went not only because it’s open on Sunday and moderately nearby but because Jerome Berger gave it 3 blocks in A Nous Paris even though he used the word “bobo” too many times in his review. It is jam-packed with young folk with an ample representation of same-sex couples, all of whom seemed pleased by the food. Since it was Sunday, they were serving both a brunch and limited regular menu and when I asked for the wine list, I saw the true “regular menu” that had a gazpacho, which I really hankered for; luckily I had the courage to ask if there was perhaps some soup left over in the frigo, and they supplied me a bowl from the batch they were working on for the PM: it was delicious and had that great spicy after-taste. Then I had a perfect confit de canard that came with huge portions of salad and potatoes that were a cross between Sarladaise and frites. And the bread was warm although looking Banettish. On weekdays they have two menus, at 13 and 16 € but even ordering off the carte my bill was just over 30 €.

Go? If you’re in the area, for sure.

4.0 Another fine neighborhood place, this for oysters, esp at Sunday lunch.

F. Landeau, 86, rue Lemercier in the 17th, 01.46.27.81.12, closed Sunday night and Mondays and Tuesdays. This place has been around for 10 years and I’m not sure why I’ve not tried it before, but I had to eat out that night and oysters made good sense as a lunch meal. It’s tiny (19 covers inside and 4-6 outside) and totally patronized by locals. It’s basically just oysters/bulots/etc with some specials but no cooked fish, putting it out of Colette’s interest zone. I started with a dozen Normand oysters (oysters go from 16-36 the dozen); they were excellent even at this time, the beginning of the season. Then I had the special of moules mariniere that was too big to finish but wonderful. With wine (they run from 12, yes 12, to 28 €) and the best coffee of this eating binge, my bill was 37 €. They do have a menu for 22 with fish soup or bulots or grey shrimp and 8 #3 oysters and dessert that’s a pretty good deal too.

Go? Yes if you’re living or renting here or crave seafood at Sunday lunch.

4.0-5.0 Great ideas, not quite there, but could be

Restaurant Edgar, 83 rue Legendre in the 17th, 01.53.06.82.82, closed Sundays and Mondays, is a place that, to my knowledge only ANP has reviewed/found. I had scoped it out on my visit to Les Puces, across the street, and liked what I saw, but I approached it this time from the North not East, and saw yet another bunch of new places up the Rue Nollet, the cooking school Vatel, which while renovated in 2003, looks sparklingly new and I love the uniforms, so professional and the lunch menu at I think - 21 € is a temptation; Le Bloc Café, only open two months, and a nifty looking new tea+salad place Vissi d’Arte. This is a happening place. In any case, back to the Restaurant Edgar, they have a daily special with a glass of wine for 12 € and while I was going to order a douceur of duck with ginger sauce and veal kidneys with Chinese cabbage off the menu-carte (2 dishes = 15, 3 = 18€), when two ladies nearby were served the special of under-cooked duck filet with tagliatella with pesto sauce, I succumbed, wisely. The basil sauce was more like basil flakes so I dipped it in the duck sauce and it worked fine and the duck was crisp on the outside and almost blue inside (as ordered). Then I had the moelleux of chocolate with some dribbled creme Anglaise that was not Gold Standard (which is my non-Cooking-School graduate daughter’s one). My bill was 31 €.

Come back? Yes, this guy has the ideas and talent, he just doesn’t have it quite together yet.

3.5 The “Choukrounization” of Paris screams oMni

The MiniPalais, at the Southeastern corner of the Big Palace, where the Ave Winston Churchill meets the Cours La Reine facing the Pont Alexandre, 01.42.56.42.42, open weekdays from 8:30 and weekend from 10:30-1 in the AM, is Gilles Choukroun’s latest venture and is stunningly beautiful; edgy inside and luxurious columned terrace outside. I went with my charming France Forum co-host for lunch and we had mixed results. The bread and amuse gueule (a cold brandade) were terrific. Her first, a melon gazpacho, intensely flavored with a clever brandy-snifter stopper of melon ice and a little tartine of OK coppa, was terrific; my mixture of celery remoulade, foie gras shavings and pop corn was a bit too much, and the celery over-salted to boot. Then she had another entrée, a so-called spring roll of a bunch of raw haricots verts wrapped tightly with microtome-sliced smoked salmon and then thin-rice paper and sliced into 5-6 little wheels – a beautiful presentation with little taste; and I had the tartare of beef (which came MBC, mango-basil-coriander, as did the RFC’s at the Café Very in June) with real fine, real frites and a good salad. With a nice Marcillac, no desserts but two coffees, our bill was 79 €, which may not sound pricey but which both of us agreed did not meet our price/quality standards.

Go? For the setting yes, but it slips back to l’Angl’Opera-type stuff even more than the Café Very, which if you like, you should go.

3.0 A real local café, in all its definitions

The Café Tournon, aka Le Comptoir Tournon, 18, rue de Tournon in the 6th, 01.43.26.16.16, is closed Sundays but open in August, which is why I read Jean Claude Ribaut’s enthusiastic review in Le Monde earlier this month with such delight. I hadn’t been here for maybe 15 years, and that time I was merely grabbing a quick café serré with an old buddy while we broke from a meeting at the Senat. Wow, his own wine choices, thick veal’s liver, veal’s foot in its juice, tomato stuffed in the old manner; except they had none of the above today save the wine. Aside from the ample wine-bar-type stuff (charcuterie, cheese, salads, etc) and a few classic items like confit de canard, the specials for firsts were rillettes, fennel with chevre and mackerel with two huge almost tasteless leeks, which I had, and with some salt was manageable. The choices of the day for mains were entrecote/frites, bar with fennel, boudin noir and a huge piece of veal with orange and tagliatelles, which I had: the veal was only OK but the pasta was terrific. I was feeling cheated after all the good stuff Ribaut mentioned so I had the strawberries with Chantilly, thinking, silly me, that the latter wouldn’t be from a squirtcan. But the berries were terrific. The crowd was most interesting, since it’s across from the Senat, it includes elegantly coiffed, beautifully-tanned, photogenic senators (strangely much like ours) and their wives, young staffers standing at the comptoir smoking and drinking their lunches, workmen from jobs nearby and ordinary locals. The waits for the presentation of the menu and dishes were intolerable and the smoke, even with all the windows open, toxic. Bill = 42.70 €.

Should one go? Not until you’ve exhausted all the nearby alternatives – eg, the Bastide Odeon, Maison de Jardin + la Ferrandaise.

2.5 Funny, funny place; beautiful site, mixed food.

Chez Julien, 1, rue Pont Louis Philippe in the 4th, 01.42.78.31.64, closed Sunday night and Monday (provisionally), recently reopened under the hand of Thierry Costes (Hôtel Amour, Café Etienne Marcel) and is admittedly a beautiful monument with a ceiling to die for and renovated furniture that is so, so wonderful. Facing the Pont itself, just down from the Monastery honey shop, it is ideally suited to become again a great destination. But not yet. There are lots of choices and a 20 € 2-course menu that today was a platter of sausages from the Pyrenees and three big pieces of daurade. I didn’t need any more sausages after my Italian sojourn and last nite’s supper so I opted for the cuttlefish and calamari a la plancha with a huge fennel and haricots verts salad with a small cup of cold potato salad with garlic and chives – my, it was really good. As were the bread and Pascal Beilleraire butter and for that matter the “amuse-bouches” of olives and crisp/crunchy almonds and mignardises cookies. But then I chose the daurade which I had trouble eating more than three bites of, one from each filet; I tried each but they were simply bad product; over-the-hill, foul-tasting and nasty (And yes, contrary to habit I said so). (I know in the US one avoids the specials because they’re yesterday’s rubbish, but here one expects more.) The saving grace, however, was one of those strange juxtapositions that starts out badly but ends felicitously: I was seated (the only person inside) at the table facing the pont, and wouldn’t you know the 30-ish yo Costes’ responsible (who could’ha been Thierry himself at 31) plunked down in the seat just outside “my” window with two grubby “designer-types,” dressed all in black whose conversation was at the same time both boring and fascinating (the last time I had to listen to such talk was at Cannes, but it was all film, all dinner long). In any case, I learned a lot about menu design, sizing and content which I’ll write up sometime. I also learned that despite Emmanuel Rubin’s 1 heart condemnation, Optimum and other glossies wrote it up with lots of photos. The bill with two glasses of a pretty good Cotes du Rhone = 43 €.

Go? They’re trying hard to be Benoit, Drouant, Bofinger etc., but don’t go til they buy fresh fish.

2.3 The old Le Chamarré gang, up to their old tricks again.

Le Moulin de la Galette, 83, rue Lepic in the 18th, 01.46.06.84.77, {supposedly} open 7/7, had a lunch formula (2 courses) for 17 and lunch menu (3) for 25, one at dinner at 42 and a degustation one for 60, a la carte running 51-75 €. Let’s start with the disclaimer; (1) I’ve had incredibly uneven experiences with what comes out of the kitchens of French chef Jérôme Bodereau and Mauritian chef Antoine Heerah; (2) Jean-Claude Ribault in August warned that in their new venue the food was both clever and a bit coarse/cheap; and finally (3) that I’ve had uneven experiences at this site for 20 years, no matter whose hand or what food (Italian, French, Mauritian) was put in front of me. That said, I think I and my sophisticated eating pal went with an open mind. The carte was out of reach of both our budgets so we looked hard at the “menu,” each taking one of the two entrees, mains & desserts. The good news: the desserts were fabulous (a parfait glacé with Grand Marnier and a chocolate Opera with sorbet – first class). The mains were blah and made with “cheap” products – a tasteless pink trout with a ‘hollandaise sauce” made with gelatin and awful Basmati rice and an annoying fricassee of turkey bits with chestnuts. But with the firsts we grasped the problem: her two brochettes of raw shrimp (one with a fluffy tumeric sauce) were wonderful, but my soup of coco beans was again chintzy and blah – so here, it’s either heaven or hell, there’s no purgatory. Bill 81 € for two.

Go? Not until they decide which way to go in Dante’s Inferno

1.0Local, local, local – the clients and the food apparently.

l’Olivier, 88, rue Ordener, 01.46.06.46.14, closed Sundays, is a place that just opened this year within walking distance from my digs, so I planned on eating there the night before I returned to the US to avoid having to clean the kitchen again. The carte looks like “nothing special” although it says it’s a musical place and has food from the sun, by which I deduce from the menu there’s lots of Basque influences. The hosts are super-nice, except for the enforcer at the door, the place is spanking new and the food was not bad at all, the wine is cheap (a la ficelle) and there are lots of choices. But there were problems, I know I harp on it, but the bread was bad and I know the boulangeries here and one can get terrific bread if you care to. They offer 3 courses for 23, 2 for 20 and one for 16 €. I chose two specials off the ardoise; a feuillete of fruits de mer that was very, very good (the pastry was blah but the fruits were good product and well-seasoned; and then two slices of swordfish-like requin (yah sure, I looked it up later and it’s shark) with a blah Basque sauce (good fresh veggies but no zip) and blah basmati rice. The bill = 32 €.

Go? If you live here maybe, but otherwise, guard your skin.

0.5 When even beauty can’t overcome bad food.

The Chalet des Iles Daumesnil on the Reuilly island in the Daumesnil lake in the Bois de Vincennes, 12th, 01.43.07.00.10, open everyday, all year, seemed the ideal place to go on a perfect day in late August. It’s a bit of a schlep over from the Porte Dorée metro stop, but it is really beautiful, spectacularly beautiful, and makes you think you’re truly in the country, with swans, geese, boaters, bikers, runners, picnickers, etc. The place sits on one of two islands in the lake, reachable by a bridge and despite looking uninhabited from the other shore, from the entrance looks huge with a grand lawn and chaises lounges spread all over and about 40 covers outside under umbrellas and who knows how many on the porch and inside. What a find! Beautiful, nice menu with lots of choices and moderately priced wine by the glass, pot and bottle (4+, 12+ and 19+ € respectively). Ah, there’s something wrong with this picture, John. Yes, the food. I ordered two items I thought were failsafe; “crispy” chicken and salad and gambas with a spicy sauce. I decided after my first bite of the mushy (hardly crispy) chicken that the spices it was cooked in were just “not to my liking” but I should withhold judgment on the dish because maybe it was just me. But when the gambas came tough and rubbery and their sauce was equally “not to my liking,” I decided it was not just me. One more ding; two of the waitstaff let me sit for minutes, indeed many, many minutes, with my menu clearly closed, without taking my order or calling “my” waiter; they were simply too busy conversing to tend to the ample number of customers. Someone, Francois Simon, I think, said that by eating anonymously, one got what the average diner gets, not the 5 best crustaceans one would get if recognized – I’d wished I’d been outed. The bill = 47 €.

Should one go? The Scots verdict: Not proven.

Scale (subject to fickleness and change):

10 – The best you’ve ever eaten in, 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

Edited October 22, 2008 by John Talbott (log)