Spring 2004 Vieil Ami Angl'Opera Fables Ourcine

[John Talbott]

Since February a number of new restaurants have either opened or been written up, almost all by well-known chefs. I have eaten at each mentioned below only once so my assessment is subject to the "first visit bias." For each I will cite where they have been written up, not only because I'm a pedant but because you may want to check out the buzz that they've put out.

Mon Vieil Ami, 69 St Louis en l'Ile, 01.40.46.01.35 telephone, 01.40.46.01.36 fax, opened a while back and was quickly reviewed in Figaroscope Jan 14th, (3 hearts), by Patricia Wells January 30th, by Francois Simon in Figaroscope's Hache Menu February 4th and more recently by Gault Millau (13/20) in Feb-March and in Paris Bites in Paris Notes in March. It's Antoine Westerman's (Buerehiesel in Strasbourg) newest venture. Located on the Ile St Louis amid jewelry and art shops, it's modern and jammed with closely-packed tables. They offer a "welcome" drink and a menu at 38E, the same price as taking a 1st (10E), plat (20E) and dessert (8E) separately. The weekday lunch I went (it's also open weekends), it was packed mostly with anglophones, thus no smoking. I had a 1st of very nice poireaux and mackerel poele, a main of a cocotte of Barbery duck with carrots and potatoes and couscous, which was not mind-blowing and a generous dessert of exotic fruits. The wines ranged from 4.20E a glass to the 30's. My bill eating solo was 51E. It's closed Monday and Tuesday lunch. Metro Pont Marie

Angl'Opera, 39 ave de l'Opera, 2nd, 01.42.61.86.25, was reviewed in Figaroscope Feb 18th, (3 hearts) by Francois Simon in Figaroscope's Hache Menu of March 17th and TimeOut March 24th. It's smack on the Ave de l'Opera, next to Brentano's, in the Edouard VIIth Hotel. It too is very modern and Gilles Choukoun pushes the envelope much farther than he did at the Café des Delices. It's a bit precious for me with waitresses in goofy jump suits, a goofy menu (veggies first, protein last) and goofy names for drinks (eg O'Bordeaux). As with the Café des Delices, it features Oriental influenced, nice fusion cooking but personally I think William Ledeuil does it better with less pretentiousness at Ze Kitchen Galerie, I know, another goofy name. I had a 1st of a ceviche of dorade with a side dish of a rhubarb sauce and another of a tempura of petits-pois, for the plat Saint Jacques a la vapeur with lovely veggies, Granny Smiths & a quirky catsup sauce a part and one of those little glasses of tomato juice that Jean Chauvely made routine at Les Magnolias in Le Perreux sur Marne. For dessert I had a dish of assorted agrumes with a very tasty ice cream. Wines were reasonably priced. My bill (solo) was 54E. Closed weekends. Metro Pyramide or Opera

Le Grenadin Gourmand, 44 rue de Naples, 8th, 01. 45.63.28.92 (watch the telephone number, Figaro got it wrong once). It got 2 hearts in Figaroscope January 28th. It has menus at 29 and 38 E (1st, plat, dessert) and a room for 14 non-smokers. It changed hands recently and was taken over by Alain Stephan from the Savoy. It's another place that is not so bad except for the Jazz music. The amuse bouche was a nice concasse of tomato with a grilled langoustine, I had as1st a salad of asperges with a mimosa sauce, plat I had a confit of canette with mashed potatoes with a nice rich sauce, dessert moelleux chocolat done correctly, frou-frou cafes. The wine was 8 E glass - the cheapest bottle 23E. My bill for 1 was 57E. Closed Sat lunch, Sunday and Mondays. Metro Villiers or St Augustine. Closed Sat lunch, Sunday and Mondays. Metro Villiers

Les Fables de la Fontaine (sometimes misprinted as the Tables of Fontaine), 131 St-Dominque, 7th, 01.44.18.37.55 is the fourth of Christian Constant's places. Figaroscope gave it 2 hearts on March 10th and Timeout reviewed it March 17th. Closed Sundays & Mondays. A real winner. 1sts 7E, mains 16E, desserts 8E. I had the special, rougets a la plancha with tartar sauce, v v tasty and St Jacques in the shell for the main, was terrific and no dessert because a friend warned me they were only on the level of any patisserie, plus a terrific Beaujolis Village (15E the half - but they had carafes of white I noted afterwards) For me, this will probably now replace Bistrot Cote Mer which replaced Les Marines which replaced Bar Au Sel which replaced Bistro du Dome, etc, etc. Just in time too. People without reservations were turned away at 1 PM; Metro Ecole Militaire but I think the bus is easier. Tight seating; 21 covers, no smoking, no English except Madame when addressed in her native tongue.

L'Ourcine, 92 Broca, 13th, 01.47.07.13.65, recently opened (3 weeks) by Sylvain Daniere, ex from the team of Yves Camdeborde (Le Regalade), received 3 hearts from Figaroscope March 24th. It is located off the normal tourist paths and thus seems more Parisien. Menu is 28E. I had a very good soupe of poisson with fish eggs, a very tasty St Pierre with veggies, and a nice chocolate tartelette, accompanied by a 12E Gamay for a total of 42.50E. It was terrific and a definite repeat. It's open every day except Sunday. Metro Gobelins

For those interested in how each of these stack up number-wise against each other; Figaroscope March 24th rated Mon Vieil Ami 7, and the Tables of Fontaine, Grenadin Gourmand + Angl'Opera 6.5 out of 10. Since L'Oursine's review appeared in that issue it has no number. For comparison, the top rank (9) goes to Les Ambassadeurs (menu 70E, av 150E) and the next (8) to the Table du Lancaster (av 70E, menu's supposed to be 40E but it's not happened as of last week) and the other one in the 6.5-7 range is L'Absinthe (6.5) the place newly taken over by Caroline Rostang of Bistro Cote Mer fame, which has a lot of oysters and a nice-looking menu at 34E; on the place du Marche St Honore.

NB: Edited by host per John's instructions to correct errors regarding names and phone numbers and by John to add highlights.

Edited June 30, 2005 by John Talbott (log)

[Felice]

Thanks for that great write up. I read the Figaroscope restaurant reviews every week, but have not been to any of these, so it's nice to hear another opinion.

Merci beaucoup!

[Louisa Chu]

It's Les FABLES - NOT les Tables.

And the number to Mon Viel Ami is 01 40 46 01 35 - I just happened to be calling them for reservations tonight.

NB: Corrections have been made in the referrenced post to avoid confusion.

[ann]

And for those of us who like to make reservations in advance, here's an e-mail address -- mon.vieil.ami@wanadoo.fr. My request was answered in about 3 days. And many thanks, John, for the report.

Edited April 3, 2004 by ann (log)

[John Talbott]

Loufood - You're absolutely correct; it is Fables - I wanted to aleret people it was misprinted Tables in at least one review but managed to reverse the intent.

[picaman]

My partner Kirk and I had the pleasure of dining with loufood and Karli at Mon Vieil Ami on Saturday 4/3 during our recent trip to Paris.

Karli was a delight--far and away the coolest dog I've met in a long time. She knows how to be a lady; calm and poised when it's required, and able to cut loose when appropriate. Everybody at the restaurant fell in love with her, except for one very mean man who purposely (I think) backed his chair away from the table right into her. She still maintained her composure, though.

Oh, and loufood was pretty cool too

Seriously, we had a blast--interesting and animated conversation in sleek and beautiful surroundings--and I really enjoyed my meal. We took pictures of our dishes with a small digital camera I bought for the trip. They were taken without flash (I was trying to be at least somewhat unobtrusive) and I'm still learning how to use the camera, so they aren't the best quality. But here goes anyway.

Entrees:

Tubereux en salade tiede, mache et copeaux de foie de canard

Poireaux en vinaigrette d'herbes, maquereau de ligne poele

Pate en croute de Mon Vieil Ami, salade a l'huile de noix

Plats:

Choucroute caramelisee, pomme puree et poitrine de poulette farcie aux herbes

Carrotes et navets etuves aux epices, canard de barbarie braise et caramelise

(By the way, they didn't just plop the pot on Kirk's plate--we moved it there to get the picture )

Pommes de terres rissolees aux oignons et a l'ail, rognons de veau poeles au Pinot Noir

Desserts:

Riz au lait, compote de poire et sorbet

Salade de fruits frais et exotiques aux epices

Tarte au chocolat

Overall impressions: The first thing I noticed on the menu was that the restaurant had a subtitle--"a faim". I was an English major in college and taught journalism for a while, so I can truly appreciate a restaurant name with a subtitle. Also, given the chef's intention to turn out lighter versions of some traditionally heavy fare, I thought it was interesting that the names of the dishes were uniformly listed on the menu with the meat at the end of the description. As it turned out, this was a clue to the flavoring of both my entree and my plat. There was an almost vegetarian-like emphasis on the vegetables and subtle spices and flavors rather than the meat that I really liked.

I had the tubereux with foie for my entree. It had a very nice variety of root vegetables (the weird coloring is my cruddy photo, not the actual color of the vegs ) in an understated but flavorful broth. There was a lack of saltiness in the dish that put the emphasis squarely on the flavors of the root vegetables. I really liked this lack of salt, though we talked with another gentleman who said he had to generously salt it to make it palatable. I thought this missed the point a bit, but to each his own taste. The foie was sliced incredibly thinly, so that it disintegrated on your tongue--marvelous. The mache gave a nice texture balance.

The caramelized choucroute was my plat. The choucroute was very thinly and uniformly sliced, which added to the pleasure of eating it. The potato puree seemed to be a mix of several types of potatoes and had a great texture--just on the correct side of being a slurry without being too runny. There was sufficient moisture to keep the puree from being pasty even when it had cooled off, and it was very lightly and nicely flavored. The poulette had nice caramelization on the skin and on the plate as well, but the meat itself was barely on the "too done" side of "perfectly underdone." I really like the slightly pinkish cast that so many people and restaurants seem to sometimes be afraid of. Although the meat was still very moist, juicy and flavorful, I wonder if this is standard issue for the kitchen or if they turned it out a bit more cooked than usual. Overall I liked this very much, although my bite of loufood's plat (the rognons de veau) made me think that she won that round.

I think I came back nicely in the dessert round, though. I had the riz au lait--the three main ingredients blended marvelously yet tasted great individually as well. The rice pudding melted on your mouth with an almost tapioca-like flavor and texture; none of the occasional crunchiness or grittiness you sometimes get with this dessert. The pear compote on the bottom was ever so slightly icy which added a nice texture and flavor, and the very light sorbet on top functioned almost as a light whipped cream. The sorbet was underflavored nicely to put the emphasis on the flavors of the rice and pears.

As we had a late seating and had so enjoyed the meal and the company, we were far and away the last table in the place. We decided to be considerate and skip coffee, as by the time we finished dessert the staff had completely reset everything for the next day's lunch service and was kind of just sitting/standing around. Who can blame them? Our server was a bit odd--perhaps a bit defensive due to a lack of depth of knowledge of the menu? Just a guess. He was fascinated with my AMEX Blue card--thought for a while that I might not get it back

So we left, and Karli enjoyed a romp chasing rats among the closed bookinistes along the sidewalk. She was so much better behaved than some of the other diners that it was well-deserved.

Our final bill for three, with a bottle of wine and an Evian, came to 159 euros--right in line with John Talbott's bill. I really enjoyed this meal, and thought it a good value. As a former vegetarian, I greatly enjoyed and appreciated the chef's approach to his dishes. And the company couldn't have been better.

Jamie

EDIT: spelling

Edited April 10, 2004 by picaman (log)

[Scott]

WHAT ???????

no pictures of Karli

[picaman]

WHAT ???????

no pictures of Karli

She asked to remain anonymous as her growing fame makes her life increasingly difficult.

Jamie

[Louisa Chu]

Jamie, thanks so much for immortalizing our dinner with those great photos and play by play. Thanks too for respecting Karli's privacy - we're trying to work out one of those Prince William/Prince Harry deals. I know what you're all thinking - pupperazzi. Yeah - me too.

I tried to go again a couple of days later but they were totally booked - and that was on a Tuesday night - second service.

And let me add that I especially liked the little pinot blanche aperitif they offered - the gesture and the wine itself. I had the pate en croute - tasty technical achievement with a nice cool, clear aspic UNDER flaky golden crust; the aforementioned table-winning rognons - which WERE alarming at first sight - a HUGE, in your face/this IS offal kind of experience - but delicious - perfectly done - they actually ask how you want them done - tender, meaty, chewy, with some of that good gelatinous connective tissue action. By the time we got the desserts, we were already the last table in the house - funny when our waiter went to cut my chocolate tarte - on the center service table - I saw him start to cut a normal human-sized portion - and then just kind of figured what the hell - and chopped off the massive wedge pictured above - which is why it's just slightly assymetrical.

That alone endeared them to me forever.

Great dinner - great company - thanks again.

Edited April 13, 2004 by loufood (log)

[John Talbott]

I am sad to report that Angl'Opera is closed "definitively" according to a concierge at the Edward VIIth, wherein it sits. A sign in the window says it'll become their bar and the concierge said she thinks Choukroun will simply be occupied with his other ventures (Mini-Palais, Cafe Very) but she didn't really know, she said. I probably shouldn't be too sad, because I think he was at his best at the Cafe des Delices and tried too hard at Angl'.