Paris 2014: Places We Ate

Paris:  Places We Ate

(Warming: If you're not into food, this may be of little interest to you. And even if you are, consider yourself warned,)

We love eating out in Paris particularly when we stumble across a Bistro or Restaurant we've heard nothing about or we just stop walking because Danice is famished.  We end up surprised at how darned good the meal was.  I suppose an easier way of saying that is, "You can't get a bad meal in Paris", but the person who started that hasn't been eating the gravely overcooked green beans we encountered at least twice.

One of the places, Le Newton, we bumped into was on a side street as we were making our way to the Jaquemart Andre museum. The place was just this side of elegant and seemed to be filled with local business people. Danice was not overly enthusiastic with her Salad Niscoise, but Paul was batty over the squid stew. He just loves those french fish soups.

We mentioned the butcher shop with a small restaurant, Le Province, that Giorgio and Shelly took us to.  A great place with plenty of atmosphere for serious carnivores.  The frites are great too.

Our first meal of delicately prepared cuisine was at Les Bouquinistes,  on the Quai in the 6th.  It is named after the book seller stalls just across the street along the left bank.  It is a lovely place and we had a delicious meal. (Doing lunch and having the days menu at these very nice Bistros is a great way to experience the food with out spending a lot.)

Danice's eyes go squinty when Paul makes her laugh at him.

For starters Danice had a wonderful carrot soup with ginger cream and Paul yet another fish soup thing. For our main we had

Danice's chicken stew (she thought the chicken was tough, but did love the carrots), which left Paul with more than enough to make a different judgement about the chicken and sauce. Paul loved his foamy Bouillabaisse (yet another fish soup) with three perfectly cooked pieces of fish.

Perhaps our favorite restaurant in Paris is L'Agrume, (Paul thinks that if we had more time and gave food top priority, we could dig up some others).  It's deep into the 5th and several blocks from about 4 Metro stations.  There's a very focused chef visible in the kitchen who has help only from a dishwasher/ clean up guy.  Four years ago when we first visited, there was a charming young woman taking our order and serving us.  A nice chat revealed she was a partner, but they were not married.  Sad to say she was no longer present this visit, and the chef didn't look too happy.  Hard to know if that was the cause or effect of her disappearance, or unrelated.  Again we did the lunch menu, which consisted of three entrees and a main and with one desert to split. Our experience at L'Agrume is that the starters are the highlight. This time was no different. Of particular delight was the best celery root soup you can imagine (celery root seems to be in vogue since we had it a number of times.). The main of perfectly cooked veal with potatoes and carrots was extremely satisfying. This was topped off with a desert of stewed figs, which also seemed to be in vogue, with toasty hazelnuts and creme fraiche. We limited ourselves to one glass of delicious wine each so that we'd be able to take a long walk back through the 5th.

One night Paul had a hankering for some traditional French comfort food. With a little research he dug up a place in the 12th called Le Quincey. Danice had called for reservations the day ahead, but when we arrived they didn't have them, unless we claimed to be the Steiglins from the Brighton Hotel. We didn't go for that, but I kept insisting I had called; so they finally gave us the only empty table right by the front door with a view of the street (this is relevant information). The place seemed to be the real deal right down to the red checked table cloths and the twinkly old waiter. The food was pretty great. We split a leek tart to start and Danice had the best ox-tail stew ever, the reduced sauce was sooo intense.  Paul had the special of the day, Grouse, and while it tasted great, it was not roasted as he had been told, but braised. Even though we were stuffed we were going to have desert, but neither our twinkly old waiter nor either of the other two that had served us was willing to take our order for at least 30 minutes.  When a waiter finally came, we just had coffee and then waited another 20 minutes before we were able to get the check.

But we did have some entertainment, aside from one another, while waiting.   First there was the party of three sitting next us, and boy did they eat. They split three large appetizers, Tete de Veau  a pate and smoked salmon. Then they each had a main - a pot of chicken for the tiny female, blanquette de veau for one of the guys and the best looking stuffed cabbage. It came in a large copper pot, looking like a dome. The server cut into it like a huge cake; it was layered with the stuffing and the cabbage. A beautiful sight. All through their dinner one of the guys did 99% of the talking to the other couple, who at times seemed to be squirming. Just about when we were leaving I heard him say, "c'est tout", then he leaned back in his chair. I wish I knew what his story was.

The other piece of entertainment was briefer and a bit humorous to us. A couple older than we by several years started leaving. The very well groomed woman gingerly made her way out the door. Her husband was trailing right behind, but then stopped and went back for his jacket.  She was clearly moving to her target and proceeded on out to get into the waiting taxi.  The delayed husband went out to the street with his jacket on and reached for the door of the taxi just as it pulled away. He stood at the curb sort of stunned waving goodbye, then he came back to Le Quincy and a a mild uproar ensued. Calls were made and finally another taxi came to pick up hubby, with our twinkly waiter out front making sure all went well this time.  From the time the first taxi pulled away, Paul was hoping she had money in her bag to pay the driver.  This little vignette kept us occupied for the hour between dinner and getting the check.  We do wonder if Le Quincey's desserts were as good as the rest of their cooking.

One Saturday Paul suggested we head for St. Quinton public market, reputed to be the largest, noisiest covered public market in Paris.  It reportedly closes at 1:00pm and we arrived shortly before 1:00, but it was nearly empty and relatively quiet.  We studied the produce, fish, cheese, etc, then decided to take a bar stool at a small vendor's stand where people were eating some interesting home cooked looking food.

The friendly dark skinned man who waited on us said he was from Portugal and he recommended the Portugese Cod with potatoes and cabbage salad.  We both thought it looked great in a rustic way and ordered it.

 Watching the dark skinned Portuguese man and a white skinned Frenchman in the kitchen, Danice soon realized she had assumed wrongly that the Frenchman was the boss.  It soon became clear who was in charge, and she had a great lesson about her own latent racism for automatically thinking the white man would be the boss.  Paul had figured it out long before. The fish was quite good with white french wine, making the walk down the St. Martin Canal and onward to the Bastille most pleasant.

A bright, cute kid playing PC video games on the stool next to us turned out to be the Portuguese owner/chef's son, who helped out with place settings when his papa got really busy.

For lunch one Saturday we went back to La Gazzetta also in the 12th.  We were surprised that it was only about half full, but the service and the food were good and the 19E prix fix lunch was a good deal.

The three starters - the pizza doesn't look so great but tasted fine, the lamb with spinach was outstanding and the squash soup was quite good

Paul had the pan roasted chicken with cepes and mashed potatoes - very yummy

Danice had a vegetable plate, very enjoyable but not OMG delicious. 

Shelly and Gene recommended a good restaurant in the 7th, Pattoka, french for a small horse. The food from the menu was pretty refined.  Sometimes it was hard to identify the ingredients, but most of the combinations and foamed sauces tasted great. There was also a menu of tapas, but since this was probably our only chance we went with the menu.  (Paul can't believe he didn't take any pictures of the very pretty presentations). Here's what we had:  Paul's starter - Royale of foie gras, figs and smoked eel, thyme/lemon broth - very good some tastes to linger over.  Danice's Starter - Celery root cappuccino and green apple slivers, chuck finger and tonato sauce - was not as good as L'Agrumes celery root soup. The chuck finger with tonato sauce was not to Danice's taste, too rich and meaty. Paul was very happy to finish it off.
Paul's main - Veal medaillon in soubise sauce with parmesan, rigatoni stuffed with white ham, amaretto gravy - now this was absolutely out standing, the soubise sauce was great and the stuffed rigatoni were out of this world.  Danice's main - Confit pork belly in luted casserole, autumn vegetables and grapes - surprisingly delicious.  The split dessert - Basque cake and vanilla ice cream, was right on the money.  We thank Gene and Shelly for suggesting the Pattoka.

For our last lunch we ate in a very traditional restaurant, La Rotonde, in our neighborhood near the Muette Metro stop.  Danice had Poulet Tagine and Paul had a Beef Bourguignon. Both very good.

We didn't mention our meals at home, delicious baguette sandwiches in the park, or finding our old favorite Bistrot Mazarine hiding away between the Seine and Blvd St Germaine, but we loved them all in the sunshine or the drizzle.  It was hard to say goodbye, but time to fly off to Istanbul.