Falling in Love with Paris Again Part Five

 postscript

    This week was, on the whole, an entirely surrealistic experience.  

    Clouded by the US election results, but not without fun and adventure for the two of us.  

    Firstly, our friend Sally came for a short visit and our culinary exploits continued.  We ate lunch again at Taokan then back to Pizza Chic.  

     On election day in the US, we elected to dine at another historic eatery here in Paris, La Coupole on Bd Montparnasse. Angèle joined the two of us for excellent choucroute and Sally opted for steak frites. This was our replacement for the horrible Brasserie Lipp.  Waiters and food so much better!

    Wednesday was a surreal day in more than one sense:  

    We had already booked tickets for the three of us to visit the Centre Pompidou to see the Surrealism exhibit, one of the most extensive shows of the genre ever, and included (of course) Magritte, Arp, Max Ernst, Miró, Picasso, Klee, Dalí, Man Ray … and those are just the names I am familiar with.  

    While Scott and Sally enjoyed the exhibition immensely, I found it, well, disturbing. Erotic, scary, beautiful, otherworldly and in the end, simply disturbing. It was nice we ended up back at Cafe Laperouse, where we once again had a lovely, lingering lunch.  The waiters remembered us and we lingered because we could. Our guy even brought us dessert, not because we asked for it, but because he liked us. The afternoon there took away some of the strangeness of a wholly surreal day. 

    We also took Sally back to our favourite, Pizza Chic.  But let me tell you about a really cool cocktail bar up on Bd St. Germain, Craven, recommended by Angèle. It’s not pronounced as you’d expect, rather, the a is pronounced ah.  The bar is actually several, in several stories, housed in a building dating from the 17th century. They haven’t finished the upper stories yet, but given that the first two floors are lively and elegant, we look forward to seeing the rest. And once again we are recognised and acknowledged by the owners.

    We said goodbye to Sally on Thursday and turned our attention a little further afield, because Scott had found a true Mexican restaurant we wanted to try:  Anahuacalli down past the Musée Cluny and just around the corner off Bd St. Germain on Rue des Bernardins in the Fifth Arrondissement.  It’s not TexMex and it’s not California Mex, although there were some crossovers:  we started with lots of guacamole and chips, chicken taquitos and then cochinita pibil with black beans and the very authentic fresh cheese ‘queso fresco’.  Scott had gorgeous cheese enchiladas.  Margaritas and beer.

    I was stuffed to the gills and very very happy.

    And very sleepy. Back to the flat for a lie-down before dinner with Angèle.

    We met at Craven for a pre-dinner cocktail, the Royal Basilique: Champagne with essence of basil flowers.

    Dinner was at Yen, an authentic Japanese restaurant specialising in soba noodles. 

    Friday being our last day, we managed a Farewell Tour of sorts, beginning at Craven for our usuals: Royal Basilique and Mad Collins (ginger, gin and fizzy water).

    On to Pizza Chic.

    And lastly, to our Grand Café Dragon, which was, BTW, hopping with young people. We were lucky to get a table, but of course the manager found one just for us.

    We’ve told everyone we’ll be back in April.

    This has been only the second time I have spent more than a week at a time in Paris (the first back in 1975 for an extended French course), and it has been so much fun to pretend we’re locals. Locals don’t gawk at the scenery or almost get hit by crazy bicyclists (mostly) and even direct tourists when they’re lost. 

    There is something to be said about slow tourism - spending weeks in one place - rather than a day here a day there.  I know when we return to Paris, and indeed to Naples next year, the friends and acquaintances we’ve made will welcome us back.

Falling in Love with Paris Part Four

    Six days in and we really feel ‘settled’, with our cafes we like to frequent (the staff know us), we like the market that sells really nice stuff, next door to a nice mini supermarket, one step (or two) up from Monoprix.

    We had our second meal at Pizza Chic.  They know us too, especially since Scott speaks pretty good Italian to the pretty Italian manager.  

    I limp up to the Caves de la Mère Germaine to replenish my wine.  It turns out that the guy who manages the place used to work at our own wine emporium here in Ludlow (!) Yes, it is a small world.

    As we whiled away our afternoon, TB started looking at all the restaurants on Rue du Dragon and found three right next door to each other, owned by Chef Cyril Lignac: Le Bar, Aux Près, and Dragon and booked a table for tonight.

    Scott had a wasabi margarita and I had something called Last Apple. Both outstanding.

    As was the food, at least for me.  I started with a ceviche, really perfect little mound with bits of avocado snuck in amid the fish, onions and mild chilis. The Langoustine ravioli was very tasty but not quite hot enough, temp-wise:  Tasty but tepid.  Scott’s sweet and sour shrimp could have used some of his favourite hot sauce to spice it up a bit. But overall, the evening was a very good experience.

    We strolled back up the street to our fave little cafe to watch the travelogue again.  This time it was Santorini in Greece.  Lots of cruise ships out in the bay and a whole load of tourists in the streets.  Not a place either of us is interested in.

  Friday, we had lunch at one of our discoveries from last time, Café Laperouse. This elegant little restaurant adjacent to the museum Hȏtel de la Marine on Place de la Concorde, has been around for a while.  They boast that they were the official providers of lemonade to the King.

    We were joined by a very good friend from my high school days in Grand Rapids Michigan.  So much fun to see her after all these years.  The restaurant is abuzz, lots of upmarket tourists, or at least speaking in foreign tongues: German, Asian, American and of course French.

    For lunch:  a bottle of Veuve Clicquot, foie gras for me, caviar for TB, endive salad for Sara. Scott followed with their famous smashed cheeseburger, Sara with a veal escalope, me mini fish and chips.  Rum baba to finish.

     Saturday is a lazy-ish day.  Lunch was the yellow chicken TB roasted yesterday. Superb on a baguette with just black pepper.  The buttery texture of the flesh needs nothing more.

    We ventured out in search of pipe tobacco and Chartreuse.

    There were seats free in the back of the Chartreuse shop/museum and we ordered something called the Last Word.  I looked it up recently and found that it’s a famous cocktail that’s been around since just before prohibition.  According to liquor.com, “The Last Word was first served at the Detroit Athletic Club, circa 1915. Created just before the start of Prohibition, likely by a bartender named Frank Fogarty, it’s one of the cocktail canon’s most successful Prohibition-era drinks.”

    I popped back into the tobacco shop next door to see if I could find a similar brand to our neighbour’s ‘Clan’ tobacco. Well, the guy comes back out with …  Clan!  Apparently I was pronouncing it wrong.  Clan as in the Scottish word is not how they pronounce it here.  It’s more like the clahn, with the n nearly silent.  Eureka!

    Walking home, I’d forgotten how creepy it is to walk the very crowded Boulevard St. Germain on a Saturday.  I guess no season is a slow season.

    Dinner.  Rue du Dragon, this time an Italian eatery, not one of Cyril’s.  It's called Divina Commedia, where Scott had a true minestrone he loved.  One of those soups where everything left over in the fridge is tossed in.  I had a surprisingly tasty, light tuna carpaccio before an exquisite Risotto Milano. In the centre of the bowl was a beautiful slice of bone, with marrow intact.  I can’t believe I ate the whole thing.

    For Sunday we lunched at Cyril Lignac’s Aux Prés, the most upmarket (read ‘expensive’) of the three on Rue du Dragon. I started with a carpaccio of scallops, almost more like a ceviche, but very tasty.  Scott’s first course were spicy crispy shrimps.  He was happy about the spice.  The next course:  a very rich and tender beef shoulder in a dark rich sauce. I had a lobster with frites.  All fantastic. I started with a coupe of Deutz Champagne then on to a Côte de Beaune white.  It was a little disappointing that my after-dinner Calvados was cold.

    The night ended badly, at least for Scott:  he punished himself, again, by watching the New Orleans Saints lose. Again.

Bon soirée!

Falling in Love with Paris All Over Again Part Three

(Part Three)

    As promised, TB (The Boy: what I call Scott) was up and out at 08.00 to buy some fresh-out-of-the-oven bread at the boulangerie around the corner on Rue Du Dragon. Two baguettes, less than €3.00.

    We spent the morning quietly reading, doing crosswords, from the English Sunday papers we can buy next door to Les Deux Magots.

    After a baguette lunch at home, we Ubered over to Place Vendôme, where Scott has recently invested in some very nice shirts. Made to order.  Eye-wateringly expensive, but also made to last a lifetime. Charvet.  Apparently, they make King Charles' shirts too.

    The very attractive hostess who greeted us made Scott weak in the knees (!) but he hid it well until we were back in the car.  She took us upstairs by lift to the large room where they keep thousands of bolts of fabric. It made me think of the vast repository of stuff at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, it was so big. We spoke briefly to talk to the guy who measures you.

    TB was there to order some winter weather shirts, but alas if we ordered them today, (they already have his measurements on file) they would not be ready until the end of January. He’ll wait until later next year to consider buying more.

    There’s a food hall closer to home, just off Place St. Sulpice, near the café where we sat after lunch yesterday coming back from the Chartreuse shop.  We returned to that café for our usual ‘coupe’ and vin rouge. The waitress there remembered us (we sat in the same place) and we enjoyed our flâneurie before ambling over to the market.

    I remembered that market from years ago when I used to stay on Place St. Sulpice at the Hôtel Récamier.  It's a proper food hall, much much nicer than the Monoprix. 

    We bought onion, tomato, lettuce, French radishes.  A good start for salads at home. Because it was later in the day, many of the stalls were dark, so we vowed to return earlier next time. TB has his eyes on a yellow chicken to roast for sandwiches at home.

    Right next door to the market is an upscale version of Monoprix, called Epic, short for épicerie, the French term for market. It’s not pronounced with a hard C: ā-piece, with an accent on the second syllable.  Wonderful French cream, cornichons, oh yeah.

    Tonight we dined around the corner again, just past the Chinese/Thai place we ate a few days ago. Blueberry is a cozy, upmarket Japanese restaurant serving excellent sushi, excellent tempura, and an excellent portion of edamame.

    After dinner we head back around the corner to our Café Dragon for one last ‘coupe’ and vin rouge.  Because it’s too cold to sit outside now, we’re just inside the door.  Across from us on the wall is a giant flat screen tv showing sweeping aerial vistas of the Austrian Alps in winter. I thought I recognised the Patscherkofel and the Inn River, ‘though maybe it was Salzburg.  Still dazzling snow and mountains.

    Wednesday morning, Scott was off early to get his hair cut and hands manicured at his new fave place to do that kind of stuff. Yes, he’s turning into a real sartorial specimen.

    While he was away, I found the bouillon we visited last time and plotted a walking course to get there for lunch. Bouillon Racine has another really pretty Art Nouveau interior they have managed to keep well preserved. And we remembered the food was very good. And not breaking the bank.

    I looked at Google Maps and decided confidently that I knew “right where to go.” Some might say I was smug about it.  I left my phone at home, I was so confident.

[buzzer sounding for wrong answer]

    I got it wrong and never heard the end of it.  All the times I’ve harped at TB for his inability to get us to where we want to go, well now I can no longer complain. From now on, whenever I bitch, all he has to do is say one word:  Racine.

    The good news:  lunch was so much better than Lipp!

    Scott had snails to start.  ‘The best ever,’ he announced.

    I had foie gras on a bed of duck carpaccio.  ‘Superb.’

    We both had the daily special of chicken with pommes de terre and sauce forestiere, meaning mushrooms and herbs from the forest.

    It was all divine. Firstly there was no breast, only a moist thigh and drumstick. But it was the sauce, along with perfectly cooked dark meat that made it so tasty.

    We shared a cheese plate: 24-month old Comte, a runny bubbly thing and goats cheese.

    Because our lunch was such a feast, we ‘foraged’ for supper at home. And slept really well.

Falling in Love All Over Again - with Paris Part Two

(Part Two)

    It’s Monday and we have enjoyed the weekend as we settle in for another 12 days and to reacquaint ourselves with Paris.

    After a lunch at home of leftovers (heating up Saturday’s pizza), we wandered out onto Boulevard St. Germain for some flâneurie at one of Angèle’s preferred cafes, Le Rocquet. The waiter smiled big when I asked for une coupe du Champagne.

    It’s fun to sit side by side and watch people pass by. Tourists, locals, kids, elderly, families, students, beggars.

    After, we strolled down the boulevard past Les Deux Magots, past the old church, until we landed at the Chartreuse museum. Sadly the bar in the back was closed for a private affair. We’ll return.

    An additional disappointment in the Tabac next door: according to the purveyor there, our neighbour, Chris’s favourite pipe tobacco is no longer available in France. (We were charged with buying his pipe tobacco in Europe because it's cheaper. While I'm not a fan of smoking, his reminds me of my Dad.)

    We wandered back down the boulevard toward home, crossed the street to another café for more flâneurie and, surprise! We’re actually on Rue du Four!

    Our table at Brasserie Lipp was for six p.m. so we had the old people’s lie-down before making our way to this historic eatery on the Bd St. Germain.

    I will preface this next story with our own personal history of Brasserie Lipp.

    In the 55 years I’ve been visiting Paris, I had never been to this most famous of brasseries. Firstly, having spent those first 30-years travelling mostly solo, it was an uncomfortable thought to dine there alone. There were stories of indifferent waiters, and indifferent food.  One could not (until recently) actually book a table in advance.  I imagine the locals don’t have that issue but it kept me from hazarding a visit.  

    Until two years ago.  We dined there with the daughter of our cousin, we call her our niece (she’s French). She arrived moments before we did but we were seated at the same time, in the back of the restaurant. We had a glorious time. The menu includes all the typical brasserie goodies one expects, but more important, they serve choucroute.  Simply translated, it’s sauerkraut.  But sauerkraut in the elegant manner of the French, in a steaming concoction of all sorts of pork (wieners, pork belly, chop, knuckle) and flavoured with whole juniper berries. Oh my!  Well, we all enjoyed ourselves and we had a lovely and engaging waiter. It was a wonderful experience.

    Last year, Scott and I dined there again just the two of us.  We were seated up front and we both ordered different choucroute.  Much too much for the two of us but still the experience was just fantastic.  

    Lipp is another one of those finely designed art nouveau interiors from the late 19th century. High ceilings, organic murals with exotic animals and plants on the walls, tiles adorning the wainscoting.  We were keen to take our friend Sally there when she arrives next week, but we couldn’t wait, so we booked an early table for this evening.

    Catastrophe!

    Apparently, tourists are all now seated up front in order to be avoided by the local clientele who comfortably sit in the back of the restaurant. Well, okay, and most of us were, after all, American tourists up front.

    Our first course (look away PETA people) was delicious: foie gras for me and snails for Scott. Generous portions for both.

    But the omen for things to come, and the contempt shown by our waiter: dirty wine glasses.

    Then comes the main course, and frankly, it was inedible, at least Scott’s was.

    He ordered the roast chicken supreme. What arrived was a darkened piece of leather trying to pass itself off as chicken.  Both tables next to us also ordered the chicken and, if it could be, it looked even worse than Scott’s.

    My sole was edible but dry.

    And the waiter forgot my wine! Catastrophe!

    When we asked for the bill, the waiter made it a point to tell us an extra tip would go to him.

    In France, it is the law that restaurants must include a 12- to 15- per cent service charge for their staff.

    The waiter asked again how much we were going to pay.  I pointed at the sum on the bill and said ‘this.’ He once again (three times in the end) reminded us that the extra tip would go to him.

    I paid the amount on the bill.

    We went home and cancelled the table with Sally for next week, and found another famous art nouveau restaurant down on Boulevard Montparnasse:  La Coupole.

    The evening however, eventually turned rosier: the wine shop (Les Caves de la Mère Germaine) next door to Lipp had a very nice rosé Provençale and an excellent Pouilly Fumé from the Loire valley.

    So on we strolled down Rue du Dragon toward home, stopping at our little café for one last glass of wine.  This being the third visit at the Grand Café Dragon, the waiter and manager were happy to greet us and take much better care of us than the waiter at Lipp. They also didn’t ask for a larger tip. (But we gave them one anyway)

(end of Part Two)