(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)
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