Category: france
Clarence in Paris: Higuma
32 bis rue Saint Anne, 75001 Paris
Métro: Pyramides
Oh, that’s right, I have a blog.
Don’t think for a second I forgot about you, dearest reader. In fact, I would describe the past two weeks as being consumed with “gnawing guilt” that I’ve neglected you so throughly. Well, gnawing guilt and finals time at the university where I teach and a steady stream of visitors from all over the place. It also got hot, suddenly, and I’m worthless when I’m sweaty. Any kind of weather extreme and I lose all desire to do anything other than sit around and complain about how uncomfortable I am. I’m a real charmer.
One thing that has kept me rolling the past month or so has been the discovery of Higuma, the Japanese ramen place that I fantasized might exist in previous entries. The Little Tokyo area of Paris is rather oddly located in the heart of the first arrondissement, so if you find yourself barfed onto the street with the rest of the hoards after the claustrophobia-inducing exercise that is touring the Louvre, I would highly recommend that you skip all the overpriced “French” tourist traps in the area and instead head to rue Sainte Anne for some noodle-based fortification. You won’t regret it.
My friend S (now temporarily bereft of H) had highly recommended Higuma as he often frequents it when he stays in a gorgeous apartment owned by family friends on the same block (color me virescent with drooling envy). Sainte Anne is packed with terrific-looking sushi and noodle shops, many of which attract lines that would suggest that good cooking is afoot. The line is always longest at Higuma, however:
But it moves fast! Really fast, actually, as this is one of the few places in Paris where puttering around over your empty plates is highly frowned upon by both the staff and the line of famished patrons who watch you slurp every last noodle.
As you can see, the front dining room is dominated by the open kitchen, where you watch skillful chefs with seemingly fireproof hands and faces prepare your food. As far as I’m concerned, watching my meal come to life is the most entertaining show imaginable. Some internet naysayers complain that you leave Higuma smelling of meaty smoke and pungent spices. Yes, you do. I can’t think of a more delightful thing to smell of. I can just imagine this high maintenance chick who is worried about her blowout smelling like ramen. Trust me, sweetie, that hot guy at the bar would rather you smell like pork than tropical flower cotton candy any day of the week.
The first time we ate at Higuma was at around 6 p.m., a weird time for Parisians to eat so found the place nearly empty (good advice for people like my mother who are congenitally incapable of waiting in line for long periods of time). B and I decided to try some ramen before we went to the Deerhunter show at La Maroquinerie. While I can’t say much for the study-abroad crowd attracting, vaguely monotonous stylings of Deerhunter, I can say that another delightful discovery of the evening (besides Higuma) was the opening act, a lovely woman who—with a set of laptops—goes by Bachelorette and makes dreamy fun electronic pop. My favorite cyborg moment so far of the year was when she announced in her little voice “We are Bachelorette, me and the laptops. (Pause). Nous sommes Bachelorette!” Love love this lady, check her out. “Donkey” has totally been my jam for the past few weeks.
Back to the food. Sorry.
So there’s of course the ramen (spelled ‘lamen’) and it’s all things you want ramen to be: vaguely fatty, salty, hearty, and rich. Pictured is the miso lamen (6.50€), which has a nice mellow character to it:
I’d also recomment the shio lamen (6.50€), which is a great basic vehicle if you are like me and tend to douse your noodles with every condiment available on the table (in this case, a delightfully piquant chile oil and the requisite orangey MSG powder). I wouldn’t recommend the syoyu ramen (6.50€), as its soy-sauce based broth is a bit too salty for my taste (and my palate can handle a veritable sodium bonanza on occasion).
A lovely option (and a real “feeder” as my pops would say), are Higuma’s menus (10€), which include a main dish as well as an entrée. Worth their weight in pan-fried gold are these delicious little pork and veggie gyoza:
If you live back in the States and have a Trader Joe’s nearby, you surely know the joy that is having a freezer full of gyoza for your snacking pleasure. God I miss Trader Joe’s. Good gyoza are rather rare here in Paris and should be savored. Twice now at Higuma B’s gyoza have become communal property, and while he is too nice of a guy to admit that he doesn’t want to share, I can see a deep sadness in his eyes when everybody digs in to his dumplings. Sorry kid.
There are also some really toothsome rice dishes, including this katsudon (8€) of pork, onions, and egg over fried rice, pictured with a mediocre miso and a most interesting pickled radish thing:
I’d also really recommend the chahan (8€, also available in a menu as half portion with your choice of ramen for 10€). I don’t have a picture, as I forgot my camera that particular time. This pork, shrimp, and veggie fried rice dish doesn’t look like much when it arrives, but it is the apex of buttery, fatty, fried rice goodness. I ate nearly all of B’s portion when he ordered the chahan menu. Poor guy, he can’t even keep his food on his plate when Clarence is hungry.
I know you are already chomping at the bit to go to Higuma, but I haven’t even told you about the best part yet. And by “best” I mean consciousness-altering, game-changing, oh-my-god-where-have-you-been-the-past-rainy-six-months-of-my-life delish:
This is some serious yakisoba (7.50€) people. Tender pork, even tenderer calamari, oyster mushrooms, sautéed vegetables, grated ginger, and fried noodles in a spicy, salty, oh-so-heavenly sauce. This dish is umami personified. Variety be damned, I don’t plan on ordering anything else, ever.
Details: There will be a line, but do you really have anything better to do? Meals are cheap, cheap, cheap, especially for that area of town. Beer is less cheap, but split a giant Sapporo with your date and spend the rest of your boozing money on extra gyoza. Open late and every day of the week. Done and done.
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Addendum: My friend T–a first-order Japanophile, Paris denizen, and generally swell guy–had quite a mouthful to say about this post. As he posted it on Facebook instead of the blog, I’m pasting it below. If there is anybody who has done his homework on Japanese food in Paris, it’s certainly him.
Higuma is pretty good, especially given the price, but you should definitely try Kunitoraya, the restaurant with the wooden facade just across the street and South a few metres.
I find the quality of the food to be much better (the katsudon is quite good), and, while I generally prefer ramen to udon, the udon at Kunitoraya is fantastic. Everything is super authentic (down to the staff, who barely speak French or English). It costs slightly more, but it’s definitely worth it. Their oden (which I suspect won’t be available in the summer) is also wonderful.
The butter corn ramen at Higuma (as strange as it sounds) is pretty good. It’s fairly popular in Hokkaido, and it only makes sense to make it with delicious French butter (though Ben will surely be disappointed by the corn).
(FYI: the orange spice blend is 七味唐辛子 (shichimi togarashi), and is MSG-free — in case anyone has an aversion to MSG.)
Whew. Consider me schooled.
Clarence in Paris: Rouammit and Huong Lan
So, I’ll admit, being contacted by luckygal90 with a cease-and-desist of sorts was a minor thrill. I’d liken it to the first time that I prank called someone and they *69ed me. I doubt that this will actually turn into anything, as I’m sure she has long since forgotten about my six readers and me. She’s probably way too amped about the fact that her video has indeed gone viral, garnering some thirty thousand hits since I originally wrote about it yesterday. I’m pretty jealous. What are you saying internets? That my posts about falafel, John Mayer, and my sex dreams about dead modernists aren’t worth 32,000 hits? Interestingly enough, yesterday was a record-topping day for me in terms of web traffic. Unfortunately, most of those hits came from people googling “luckygal90,” which is kinda like the universe punching me in the teeth for being too smug.
Anyway, now that I’ve dipped one toe in the sludgebucket that is political blogging I’m going to quickly remove it and begin writing about food again. I started out trying to express my genuine optimism that we will pull through this partisan nightmare and ended up bullying a 13-year-old girl. I don’t have the stomach for it. While I’ll hang on to a conflict like a dog worrying a dead animal, I’m not really one for actual confrontation. I’m much more into complacently talking about people behind their backs.
Also, there’s this:
That’s right people. It’s spring in Paris. While other cities may indeed try to make a case for their singular awesomeness during other seasons (I remember New York in the fall to be quite lovely, and Denver winters are dreamy bar none), Paris in the springtime is pretty unfuckwithable. I hear people have even written songs about it. Suddenly everyone in this city is beautiful and smiling and sitting in a sunny park. Lovers are canoodling by the Seine, children are playing, women are wearing beautiful beige trenchcoats and flowery scarves, and there are tulips and green plums in the market. I’m not going to keep antagonizing a child living somewhere in rural America because, well, there’s such nicer things to do right now. Shoulda come at me in January, kiddo.
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Rouammit and Huong Lan
103 avenue d’Ivry, 75013 Paris
Métro: Tolbiac
So I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while:
Yes, that’s duck. Perfect, tender, lacquered duck in a spicy broth with braised bok choy, red chiles, and crispy deep-fried mint leaves. I’ve been fantasizing about it since I didn’t order it two weeks ago when the genetically over-endowed S & H introduced us to Rouammit and Huong Lan—a yummy pair of Laotian restaurants in the 13th. My buddy from California, BC (sorry, dude, B is taken), was staying with me for a few days and we puzzled over the idea of Laotian food for quite a while. After a Wikipedia search, we settled on the idea that it was probably like Thai. And it is, if you associate Thai with flavors like chile, peanuts, lemongrass, fish sauce, coconut milk, and green garlic. But where many of the Thai restaurants in Paris tend to be kinda swish, the Laotian food here is hearty, cheap, and unfussy. Rouammit and Huong Lan are just that perfect combination.
On my first visit, I ordered the first thing on the menu – Khao Pun Nam Pa, a soup of rice noodles in a fish and coconut milk broth. It’s served with a plate of vegetables that you dunk in the spicy, salty, creamy soup, and their crunchiness nicely offsets the tender succulent fish chunks. It’s really good, and would be amazing if you were sick. But unfortunately I was sitting across from S, the veteran who wisely ordered the Pet Yang Lad Prik (pictured above). I spent most of the meal being overcome with envy. I hate it when I don’t order the best thing. You see, if I was forced to list the top ten things that I love about France, this country’s rabid consumption of duck and rabbit might find its way to the top of the list. Duck, which you rarely see outside of lousy Chinese restaurants and high-end menus in the United States, is ubiquitous here, and usually much better. The duck at Rouammit and Huong Lan is exceptionally delicious and works perfectly in tandem with their spicy sauces. BC sampled their duck with coconut red curry, called Kheng Phed Pet and it was really lovely. But it was S’s lacquered duck with bok choy that I really burned for.
[Autobiographical aside: I was once told by an ex-boyfriend (after much introspection) that the animal I most resembled in character was a duck. I was totally crushed, as I was hoping for a bit more glamorous spirit animal. In retrospect, this game was pretty skewed towards his own egotistical gratification. When I asked what his spirit animal was, he responded that he was “a wolf or maybe a shark.” The “lone wolf” reference certainly wasn’t lost on me, but I wasn’t sure about how the shark might fit in to the veiled conversation we were obviously having about his fear of commitment. Then I remembered that if sharks if stop swimming for even an instant, they die. Man, can I pick ‘em or what? Anyway, apparently I’m fond of eating my spirit animal. I don’t really remember that part of Totem and Taboo.]
So last night, under the auspices of “blog research,” I drug poor M back to Rouammit and Huong Lan. I pretended to let her look at the menu, but she never had a chance. I was bound and determined to have that duck and to also sample the rave-worthy Phad Thai. I think she knew that she was merely a cog in the vast machine of my scheme. She’s an excellent sport (and perhaps this blog’s biggest fan), so she let me have what I wanted. It was delicious. Perhaps best of all, the bill was yet again incredibly reasonable. Virtually none of the plates are more than 10 euro, making some experimentation practically a necessity. I saw a heavenly-looking salad pass our table, which I think suspect is the Lap Neua, a spicy concoction of cold veggies, tripe, and beef. I also lusted after passing plates of Khao Nom Kroc, artfully arranged shrimp dumplings, and chili-oil spiked mango slices (didn’t write down the name of those). Let’s just say I’ll be going back.
Details: It’s cheap, delicious, and the staff is unflaggingly friendly. It’s also crazy-popular. Get there any later than 7 p.m. for dinner and expect a serious wait time in the street. Probably not best for bigger parties, though we managed to get a table for six by arriving early. Open 12-3 p.m. for lunch and 7-11 p.m. for dinner Tuesday through Friday, 12-4 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. Closed Mondays.
Clarence in Paris: Tokyo Eat
Tokyo Eat at the Palais de Tokyo
13 avenue du Président Wilson, 75116 Paris
Métro: Iéna
Yesterday I went and watched some psychoanalysts fight with each other at the Sorbonne for a few hours. The conference I attended ended with one of the panel members storming off the stage and the other throwing his glasses on the table in frustration. The were fighting over the stakes of a dogmatic reading of one of Lacan’s seminars, which I’m sure to most people would seem like a pretty irrelevant thing to get so bent out of shape about. But this was a niche audience and everyone got really fired up. It was kind of exhausting to witness, though I suppose that my ability to mock an angry French speaker improved immeasurably.
Worn down to a single raw nerve, I met up with my friends afterwards for an evening at the Palais de Tokyo, a museum that I’ve mentioned here before. How to explain the Palais de Tokyo to the uninitiated? It’s a rather enormous, partially unfinished contemporary art museum with no permanent collection. They put on a few large-scale exhibitions a year and have weekly lectures, concerts, film screenings, and other cultural happenings on Thursday nights. On the upside, some of their curatorial work is really sharp and the vastness of the museum space itself allows for certain work to be showcased that might otherwise have difficulty finding adequate museum space. The also have, hand-down, the best Photomaton in Paris (it’s actually nearly impossible to find the black and white kind that make photos in a vertical strip here, Amelie be damned). The downside? Well, sometimes the exhibitions indulge the emptiest trends of contemporary art. The last exhibition at the Palais, Chasing Napoleon, was a good example of the former alternative: a fascinating group show that hinged upon the idea of the Unabomber as an exemplary escape from the social into a kind of aesthetic isolation. The current exhibition, Pergola, which is supposedly about the haunting of architectural space, is well, let’s just say it’s not that great. It’s the kind of show that makes intelligent people wander around bewildered, musing about how they too can get in to this conceptual art racket and make a killing assembling boxes out of construction-grade plywood. Or maybe that’s just my friends and me.
What’s kind of terrific about the Palais de Tokyo, however, is that even if the art viewing is a total bummer (an entire installation of non-functional pneumatic tubes? really?!), the bookstore is consistently amusing and the bar and restaurant at the museum are pretty excellent. I’ve told you about the excellent neon lighting at the Tokyo Bar before, but I’ll emphasize again that it is a great place to meet up if you find pinky-orange light to be very flattering (I do). While the service at the bar is comically bad (just order at the bar, because seriously they are never, ever coming to your table), the bartenders are cute guys that certainly provide evidence that my students are wrong to say that there is no such thing as a French hipster.
The restaurant, Tokyo Eat, has a diverse, pseudo-Asian fusion thing going on that provides a nice break from Paris bistro fare. While it’s trendy and kind of expensive (a nine euro milkshake guys? for that price it better be laced with cocaine), I actually really like eating there. Last night, my friends and I ate the tartare de boeuf au saté et sésame, roquette et frites maison (standard steak tartare/salad/fries with the twist that the tartare was made with a kind of lovely Asian sesame and saté flavor), the pastilla d’agneau aux aubergines et oignons confits et mesclun (a really lovely Moroccan-style lamb pastilla filled with eggplant and onions and served with a heap of salad) and the adorable daurade à la plancha, aubergines confines, et sauce cacahuète (sea bass with roasted eggplant and a peanut sauce). For dessert, we shared the mini macarons d’Hermès, dissident d’Hermé, aux parfums varies (an assortment of macarons served with a “dissident,” which I believe is what they were calling a small piece of lacy caramel). I’d been eyeing a large display of macaroons in tall milkshake glasses all night, and my friends humored me in ordering one for dessert. I felt kind of bad when I realized that M doesn’t even really like macarons. Though how can you dislike macarons? They are practically the most perfect Parisian foodstuff! The tourism industry might likely crash to a halt if Ladurée or Fauchon closed their doors! I’m not going to bore you with a long description of the macaron culture in Paris (there are fifteen other blogs that can do that for you just as well), but I will say that the ones at the Palais de Tokyo are pretty amazing. While they didn’t have a lemon one (my personal favorite), the assortment of pistachio, rose, vanilla, and passionfruit that they serve is really lovely. Further proof in my growing pile of evidence that M is actually a Soviet spy.
Details: Lunch and dinner served whenever the museum is open (noon to midnight everyday except Tuesday). Reservations totally unnecessary. Dinner service starts at 8 p.m. A nice alternative to the many overpriced tourist traps in the area (surrounding the Eiffel Tower and the Musée du quai Branly).
Photos via Palais de Tokyo.
Clarence in Paris: Pho Banh Cuon 14
Pho Banh Cuon 14
129 Avenue de Choisy, 75013 Paris
Métro: Tolbiac
I’ve always been lucky to live in places with excellent Vietnamese food. Growing up in Denver, we often went out for phở on Federal Boulevard when we would ditch class in the afternoons in high school (for the record, I still really like Pho 95 in Denver, popularity be damned.) Moving to Orange County for graduate school yields a few perks, including access to gorgeous beaches and close proximity to Westminster and Garden Grove, where you can take phở eating as seriously as you might in Saigon. While I know that it’s traditionally a breakfast thing, to me phở is most appealing when I’m fighting a cold or when it’s cold and dismal outside. As it’s basically been the latter situation for the past four months in Paris (why, oh why do all the best cities involve WINTER?), I’ve took my phở-finding in this town quite seriously.
I assumed (warning: political correctness lapse forthcoming) that France’s colonial history in Vietnam would yield a serious wealth of Vietnamese restaurants in Paris. To be honest, so far I’ve been rather disappointed. I (like my fantasy-friend Mark Bittman), was excited to eat bánh mì in Paris, as it seems like the classic ingredients of phở served on a baguette (with the addition of lovely French things like good pâté) would be the ultimate in French-Vietnamese street food. And my conclusion? Eh. They make some decent bánh mì at Thieng Heng (to the left of the Tang Frères supermarket at 50 rue d’Ivry in the 13th) and Saigon Sandwiches (8 rue de la Présentation in the 11th). Predictibly, the baguettes are better and so is the pâté – though they are closer to the consistency of rillettes at both locations. But compared to the tangy, spicy bánh mì I’ve eaten in New York and Los Angeles, the French versions are bland, bland, bland. Where are the bird chiles or the jalapeños? Where is the vinegary bite to the carrots and the daikon? Actually, where is the daikon?! This isn’t exactly surprising – the French palate is entirely intolerant of spicy food. The French family that my friend B lives with nearly died when he served them a pretty tame chili con carne. And before anyone starts getting agitated about this minor criticism I’m making of the French palate (I can anticipate the Angry Reader before he even shows up now!), I’ll acquiesce and say that I’m sure my tastebuds have been so damaged by my spicy-food promiscuity that I’m numb to the kind of nuance the average French person takes for granted.
But seriously guys, grow a pair.
Obviously, I’m a terrible food writer because I spend half my entry talking about my preferences before I get to my actual review of the restaurant in question. So anyway, to get to Pho Banh Cuon 14. It’s pretty good! It’s definitely the best phở I’ve found in Paris! And the crowds seem to agree – this place is always packed and you can anticipate standing in line for about ten minutes outside, especially if you are in a larger group of people (I definitely wouldn’t go on a weekend if I was with more than three people). They have a pretty standard list of phở meat options, including rare steak, beef meatballs, tripe, and chicken (no tendon, which is disappointing, and no seafood options, but maybe that is a California thing?). Their phở is served with white onions, greens that resemble dandelion greens, Thai basil, Thai chili peppers, lemon wedges, bean sprouts, and cilantro, as well as the requisite Sriracha (the only thing standing between this spicy-food addict and madness in Paris). The broth is hearty and satisfying, and I believe that they make their rice noodles in house. In every possible way, this phở gets the job done. They also have some pretty killer fried spring rolls (a bit of a misnomer, as they are entirely filled with pork) and an assortment of drinks involving sweet azuki beans, coconut milk, and tapioca pearls if that is your thing. The staff is friendly and efficient. Would I recommend that you go here if you were in Paris for a weekend? Absolutely not. But if you are spending an extended period of time in Paris and you’ve got certain needs, Pho Banh Cuon 14 is a pretty great place to get those met. Incidentally, how bobo am I to feel like I need decent phở on a regular basis? Talk about a First World problem!
Details: Open everyday from 9 a.m to 11 p.m. They don’t take reservations (obviously, it’s a phở place). Be prepared to wait in the evenings, and avoid bringing a large group. They don’t accept bank or credit cards, and there isn’t an ATM nearby, so come with cash in hand.
Clarence in Paris: Les Diables au Thym
Les Diables au Thym
35 rue Bergère, 75009 Paris
Métro: Grands-Boulevards
March already? When exactly did that happen? If anybody ever tells you that moving to Paris will be good in terms of progress on your graduate degree, don’t believe them. You need to live somewhere like Orange County to be that breed of productive. Give me a cultural wasteland filled with chain restaurants and I’m a higher-learning machine. Here I’m an unproductive imbecile that spends hours wandering around random neighborhoods muttering to myself about “the light,” stoned on endless glasses of red wine and various forms of animal fat. It’s pathetic. I mean, I guess my French is getting better and I know a lot more about wine now and I’ve watched more Italian cinema than you can shake a stick at in the past few months. So I’m not saying I regret it, exactly, but it’s really March? Huh.
Sorry we’ve been so myopic over here at Keeping the Bear Garden in the Background. I was reading over the last week of posts and every single one is about my crankiness or my sadness or my liver. How fun for you that must be! Seriously though, I don’t know if it is more fun for you to read about the things I eat, but I do think that poor little Clarence needs to come out to play. The detox has turned him into a dour little mope.
Among the many lovely gifts that A gave me during his month here, one thing I’m particularly amped about is my copy of Le petit Lebey des bistrots parisiens 2010. A downsized version of the Le Guide Lebey, Le petit Lebey focuses entirely on the wealth of bistro cooking available in Paris, making it better suited to my sensibilities and budget. If a restaurant makes it into the guide, it’s good. From there, restaurants are given between one and three marmites (those sort of miniature dutch-oven things), indicating bonne cuisine, très bonne cuisine, and un des meilleurs bistros de Paris. Each entry gives a description of the chef’s style and the general ambiance of the bistro, a detailed list of the types of dishes you can expect to see, and a breakdown of the meal that the reviewer ate (including the wine they chose). Instead of some ambiguous system of dollar or euro signs that designate abstract ranges in price, Le petit Lebey gives you something like this (sample from the entry on Les Diables au Thym):
Notre repas du 19 mars: Galantine de viande et confiture d’oignons, poitrine de veau farcie et gratin dauphinois, crème au chocolat. Prix: 44 € pour ce repas avec un verre de haut-médoc et un verre de côtes-roannaises.
I suspect that my readers are the type of people who would finds this kind of detail incredibly comforting. I don’t mind spending some money on a meal, but it’s nice to go into a situation with a sense of what that is going to look like. Moreover, wherever you find yourself in the city, Le petit Lebey is likely to have some recommendations nearby. It’s broken down by arrondissement and even in areas I wouldn’t have imagined, they list several seriously delicious-sounding places. A’s rationale for buying it for me was that in addition to all of the above, it’s also purse-sized. Sadly, instead I’ve been keeping it by my bed and reading it with the same kind of late-night fervor that I imagine a 14-year-old boy might use to peruse a porno mag. To each their own.
When my friend O was in town for the theater, I was pleased to bust out my new guide when looking for a restaurant close to the theater. I quickly found the two-marmite ranked Les Diables au Thym, the work of Chef Eric Lassauce. They have a wonderfully laid-out website that also allows you to make reservations online, a nice feature when you are trying to make dinner plans for that evening but are stuck in that midday rut in which restaurants don’t answer the phone. When I exited the métro at Grands-Boulevards, I had a moment of skepticism when I was confronted with a large Hard Rock Cafe. My stomach sank as I searched for the restaurant as I was convinced that I was a Big Fat Failure of a Parisian resident who managed to pick a shitty restaurant in a shitty part of town for one of my friend’s only evenings here. The area seemed to be crammed with every tourist trap available to the discerning Parisian palate, including Leon des Bruxelles (with their Denny’s-style Technicolor pictures on the menu) and Indiana (because when I think Tex-Mex, I definitely think Indiana). To my surprise, however, Les Diables au Thym is a darling little place tucked away on a side street and sparely decorated with an eclectic collection of lamps and some nice collages. We were the first people there (when exactly DO people eat if they are going to the theater in this town?), but they were incredibly welcoming of us.
Okay, here’s the part I know you’re hot for: what we ate. In addition to some killer-sounding dishes à la carte, Les Diables au Thym has a lovely menu that allows for you to select an entrée, plat, and dessert for 28 € (22 € at lunch). I chose the salade de lentilles, haddock, œuf mollet; the poitrine de porc braisée, aux carottes; and the marquise au chocolat noir aux oranges confites. My entrée of lentils were cooked with lardons and topped with iridescent, salty hunks of smoked haddock and a poached egg, whose yolk spilled deliciously over the whole affair. My pork was arrived on a beautiful slab of stone and had a golden, caramelized layer of skin over the falling-apart and perfectly moist meat. It was served with candied carrots and pearl onions that had a strong flavor of chili and anise in addition to the sweetness. Really killer. Finally, my marquise au chocolat noir, which I can sometimes find to be texturally uninteresting, was filled with pistachios, making for a lovely crunch in addition to the sweetness of the chocolate and the tang of the bitter orange sauce. O had an entrée of galantine de canard, chutney de mangue; a fricassée de calamars au “Rigatoni” for her main course, and a baba au rhum, crème chantilly for dessert. She seemed underwhelmed by her meal and said that the galantine de canard was especially bland. The calamari in her pasta dish was lovely, however, and her baba was light and effervescent. We shared a nice Saint-Émilion, I don’t remember which, but the wine list is excellently curated. I keep using “curated” to describe these culinary decisions – is that food-writing blasphemy? Oh well, I like it.
Details: What a nice place this would be to go for a peaceful lunch or dinner, especially if you were foolish enough to endure shopping in the enormous crowds at the big department stores on Boulevard Haussmann. Certainly beats most of the other options in the area. You can make reservations online. Closed on Saturdays for lunch and all day Sunday. The menu in particular is a wonderful nosh for the money (like I said earlier, 28 € at dinner, 22 € at lunch).
The Bear-Garden 