Le 20 de Bellechasse

20 rue de Bellechasse, 75007 Paris

Métro:  Solferino

Back when I was young, young, young, I lived in Paris for a semester of study abroad. Oh yes, a semester of study abroad from my expensive East coast private university! You know, just like the kids I ruthlessly mock when I am out and about! I am a total hypocrite!  In my defense, I don’t think I was the worst of the worst when it came to being a study abroad stereotype. I was the one who wandered around alone a lot, occasionally breaking up the wandering with reading in cafes and quietly weeping in parks. Which is certainly a study abroad stereotype, but a less offensive one than the kid who spends every weekend in a different European city getting wasted on his parents’s dime.

One of my friends during college happened to live on the rue de Bellechasse during this period of time over a just-opened restaurant, the rather uncreatively named Le 20 de Bellechasse. Her apartment was improbably nice for a Parisian apartment, perhaps more so than I even remember (I was still too young, young, young to know that having a washing machine is pretty luxurious in this town). Come to think of it, the area around the restaurant is actually a strange area for a young person to live. It’s a bit of a walk from the hopping area of St. Germain des Près. It’s only a few blocks from the Musée d’Orsay, but at night it is pretty deserted with the exception of Le 20. But Le 20 is a tiny, bustling haven if you find yourself on that side of town. It might even be worth a detour.

A and I happened to find ourselves wandering aimlessly around the Left Bank last night after watching Antonioni’s 1957 Il grido. We had debated between that and a documentary about a bloody Malaysian military coup but decided that the Antonioni might be less of a bummer. Wrong answer! Unmoored by all the existentialism, and the bleakness, and the suicide (ugh), neither of us had much of a sense of what we wanted to eat. We got to the point where we were going into restaurants, sitting down, looking around uncomfortably, and then leaving, only for A to moan something like “I mean, they were going to burn the fields to put in an AIRSTRIP! In that shitty town?  Really!?” Apparently despite his adeptness in dealing with warlords, I have a softie on my hands. At any rate, after traversing St. Germain and contemplating everything from seafood to Tex-Mex, I finally suggested that we head east to Le 20.

Le 20 is one of my go-to places for visitors. I brought some dear family friends there on their first night in Paris.  I brought my mother and B there on her last night in Paris. It’s always heaving with a splendid-looking young professional crowd and run by a group boisterous young guys who seem to know everybody. Sébastien Tellier is on heavy rotation on the stereo. The menu is unfussy, often seasonal, and written on chalkboards posted around the dining room. They have your basic French bistro fare, from an excellent steak tartare with enormous capers to a dreamy noix de saint Jacques au beurre noisette (scallops in a brown butter sauce). They handle meat especially well at this joint;  I’ve enjoyed their entrecôte, their lamb chops, and their bacon cheeseburger – all served decidedly saignant should you desire. Here is the vocabulary lesson I wish I would have had in Madame Snow’s high school French class (if had gone more often):

bleu: rare (bloody)

saignant: medium-rare

à point: medium

bien cuit: well-done

In France, when they say “saignant,” they mean medium-rare. Nothing peeves me more than what has happened in the United States with the Chilis-ification of hamburger cooking. If your beef is too frightening to be served anything less than well-done, then you shouldn’t be serving it in the first place. It’s bad enough that the vast majority of beef sold for hamburgers in the U.S. is already fatless, dense, and bland, but to serve it grilled to grayish-brown is like getting hit in the face. American food-poisioning paranoia is indicative of a lot of different collective anxieties and that rant is better saved for another day. Suffice it to say that nicer restaurants ought to grind their own beef in house so that the constant low-level fear of poisoning their lawsuit-happy customers doesn’t prevent them from cooking everyone’s meal to the temperature they desire.

All this is to say that they cook a really good burger at Le 20. Two of them and a couple of pints quickly pulled A and I out of our Antonioni-induced funk. Oh, and did I mention the fries, which come out on huge plates for everyone to share? Perfect. We didn’t stay for one of the best moelleux au chocolat (molten chocolate cakes) in Paris for my money, but if you find yourself at Le 20, you certainly should.

Details:  Open everyday for lunch and dinner except Sunday. A great place to grab a bite after visiting the Musée d’Orsay. The moelleux au chocolat takes twenty to forty minutes to prepare, so think about ordering it with your meal.

Le Pick-Clops

16 rue Vieille du Temple, 75004 Paris

Metro: Hôtel de Ville

One of my earliest memories is of helping my mom make meatloaf.  As any good meatloaf chef will tell you, it’s best to mix the ingredients together with one’s hands so that everything doesn’t get too overworked.  I was always the designated hand-mixer.  I loved doing it, not just because the feeling of cold raw meat between my fingers was pretty divine.  I loved it because when she wasn’t looking, I could totally sneak a clump of raw beef, egg yolks, and onion to eat.  This memory suggests that Clarence has been around for a long time, the dirty little bastard.

Fast forward to the present day and I find myself in the dreamy position of living in a culture that actually sanctions eating that sacred combination of raw filet, shallots or onions, egg yolks, and capers. Oh, yeah, throw in some mustard and Worcestershire sauce. Can I tell you how much I love steak tartare for a moment? I love it more than almost anything. I love how it looks. I love its name – supposedly to commemorate the Tartars, fierce warriors who wouldn’t stop riding to build a fire to cook and instead ate their meat raw. My boyfriend Wikipedia tells me that a variation on this story is that the Tartars kept their meat under their horses’ saddles so that it would be tenderized by their riding. My boyfriend also tells me that steak tartare used to be called steak à l’Americaine, which cracks me up because most Americans would shudder at the idea of eating a pile of raw beef. But serve it with a salad and some fries and you’ve got standard fare at any Parisian bistro.

I had a pretty killer steak tartare last night at one of my favorite places in the Marais, Le Pick-Clops.  This place has such an excellent vibe.  Everybody is so nice.  The waitstaff is nice.  The bartenders are nice.  The patrons are nice to each other (and nice-looking). It’s nice in the morning for brunch, nice in the afternoon for a coffee and some grading, and nice in the evening for a rum punch and dinner.  It also seems to always attract one real character.  Last night it was an adorable older woman who kept on her full-length mink coat and red hat and didn’t budge from her fizzy water for the two hours we sat there.  I took a picture of her for you while pretending to take a picture of my friend B.

The one drawback is that Le Pick-Clops is loud, but not like The Yardhouse on a Friday night in Newport Beach is loud (that reference is for YOU Orange County!).  The soundtrack is amusingly questionable.  During the first afternoon I spent at Le Pick-Clops, I listened to the entirety of Nirvana’s Nevermind followed by an indeterminate Eminem album.  But most of the time it is a standard hipster mix that gets progressively more electronic as the night progresses.  B was wincing slightly by the end of our meal, I was fist-pumping.  Different strokes.

The décor is totally charming, kind of a dressed-up 1950s style diner with multicolored Naugahyde chairs, Formica tables, Coca-Cola kitsch, lots of mirrors, and turquoise paint.  My favorite part is the ever-flattering pink, orange, and gold neon that provides the majority of the lighting (also the reason why I adore the bar at Le Palais de Tokyo).  I look excellent in neon (and so will you).  The food at Le Pick-Clops is really satisfying and the drinks are a bit more creative than what you see elsewhere in Paris, which not really a town for cocktails.  While the steak tartare is sublime, if you are feeling a little less bloodthirsty, try L’Inca salad, comprised of mixed greens, lentils, quinoa, and avocado (the latter two things are pretty rare on the salad front around here).

Final note for French language dorks:  We Anglophones puzzled about the name for a while, but I asked the bartender tonight and he explained that it means a person who bums cigarettes.  How excellent to have a such a word.

Details: Open seven days a week.  Conviviality mandatory.

Han Lim

6 rue Blainville, 75005 Paris

Métro:  Place Monge

One bummer about living in Paris is that there isn’t nearly the diversity of types of cuisine available in even a small American city.  Don’t get me wrong:  what they do well here, they obviously do better than anybody else in the universe.  But if you are living on a moderate budget, the Parisian diet ends up consisting of very few Michelin-starred eateries and a lot of ham and cheese in various white-carbohydrate guises.  I’m getting to the point where I’d happily chop off a hand for a decent burrito, piece of pizza, or some Schezwan noodles.

I’ve had a bit better luck in terms of Vietnamese and Korean food, though nothing compared to what I was used to as a denizen of Orange County.  I wasn’t sure about how to write this review of Han Lim, a Korean restaurant in the Latin Quarter.  I don’t want to pretend that I really know anything about Korean cuisine, other than I really enjoy it and if you are lucky enough to within driving distance of Kaya in Irvine, well, I hate you right now.  But for those of you in Paris who are starting to get a little too promiscuous with the Sriracha on account of the dearth of spicy food in this town, I would recommend a visit to Han Lim.  I quite enjoyed the kimchi chigae and the dolsot bibimbap, and the smells of bulgogi and kalbi wafting from the other tables seem to be right on target.  The banchan is spare, but functional.  The place is usually full in the evenings but not so much so that you can’t easily get a table.  The people who run the place are really friendly.

Details: No reservations necessary.  For around 20 euros each, everybody will be well-fed and sloshed on Soju.

Le Loir dans la Théière

3 rue des Rosiers, 75004 Paris

Métro:  St. Paul

Upon my first encounter, I wanted to hate this place.  The décor—with wallpaper of old theatre announcements, twee paintings of bug-eyed anime children, mismatched vintage furniture, and big communal bowls of brown sugar lumps—is so self-consciously bo-bo that it’s painful.  The well-heeled crowd is actively torn between the desire to dine there (often waiting in lines down the block on Sundays) and the affectation that they don’t desire anything at all.  The pacing of the Le Loir is tense with the contrast between those slowly brunching (or enjoying a gros matin, as my friend B informs me) and those hungrily waiting for a table.

However, I’ll readily admit:  the food is good.  I mean, really good.  If you are a fan of tartes (sucrées or salées) this place is for you.  I’ve so far sampled the zucchini/goat cheese, shallot/goat cheese, and the camembert/spinach/walnut ones at the savory end and the pear/almond custard and lemon meringue at the sweet.  They are all perfect.  The lemon meringue is a feat of egg-white architecture and requires about three people to effectively polish off.  For sheer sophistication, I died over the combination of almonds custard with perfectly ripe and caramelized pears.  I’m told that there is occasionally a rosemary and wine-stewed peach tarte, but it has regrettably not made an appearance during any of my visits.    They also make a lovely omelet, especially the one filled with goat cheese and fresh mint.  I haven’t tried the “brunch” formule, which involves croissants and bread, eggs, yogurt, compote, coffee and juice.  Sounds like a 20 euro “Continental” breakfast to me, and that is only impressive when it’s free.

Despite what I read on the internets, I wouldn’t say that the service at Le Loir is especially bad.  It isn’t especially good either, but I think that it is right on par with what you might expect at any busy Marais restaurant.  Le Loir is a lovely place for an afternoon coffee or delicious Darjeeling and they won’t hassle you if you bring a book and stay for a few hours, provided it is a weekday.

Details: Open everyday until 7 p.m.  You must order something to eat if you come in before 3 p.m. on weekends. They will not hesitate to kick you out of you occupy valuable brunch real estate and only intend to drink coffee.  Savory tarts and omelets are about 9 euro; sweet tarts (more than enough to share) are 7.  Get there before noon on Sunday and you’ll have the table of your choice; arrive any later and be prepared for a long wait.

Sometimes Clarence likes his hedonism a little more refined than takeaway falafel.

Huîtrerie Régis

3 rue Montfaucon, 75006 Paris

Métro:  Saint Germain des-Prés or Mabillon

One of the best things that has happened to me since moving to Paris is that I met M, one of those truly superlative individuals that causes you to regularly reflect on why the hell someone so cool deigns to hang out with you.  What she and I don’t have in common I envy terribly, from her elven features to her gorgeous photography to her canny ability to mix and match print fabrics.  The things she and I do overlap on are quite remarkable, including a deep love of late 19th century French decadent novels, Muji products, marginalized Surrealists, and oysters.  Fittingly, both of us planned to take the other to a fancy oyster place for our respective birthdays and found the same gushing reviews of Huîtrerie Régis on the internets.  She won, to the extent that my birthday came first and I was forced to cede credit to her for finding the place (something that anyone who knows me will attest that I am loathe to do).  Delightfully, when I asked her at the end of my birthday dinner what she wanted to do for her birthday in a month, she replied with “this exact same thing.”

Twist my arm.  Régis is this clean-freak oyster-fiend’s personal version of heaven.  The tiny whitewashed room seats less than twenty people and is fresh-scrubbed to the point that I would happily eat off their floor.  Oysters are not only the main attraction, they are the whole show, with the exception of poached shrimp that nobody orders anyway.  If you visit Régis’s website, you can read an extended spiel about the Brittany farm where their oysters originate, including a lot of fascinating details about the size of the beds and the duration of the growth of various grades of oyster.  I’ll spare you those highbrow details (this is Clarence in Paris, after all).  I’ll warn the American oyster eaters acclimated to piles of horseradish and Tabasco that this is a different breed of oyster bar altogether.  These beauties are served on a bed of seaweed with only wedges of lemon and mignonette sauce as an accompaniment, with rye bread and artisanal butter on the side.  I am usually completely skeptical when people take away my condiments—pity the poor fool who encourages me to drink my coffee black—but I’ll say it for the record:  these oysters are perfect on their own.  One taste and you’ll be wishing that you had a sommelier’s adjectival bank at your disposal.

We returned to Régis for M’s birthday with another friend in tow and I enjoyed it even more because I was able to make a Flaubert reference that I’d been spit-polishing for a month to a sympathetic audience.  One of my favorite parts of Salammbô is the description of the Unclean Eaters:

Outside the fortification there were people of another race and of unknown origin, all hunters of the porcupine, and eaters of shell-fish and serpents. They used to go into caves to catch hyenas alive, and amuse themselves by making them run in the evening on the sands of Megara between the stelae of the tombs. Their huts, which were made of mud and wrack, hung on the cliff like swallows’ nests. There they lived, without government and without gods, pell-mell, completely naked, at once feeble and fierce, and execrated by the people of all time on account of their unclean food. One morning the sentries perceived that they were all gone.

I was about to segue this into dumb joke about how you ought to get to Régis before the oyster season is over and your own chances at some excellent Unclean Eatin’ diminish, but that seemed painful even to this blogging neophyte.

Details: They don’t accept reservations and the place fills up fast.  Fortunately, you can outsmart the frogs by simply arriving before 8 p.m.  You will likely have the place to yourself for thirty minutes before the people in line outside start giving you the stink-eye.  For the budget-minded, you can order one of the formules dégustations, which include a dozen oysters, a glass of Sancerre or Muscadet, bread and butter, and an espresso.  We ate the cheapest formule of les fines de claires for 21 euro and were thrilled.  Big spenders can knock themselves out with les belons, which run about 60 euros a dozen.  Nota bene:  Régis requires that every diner order a minimum of a dozen oysters.