Dining in Paris
Apr. 18th, 2009 10:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
michiexileI should start writing food reviews. I really should.
The past two weeks in Paris has had me (and Vin to a large extent) find very many surprisingly fantastic restaurants. I'll write about a few of them here.
For reference, the € signs indicate how many 10€ you can expect to spend to get an entree. So € is 0-10, €€ is 10-20 et.c.
€
Vin was given an inside tip from a friend of his, a girl from Hong Kong who now lived in France. There was to be one Laotian restaurant on Avenue de Choisy that was to die for.
So we went. We found the place on 161 Avenue de Choisy.
And it was.
This is probably the best restaurant (price/quality-wise) in Paris. Hands down. Had I been in Paris any longer, I would have returned over and over - and this goes onto my list of Places To Return To.
I had a dried beef with 5 different seasonings, and the waitress recommended a sticky rice to it. Vin had some sort of glaced pieces of pork, that came with a yellow steamed rice. Both were absolutely spectacular.
€€
Right next to the Laotian, on 159 A d C, there was a Cambodian restaurant. Hence, when we had reason to look for food in the same area a few days later, I suggested we let our adventurous side take over. So the three of us: me, Vin and Primoz, went for Cambodian at Mondol Kiri.
Their Beef with a Whisky sauce comes sizzling in a cast iron pan and is one of the absolutely best meat preparations I've had in a long long time.
Their various other preparations - we had one beef and one pork, though I cannot remember the particulars - come as simmering sauces, almost like thin soups, with lots of vegetables and pieces of meat in a very tasty and aromatic broth, that you ladle out of cast iron serving pots onto your rice and enjoy deeply.
€
Along Rue Daguerre, this small restaurant lies with a relatively unassuming signage. Once inside - if you can get one of the maybe 20 seats in the dining room - you'll be treated to island cuisine from the French island Réunion. The main course was, as I recalled it, really good; the dessert - I had a fruit salad with a spoonful of vanilla icecream in a sweet baked crust of some sort - was odd and interesting; and then there was the alcohol.
They stock a selection of rums from La Réunion. I tried a 15 year old one. And ... wow. I now have encountered not one but two decent rums: Zapaca Centenario and which ever one they served me. Both have in common that they are aged - 23 and 15 years respectively - and destilled according to old French methods instead of, say, Cuban methods.
€€
Enter an unassuming back-alley off of Rue de la Gaîté, close to where it joins with Rue Maine. It goes by the name Impasse de la Gaîté, and contains a travel agency, a restaurant specializing in food from Réunion, and Côté Cour. The latter is a very small restaurant - I counted 32 chairs - specializing in traditional french cuisine. The appetizers have foie gras and chèvre in appropriate places, and most of the entrees sound like out of a archetypical haute cuisine menu.
I had the Cuisse de Canard and the Crême Brulée au parfum violettes.
And it was sublime.
I didn't think it was possible making duck this tender. The wild mushrooms and seared potatoes rounded the dish to a truly wonderful experience that I still relish. And the sweetness from the honey caramelization of the skin was just a shadow, a smidge below what could actually be individually savoured, but made the whole dish all so much more tender.
And the Crême Brulée was just as spectacular. A thin burnt sugar shell that burst easily when attacked with my spoon gave way to a soft and enticing custard.
I professed myself to be so impressed, having devoured this meal, that I offered to re-translate their menu for them for free; it had some turns of phrase that made it almost difficult to understand - one of the more egregious being the translation of au parfum violettes into purple. Especially since in no way was the actual dish _purple_. The owner, upon hearing this, happily agreed - providing I'll translate their NEXT menu, as they'd change it in three weeks time - and then poured me a glass of Cognac (about 3x as large as I would have poured myself given an open bar....) and hung around chatting about Russia, Mathematics, North Carolina and Paris.
All in all, all these places are absolutely spectacular, and I would very warmly recommend them to you if ever you come by Paris.
The past two weeks in Paris has had me (and Vin to a large extent) find very many surprisingly fantastic restaurants. I'll write about a few of them here.
For reference, the € signs indicate how many 10€ you can expect to spend to get an entree. So € is 0-10, €€ is 10-20 et.c.
Lao Douang Chan
€
Vin was given an inside tip from a friend of his, a girl from Hong Kong who now lived in France. There was to be one Laotian restaurant on Avenue de Choisy that was to die for.
So we went. We found the place on 161 Avenue de Choisy.
And it was.
This is probably the best restaurant (price/quality-wise) in Paris. Hands down. Had I been in Paris any longer, I would have returned over and over - and this goes onto my list of Places To Return To.
I had a dried beef with 5 different seasonings, and the waitress recommended a sticky rice to it. Vin had some sort of glaced pieces of pork, that came with a yellow steamed rice. Both were absolutely spectacular.
Mondol Kiri
€€
Right next to the Laotian, on 159 A d C, there was a Cambodian restaurant. Hence, when we had reason to look for food in the same area a few days later, I suggested we let our adventurous side take over. So the three of us: me, Vin and Primoz, went for Cambodian at Mondol Kiri.
Their Beef with a Whisky sauce comes sizzling in a cast iron pan and is one of the absolutely best meat preparations I've had in a long long time.
Their various other preparations - we had one beef and one pork, though I cannot remember the particulars - come as simmering sauces, almost like thin soups, with lots of vegetables and pieces of meat in a very tasty and aromatic broth, that you ladle out of cast iron serving pots onto your rice and enjoy deeply.
Aux Pétits Chandeliers
€
Along Rue Daguerre, this small restaurant lies with a relatively unassuming signage. Once inside - if you can get one of the maybe 20 seats in the dining room - you'll be treated to island cuisine from the French island Réunion. The main course was, as I recalled it, really good; the dessert - I had a fruit salad with a spoonful of vanilla icecream in a sweet baked crust of some sort - was odd and interesting; and then there was the alcohol.
They stock a selection of rums from La Réunion. I tried a 15 year old one. And ... wow. I now have encountered not one but two decent rums: Zapaca Centenario and which ever one they served me. Both have in common that they are aged - 23 and 15 years respectively - and destilled according to old French methods instead of, say, Cuban methods.
Côté cour
€€
Enter an unassuming back-alley off of Rue de la Gaîté, close to where it joins with Rue Maine. It goes by the name Impasse de la Gaîté, and contains a travel agency, a restaurant specializing in food from Réunion, and Côté Cour. The latter is a very small restaurant - I counted 32 chairs - specializing in traditional french cuisine. The appetizers have foie gras and chèvre in appropriate places, and most of the entrees sound like out of a archetypical haute cuisine menu.
I had the Cuisse de Canard and the Crême Brulée au parfum violettes.
And it was sublime.
I didn't think it was possible making duck this tender. The wild mushrooms and seared potatoes rounded the dish to a truly wonderful experience that I still relish. And the sweetness from the honey caramelization of the skin was just a shadow, a smidge below what could actually be individually savoured, but made the whole dish all so much more tender.
And the Crême Brulée was just as spectacular. A thin burnt sugar shell that burst easily when attacked with my spoon gave way to a soft and enticing custard.
I professed myself to be so impressed, having devoured this meal, that I offered to re-translate their menu for them for free; it had some turns of phrase that made it almost difficult to understand - one of the more egregious being the translation of au parfum violettes into purple. Especially since in no way was the actual dish _purple_. The owner, upon hearing this, happily agreed - providing I'll translate their NEXT menu, as they'd change it in three weeks time - and then poured me a glass of Cognac (about 3x as large as I would have poured myself given an open bar....) and hung around chatting about Russia, Mathematics, North Carolina and Paris.
All in all, all these places are absolutely spectacular, and I would very warmly recommend them to you if ever you come by Paris.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-20 09:40 am (UTC)One question, though: do any of these places cater for vegetarians?
no subject
Date: 2009-04-20 09:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-20 12:14 pm (UTC)