Get Lost in the Streets - Thursday, 11 September

 

It's good for what ails ya!

More than a Few of My Favorite Things at Alliance! - Tuesday, 9 September

 

You’d think I had formed some kind of alliance with Alliance given the big double-handed handshake and huge smile I got from the host/co-owner Shawn Joyeux (at left in this photo) when I arrived at the door today!  Well, I guess, in a way, I have.  This wonderful little resto just off the river and upstream a tish from Notre Dame ties with La Dame de Pic for my #1 pick.  They recognize me (I believe that this was my sixth visit), and I’m even more excited to see them than they are to see me!  And, of course, to eat Chef Toshitaka Omiya's astonishing food.

My welcome glass of Champagne was a Rosé Brut from Philippe Gonet, 90% Chardonnay and 10% Pinot Noir – silky and fresh, tiny bubbles, with the sense of cherry and red currant and just a touch of rosemary and slate.  

   

   

Their terrific assemblage of amuse-bouche included tiny beet and cucumber wraps, a perfect hollow warm gougère with just the right cheese quantity/intensity, a peppery pâte feuilleté breadstick, a lollipop of ethereal buttery mousse and bacon, a tiny crispy pastry saucer with squash purée and olive oil, and a thin waffle filled with braised onion and anchovies.  Wow – the assortment of textures and tastes was very amusing indeed, and the sharper tastes like the pepper breadstick amplified the fruitiness of my Champagne.

Then, a thick slice from the center of a large tomato with fermented tomato water and thin slices of raw leeks and jalapeños, served with a hunk of warm sweet airy rustic bread.  Tons of flavor, a bit of acid, and zero heaviness, as if to say “there’s more coming, but you’ll have room for it!”    

Next, spears of roasted smoky eggplant with a bit of chili pepper, some very smoky crunchy almonds, in a little pool of chilled juice rendered from darkly roasted vegetables.  It was served with a bit of toasted brioche which amplified the smokiness of the eggplant.

With it, a 2020 Domaine des Hauts Chassis Saint-Peray Les Calcaires from the Rhone, 50% Roussanne and 50% Marsanne grapes.  Smoky, yellow onion, plum, celery leaf, slate – a terrific matchup. 

Then, an artichoke dish so beautiful I almost cried.  Braised hearts and stems with coriander and carrots in a singed hollandaise sauce.  No words.  

With the artichokes, a 2022 Niepoort Redoma Branco old-vine white Portuguese blend (Rabigato, Códega do Larinho, Viosinho).  Sturdy, a bit citrusy and tropical and nutty, with a hint of sage and grape stem.

Up next, tiny potato gnocchi with a generous shower of caviar and some samphire for the herb in a Sauvignon Blanc reduction (salt, sea, freshness).  Holy moley!  Gnocchi can be on the heavy side but these were ethereal and the sauce stood on its own without overpowering them.  Balance!  Surprise!  Delight!

With it, a crisp 2023 Croq Silex Pouilly-Fumé from Domaine Benoit Chauveau, 100% Sauvignon Blanc.  Just a hint of smokiness, nice acidity, citrus and apple, a bit of flint.  Any sense of heaviness from the gnocchi was dispelled with this wine.  

    
 

Then, a chunk of sweet sweet steamed lobster claw, a tempura-fried zucchini blossom, and pickled artichoke stem with a bit of shellfish reduction.  On the side, two little lobster “sandwiches” – thin slices of grilled bread stuffed with shredded lobster meat. 

With it, a 2020 Château La Martinette Reflets d'Argens Rosé.  Grenache, Mourvedre, Cinsault, and Vermentino grapes.  Slightly effervescent, a hint of rhubarb, dried flowers and herbs, malt and brioche came forward with the lobster.  Delightful!

Next, in the ever-growing crescendo, foie gras!  Of the duck variety!  A large serving of absolutely AAA-grade silky melty barely-funky mui-cuit on a thick latitudinal slice of braised daikon radish under a blanket of chives in a ginger-chicken broth containing a wonderful kick of chili.  I mean, I always go a little bit nuts when I’m served foie gras, but this was off the charts and worth the price of admission!  

With it, a 2023 Disznókö Tokaji Dry (Hungarian Furmint grape).  Green apple, pear, almond, slight acidity and minerality to cut through the fat without diminishing any of the remarkable flavors of the dish.

Then, just when you thought the crescendo might be at its climax, a gorgeous tender almost-herbal baby lamb chop served with roasted leg meat, just-sauteéd spinach, white bean purée, and intense lamb demi-glace.  Heaven on a plate!

With it, a 2023 Domaine Billard Père et Fils Hautes-Côtes de Beaune (Pinot Noir) that felt like flannel PJs!  Beautiful red fruits (raspberry, cherry, etc.), earth, a hint of pepper.  What a combo!

Alliance has the best cheese cart, and I was absolutely stuffed at this point, but I just couldn’t say no to little slices of the “barge” aged goat cheese, the aged 3-texture sheep's, and Fourme d'Ambert bleu.  

A splash of Château de Rotalier Le Crémant du Jura “Comte Hélion” sparkling wine was just the thing with the cheese!  Chardonnay and Savagnin, fresh, slightly nutty, a nice contrast.

Then, chocolate!  Thin airy crispy crusty shards made with 65% cocoa solids chocolate, a bit of mousse, cookie crumbles, jasmine ice cream (who wouldda thunk?) and a pepper crème.  By this point you’d think my palate had experienced almost every possible sensation, but hey, here comes some more!  It made me chuckle!

With it, a 2006 (!) Domaine de Montgilet Côteaux de l'Aubance from the Loire (Chenin Blanc).  A late harvest wine, so it's concentrated, sweet and rich, with flavors of tropical fruits.

And to ensure enough sweet notes at the end of the meal, their mignardises – a small marshmallow, financier, and macaron!  I really couldn’t fit them in my stomach, so I asked host/co-owner Shawn if they had a little box.  

He brought me what became my favorite souvenir of the trip, which I believe is a caviar tin, affixed with a little Alliance label!  Just the right size for taking home some remaining cheese bites and the mignardises!  

OK, OK, I do have to admit that this meal was right at (or beyond) the maximum my body can take, and I was slightly tipsy when I left, and I had some indigestion for most of the evening!  Just for fun I asked them to leave the wine glasses on the table after I completed each course so I could get this shot of me as the great white hunter!

Despite my declining mobility it’s meals like this that keep me dealing with the “whatevers“ and continuing to travel to Paris.  These experiences are my “Powdermilk Biscuits, giving me the strength to get up and do what needs to be done!” (IYKYK).

Ten patrons at lunch today, 1 chef, 2 cooks and 3 servers.  We were well taken care of! 

Alliance, 5 Rue de Poissy, 75005  https://www.restaurant-alliance.fr/en/the-fine-dining-table.html  One Michelin star.  

Grace, Happy Surprises, and Calm at Yoshinori - Monday, 8 September

 

The restaurant of Chef Yoshinori Morié (formerly at Le Petit Verdot, Encore, and L'Auberge du 15) is just steps from Boulevard Saint-Germain in the Latin Quarter and, in a city of intimate restos, is tiny!  I counted only 16 seats on street level; there might have been more downstairs, but I doubt it.

They opened for lunch at 12:30, and I arrived a few minutes early, thinking that the door would be unlocked.  Alas, no, and alack, the sidewalk was so narrow that I had to find another place up the street to stand and wait.  Happily, a very kind woman was also waiting across the street, and she graciously signaled me when the door opened and then helped me at the very shallow and somewhat deep front step-without-a-railing.  Whew!

And then some more good fortune on my arrival!  There was a caviar supplement on the menu, so I chose it.  My server said she wasn’t sure if they had any left, so she’d check.  Yes, they did!  I might have gotten the last portion...good thing that I was the first person in the door!  Other elements were roasted beet purée (underneath) and smoked slightly whipped cream, crumbs of darkly-baked barely-sweetened graham crackers (I think!), and oxalis on top.  The nutty soft Osetra caviar spurted smoky slightly-salty barely-fishy liquid.  It was served with the requisite mother-of-pearl spoon.  Heavenly (and not just because of the pearly gate reference)!

The pairing for this preliminary course was “Sonate,” a mostly-Chardonnay blend with Chenin Blanc, Viognier, Clairette, and Macabeo, from Dève Elbaz Winery near Avignon.  Crisp, with the sense of green apple and white peach, a bit of stem (that slight woodiness harmonized nicely with the beets and caviar).

For my first course, mild and buttery turbot carpaccio splashed with white wine vinegar and served with thin slices of young eggplant, roasted eggplant purée, and sweet, dark, slightly earthy blueberries.  Wow!  French chefs seem to have a gift for pairing proteins, acid, vegetables and fruit in astonishing ways.  I mean, blueberries with slightly acidic carpaccio?  It really worked!  (But then, now that I think about it, so does lox and lingonberries!)

With it, a 2023 Burgundy from Antoine Lepetit de la Bigne – a fruity medium-viscosity Pinot noir with hits of strawberry jam, cherry, tobacco, a bit of earth.  It went a bit brioche against the vinegar – a wonderful transformation!

Next, poulette (young hen) two ways:  the breast meat was, I believe, cooked by smoking then broiling to a perfect level of char just before serving, and the leg meat was roasted.  Served with small girolles (chanterelles), parsley oil, and a white foam that I couldn’t identify.  With the char on the chicken, the slightly sharp cherry notes of the Pinot noir showed up in beautiful contrast.  This dish demonstrated the chef’s willingness to take things to the extreme while maintaining a foundation of balance and subtlety and harmony.  

For dessert, fluffy semisweet chocolate mousse with cocoa nibs, vanilla ice cream and a dusting of cocoa.  (Sorry, no photo – I dug in too quickly!)  Dessert was delivered before the 3rd wine pairing, but no worries – the remaining Pinot noir was fine with it!  Then, espresso and a pistachio financier.  Just right!

The kind woman who helped me at the door upon my arrival was one of a table of six Brits, Americans and French who, by their louder-than-usual conversation, seemed to be academics and artists.  Two older gentlemen were at another table to my left, and three young French to my right.  The pace of the meal was nice and slow.  I’m guessing that the 3-course menu is cooked along with the five-course one, so you just wait while courses 2 and 4 are served to other patrons, which contributes to a calming atmosphere in a lovely setting...you want the meal to be your entertainment for the afternoon, after all!

Yoshinori, 18 rue Grégoire-de-Tours, 75006 https://www.yoshinori-paris.com/en/  One Michelin star.

Living the Life of Luxury with AC! - Sunday, 7 September

 

It's been pretty temperate here, mostly in the 60s and 70s, but today the temp rose to 88⁰F, so my apartment was pretty hot when I got home from lunch.  So I got to use my AC for the first time!

It's a big honker on wheels, connected to a flange in a window pane, and it works well.  In the cooler months it rolls into a big cabinet, freeing up floor space.  As someone who doesn't have AC at home, this is quite the luxury!  Yay!

Thank Goodness Michelin Subsets the 45,000 for Me! - La Dame de Pic - Sunday, 7 September

 

There are about 45,000 restaurants in Paris.  This year 123 of them were awarded at least one Michelin star (10 received three stars, 17 received two stars, and 96 received one star).  Every trip I try to visit a few more (although I don’t have any illusions of hitting all of them in my lifetime).  But I also keep coming back to my top three, and one of those is the gorgeous La Dame de Pic.  Anne-Sophie Pic is the most awarded female chef in the world – she has 5 restos in 5 cities and a total of 10 Michelin stars between them.  Thank goodness Michelin was there to let me find her!

There’s nothing like your favorite mineral water in a heavy crystal tumbler to say “come on in, take a load off, relax and let us take care of you for a few hours!”  

For my amuse bouche:  

• A tender brioche-style bun flavored with turmeric (which gave it a little spiciness), hollowed out and filled with a bit of creamy corn – gentle, informal, made you feel like a member of the Pic family
• A sandy-crusted tartlet with radish cubes and tarragon cream – again, a lovely mix of tenderness with just a little kick from the radish and beautiful herbaceousness
• A pie crust ball (as my server called it!) with sardine, smoked whisky (glorious) and mint.

The scrubbed stones they sat on were great props and an eye-catching backdrop.

For my first course, a whole tomato that had been skinned by charring – they intentionally left remnants of the char, giving it a wonderful slight smokiness – enhanced with marigold, filled with sweet caraway ice cream, sitting in a tart shell, and surrounded with tomato juice (as in the fresh stuff you squeeze out of a tomato, not the bottled stuff!).  Delicious and fascinating of course, but also interesting since gardeners typically plant marigolds next to tomatoes to keep the bugs away!  They’re partners in growth and service!

With this course, two drinks: 

• 
  Distillerie Cazottes “Tomates” liqueur made with tomato juice, marigolds and eau-de-vie.  Vegetal, with a sense of the stems as well as the tomatoes, tangy, a bit floral, slightly sweet.  It comes from a winemaker who grew up on a farm and who likes to produce unusual vegetal wines every year in addition to his traditional wines.  Laurent Cazottes and his father Jean grow 208 varieties of tomatoes plus flowers and aromatic plants which they combine with their own eau-de-vie and age.  Poured over a giant ice cube, I can tell you that I’ve never had anything like this before.  And I’d be happy to have it again!
• Pic's homemade no-alcohol tomato-strawberry juice.  Yup.  Another first!  Sweet and tangy at the same time, cloudy, fairly heavy viscosity, slightly sparkling from macerating the tomatoes with sugar?  A sense of earth/dirt.  A marvel!

Cheffe Pic’s signature Berlingots came next.  These are pyramidal stuffed pastas shaped like a favorite hard candy from her childhood.  Each time they’re stuffed, sauced and accompanied with something different.  Today it was glorious just-warm Camembert (I imagine that these take just a couple minutes to cook), Camembert chips, artichoke broth, lavender and verbena foam, and a roasted artichoke heart, sliced to mimic the shape of the Berlingot.  Warming, tender, sweet, creamy, floral, romantic (an interesting description that I borrowed from my server!) with slight barnyard funk and just a touch of pungency.  You can tell how excited I was to eat this dish – I dove right in and remembered to take a picture after I had eaten 2/3 of it!

So when the Berlingots arrived for my neighbor at the next table, I asked her if I could take a picture of them!  

With the Berlingots a white tea from Nepal.  Flowery, gentle, my server said it was chosen for the romance it created with the Camembert.  Hmmm.  OK.  I would say that they did harmonize nicely!

Next a fish course.  Very tender and mild red tuna cooked to rosé on the Japanese bbq grill.  Despite the fact that it was barely cooked it flaked nicely – what a fine and fresh fish!  On the side, tender green and yellow beans cooked al dente and glazed with honey, figs, salty-vinegary fir buds, juniper beurre blanc, all dusted with what I think was powdered green peppercorn.  Surf, farm, dairy, beehive, forest, all working together like we all should!

With the tuna, a Spanish red “Migan” (Listán Negro grape) from Envinate in the Canary Islands.  Senses of currant and dried cranberry, wild herbs, minerality, freshness.  Another great pairing.

Then veal for the second time this trip!  They dry-aged it in ground coffee overnight (another technique I’ve never heard of before!) then quickly grilled it to medium-rare just before serving.  With it, a slice of pressed potato cake (thinly sliced potatoes stacked in a pan with butter and roasted until deep and crusted, then pressed, then sliced into small servings) with sour cream and a not-bitter-at-all coffee sauce.  Oh, the creativity.  The brilliance of the veal shown through (God bless that baby cow) with just enough accompaniment-reinforcement and no heaviness.

With the veal, two wines and a little quiz!  My server brought two small tastings and told me that they shared one grape, and one was from France and one from another country.  I had to guess the common grape and the countries.  Yikes!  Both had great legs.  The one on the left was fresh, kind of wild, a bit salty, terrific raspberry and black currant, rosemary.  The one on the right was more minerally, a bit of slate, red currant, pepper.  I guessed the common grape was Cab Franc, the left one from Corsica and the right from Uruguay.  

BZZZT.  Wrong (except that the left one was indeed French).  The common grape was Syrah.  The left was a St. Joseph (northern Rhône) from Domaine Cyril Courvoisier.  It was a 2021 vintage, an unusually cold year that yielded wines that tasted like those from many years earlier (per my server). The right was from Santa Barbara California, a Piedrasassi, a “modern” Syrah (for the second time this trip, and I'm still not sure what that means).  Gotta say my guesses gave my server a bit of a chuckle, so y’know, a good day all around!

The dessert course celebrated peaches at the end of their season!  A crumbly almond cookie base with peach slices, peach sorbet, peach purée, smoked vanilla (who wouldda thunk!) orange blossom mousse, and a lacy cookie.  Yummers.

With dessert, a very cold Japanese late-harvest-tasting fruity plum wine served over ice.  I didn’t catch the name of the producer. 

For my mignardises, a herbal slightly peppery lollipop gel, a coffee-hazelnut tart with a dab of verjus which brought brightness, and a semisweet chocolate truffle.  My espresso was made with the same coffee they used on the veal – a subtle but precise note.

As the host was helping me to my taxi after lunch he asked “will we see you again?”  “Yes.”  “Next week?”  “Ha ha, no, in about eight months.”  “Oh, we will have moved by then.  We’re staying in the neighborhood but it will be a different location.”  I love their current location (on rue du Louvre just north of rue de Rivoli), but hey, something to look forward to!

La Dame de Pic, 20 rue du Louvre, 75001 (for now).  One Michelin star.  https://anne-sophie-pic.com/paris/?lang=en