You come to Paris for many reasons, and one of them surely is to eat. Eating really is different here. They take it seriously, both in terms of service and quality. We only had one bad meal the whole time; more on that in another post. But this post is about two sublime evenings, courtesy of one who asked not to be named. I’ll honor that, but wish I could give credit where it is so richly deserved.
I’ve already blogged about our lunchtime Slumming at the George V. Now we move to the evening and a couple of dinners that also were extra special. The first was at a place called Terminus Nord, to which we were turned on by our friends Osea and Emily, who had recently returned from their own excursion to Paris. They went to this restaurant with their apartment host, and their raves fell on our eager ears. We hit the Metro for the short ride to the Gare de Nord, for which the restaurant is named. Being a major “Grande Lignes” station, it has some loooong connections between it and the Metro system. Sorta looks like a scene out of a scifi movie.
Across the street from the entrance to the station, we found the restaurant, all lit up.
As you can see on the awning, it’s a relative baby, only in business since 1925, and apparently is stuck (in a good sense) in a time warp, with the original 20’s ambiance: a copper bar, waiters in white aprons, brass and mirrors everywhere.
Hearty, traditional fare is the byword here, and seafood is a specialty. Loni had just finished reading Julia Child’s memoire of her early days in France, and Julia’s introduction to French cooking. The first real meal she had was filet of sole meuniere: dredged in flour, then sauteed in brown butter, parsley, and lemon. I think Loni (and Julia) like it for the same reason I like lobster – the opportunity to gorge yourself with butter. Anyway, Loni started with an onion soup, and I had pate, both excellent. When they brought the mains, they first brought the sole displayed on a large platter, and asked Loni if they could proceed with preparing it. We hadn’t a clue what that meant, but said oui oui. “Preparing it” turned out to be an elaborate deboning process, transferring to a plate, garnish, etc. Then they brought both plates to the table. I had chosen a cod with a sauce that I can’t now remember what it contained. I just know we both really enjoyed them, washed down by a yummy Chablis. Chablis in France is not like the watery dreck we often get in the States; here it has good body and flavors. For desserts, Loni got a café legionoise (sp?), a heart attack potion of coffee, coffee ice cream, and chantilly cream. I got a more sensible (yeah, right) warm flourless chocolate cake on raspberry sauce with hazelnut ice cream.
We both had a ridiculously great time, including killing the whole bottle.
In between these outings, Loni makes good use of the kitchen in our apartment to make meals with a little less butterfat content so that we don’t croak. She tries to make “one pot” meals so that we don’t have a lot of cleanup, much like we do when we travel in the RV. The French have some absolutely wonderful canned products, like lentils that were smaller and tastier than what we get at home, and stews with real hunks of lamb or beef, not the reformed processed mystery meat in Dinty Moore’s, etc. We get a can of each, and combine them, and add in some fresh carrots, garlic, onions, bell peppers, etc., and cook them up. It makes a delicious dish, with a side salad and some baguette slices. And, of course, some wine. We couldn’t possibly have eaten out every night. Our stomachs would have rebelled.
They certainly weren’t rebelling when we went out for our next fancy dinner, again courtesy of “X.” There are hundreds of fancy restaurants to choose from. The super-top triple-Michelin-starred ones require more advance reservation time than we had; some of them required many weeks or even months. We also wanted to make sure that the menu wasn’t overloaded with shellfish items, as Loni is allergic. We perused the guidebooks and internet, and limited our search to places that had good, recent reviews and menus posted online. We decided on Les Elysees du Vernet, a Michelin-starred restaurant located in the Le Vernet Hotel, just off the Champs Elysees,
as we liked the tasting menu they had posted. We made reservations for 8:00, figuring that was a suitable French dining hour, but we got there a bit early so we wandered up the way to get a night shot of the Arc de Triomphe.
After we killed a quarter hour, we went over to the Hotel. When we got there, we were warmly greeted by multiple staff and led to a nice table
where we could observe the room . . . which was empty! We were the first to arrive. Augh! Oh, well, it was a gorgeous room,
with a century-old Gustav Eiffel skylight ceiling which was beautiful even at night.
Our waitress was a fairly young gal, whom I thought was a little cool to us at first. Turns out she was just nervous. She was new to the restaurant, having just moved from London where she had worked for 4 years, and she was just learning French. She was from Sicily, of all places, with family in New Jersey! As we spoke more, and asked her about Sicily, she warmed up and became a real chatterbox. We settled in with a glass of Champagne, then ordered a bottle of Meursault.
Here’s the tasting menu that attracted us:
- Artichoke Veloute, Fois Gras Custard Royale, Duck Confit nem
- Frog Legs Tempura, Tandoori (the dark half-rings encircling the legs, very hot); Watercress juice
- Crunchy Sea Bass Filet, Baby Spinach
- Braised Veal Cheeks, Crunchy Vegetables, Ginger Saute
- Goat Cheese Cromesquis (not pictured)
- A pre-dessert “palate cleanser” custard cream with a hazelnut mousse
- Araguani Chocolate Douceur (with edible gold)
- (Extra) some mini macaroons and meringue puffs
Oye. This was a great meal. It lasted about 3 hours. Absolutely everything was scrumptious. We ostensibly were celebrating Loni’s birthday a little late, and the birthday girl was beaming. If you look at the reflection in the mirror to the left, you’ll see the face of a woman facing this way. She was a dead ringer for an aging Faye Dunnaway, complete with fright wig hair. If the three of them hadn’t obviously been French, I would have bet money it was her.
Quite a night. Thank you, “X”, for two wonderful evenings!
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