Bon Voyage

Jenny and I regularly went on late night walks to enjoy the city as if we were the only ones around.

Jenny and I have been back from Paris for a few weeks. I’m assuming maybe at least half of you have been to Paris before so it needs no fancy introduction. If you have not maybe this blog post will help you set aside time and a budget to visit the French capital. It is worth it if you are someone who either enjoys or likes the idea of seeing art and architecture along with eating good food and taking a well run subway system. It is also a good place to shop since you can apply for tax exemption. I don’t recommend going all out with the shopping, it is your money to spend, but its a tedious thing and the lines can be long. Jenny and I believe in buying one token to remember a trip. Sometimes it’s a nice Tuscan wallet or a funky pair of sneakers you can’t get in America.

The best croissant I had was from a street food restaurant.

One of the main things I wanted to do in this blog was review some restaurants and other food places. We went to them enough times to have a good handle of what they were trying to do and how well they could cook and serve. First let me say that I have started a culinary novel, I don’t know what else to call it, that is based on my time in the food industry primarily from 2006-2014, but also up until today. The majority of the novel will take place during culinary school in 2006 and move through all the food trends using my own personal experiences along with the many people I have encountered. I’m only in the beginning, but I’m rather enjoying myself. It does renew some of my love for the food industry considering I’m rather bored with it now. Being in Paris also helped to renew that love since there the little things are exponentially better than the big things here.

This past trip cemented what Jenny and I had been feeling for a few years now even before covid. Actually I don’t think I’m going to say anything amazing right now since many of you probably already knew this. The food industry is at a lull. Social media and an unequal balance of money is mostly the reason, but also that we’ve exhausted the trends that could possibly be flavorful. I’m staying away from social media’s influence in this blog post. That could be a whole other post, and I’m just tired of hearing about it. It’s like hearing about cancer, I’d rather not.

And this is why Paris was a relief for me personally. For one I did go to a 3 star Michelin place the second day I was there and it was terrible. Ok, I had a lamb dish that was one of the best I’ve ever had. But aside from that start to finish it was one of the worst experiences I’ve ever had in a restaurant. Some things were out of their control like the drunken WASP across the dining room, but it is how they reacted to that and basically the whole meal. Aside from the lamb all the other food was mediocre and there were 40 minute gaps between courses. And right after that meal I canceled anything we had lined up that possessed any Michelin star. I’m done with that, with San Pellegrino, and anything else. If you come by my house I have old Michelin guides from the 2000s and 2010s, and I’m embarrassed to say I have been to many stars. And consistently they’re just a useless measurement now. Finding a good restaurant has never been harder for us. Luckily, in Paris we were able to find a few with some being outstanding. Either way, for the foreseeable future any new place I will avoid anything above a bistro or trattoria. Plus I had the same quality of pork and other dishes at bistros than I did at any Michelin star. The only edge I could see between a high end place and a nice bistro was the quality of their sauces. And that’s not worth the price difference.

The first place I would recommend is Le Bon Georges. We had both classic as well as some more modernized dishes such as a mussels soup with saffron, fennel, and oranges. As you can see from the menu to the side it reads like a classic bistro. And it is, but the quality was higher than you’d might assume. Twice I had the Coeur de filet de cochon and I loved that dish because the pork was always cooked properly to medium rare and the flavor was that succulent porkiness. It came with a simple sauce with carrots that were just between soft and still crisp, perfect. Generally I don’t like cooked carrots, but this were spot on. The only thing we didn’t try on the menu was the Liver a la Royale, because I had my full of hare at another place, and the Lieu jaunt de ligue. The tartare was one of the better ones I’ve had because it was so clean and fresh. The Rise au Veau (sweetbreads) was both crispy and creamy. And aside from the Creme de moules my favorite entree was the Poireaux fondant haddock because it was excellent for this time of the year.

The place itself was classic French, and they were even repainting the outside in that typical French blue. Another good thing with this place is that when talking to people next to us it is their regular spot. I made a reservation weeks prior, but for our other visits I’d just ask my waiter and since it’s fairly busy we had to eat outside. It was usually 50 degrees, but they give blankets.

The wait staff all spoke English well, and most of them were full of bubbly friendliness. I would have been happy with quiet and efficient in terms of wait staff since I have little expectations when it comes to this, so anything above “too cool for school hipster” is great. I don’t know what kind of diners you all are, or if you eat out at all, but I’m mostly there to enjoy the food and talk shit with Jen or whoever I’m with. But if the staff are funny and welcoming I’ll talk for days. Unless things go downhill this is one of the places I’d recommend to come visit in Paris. Let me know if you are going though, maybe I can cash in on some miles and meet you there. Ideal meal: creme de moules, coeur de filet de cochon, a bottle of red, side of frites, and tarte fine poires. Their menu will change obviously, as most good places should, and I’d look forward to eating here in Spring if I was able. It is the ideal place to both enjoy food and talk a lot of shit while being in a beautiful neighborhood.

The second place I would recommend is Bistrot des Tournelles. This place reminded me of being back in culinary school because of the menu. But the food was better than anything some know nothing like me could cook. Jenny and I really pigged out at this place. I concluded that the only way I was able to digest the food was because I drank a whole bottle. But then that doesn’t make sense. Somehow I ate a lot here. And I’ll tell you right now that the foie gras is great, the oeufs mayo just classic, the lettuce salad was fresh and the vinaigrette was amazing, and the artichokes were delicious because of it’s sweet and saltiness, but I could eat the saucisson sec with every meal if I wasn’t going to die. My first bite and I said to Jenny, “now this is my shit.” We also had the filet de boeuf, daube de boeuf, poulet fermier, and noix de Saint Jacques. Oh and frites, and frites again another time. The only thing that was average was the noix de Saint Jacques, but like above average here around the tristate area. Then there were the desserts. You’d imagine I like dessert, and if so then you’d be right. But I’m very bored today. I’m sure someone will spit on me for saying this, well a pastry chef at least, but they’re thinking too much and giving too little. Cut back on the sugar and give more. I’m an American I like to be topped off properly. So please don’t give me some rectangular looking bullshit that has some savory element with a teardrop of chocolate sauce. Pour that sauce on motherfucker. I need my fix. Well, Bistrot des Tournelles topped me off so well I needed a digestif. Yeah, the creme brûlée is good, but the tarte tatin was as it should be: soft with that deep apple flavor and ice cream so thick you can smear it like butter. Speaking of ice cream the profiterole was my favorite dessert. You know how much pate a choux I’ve made in my life? More than I care to remember and good choux isn’t some joke. A lot of places do it wrong and it ended up tasting funky. And if you go to a restaurant that serves profiteroles and it’s not that thick slab of vanilla and drowning in sauce then tell them to close. Oh and speaking of digestif I had a few at my two visits here. I wish I had the presence of mind to ask for the names of these digestifs because one especially was delightfully fun. Maybe you don’t find alcoholic drinks fun, but they can be. But at the time I was busy talking shit about the positivity of negativity. I guess I’ll just have to come back and get the name of that digestif.

Bistrot des Tournelles was as bare of a bistro as one could hope for. It was clean, cozy, and not chaotic. The wait staff were just like Le Bon Georges in that they seem to have the concept of relating to people without knowing them. Is that such a hard thing? It seems so here in America. So do come to BDT and hopefully you’ll have a good meal and talk some fun shit. My ideal meal: saucisson, artichauts, poulet fermier, frites, profiterole, and digestif.

Another restaurant we would recommend is L’Ami Jean. I’m not going to write up a whole thing about it because we only went once. We planned on going back, but we ate so much and the food was heavy that I totally maxed out on it. The hare stew was delicious and reminded me of mole, my partridge was finger-licking good, the mashed potatoes proper, the red burgundy we drank was pleasant and refined, and the charcuterie fairly standard. I wanted the rice pudding and we did order it along with a chocolate mousse. L’Ami Jean is known for their rice pudding, but the mousse was a more interesting dessert. It was all the things you’d want in a chocolate dessert: sweet, chocolatey, salty, and slightly bitter. The rice pudding was thick and quite good, but not as good as I was imagining. Mostly it was just thick and I wish it had something to perk it up like candied fruit or caramel. The staff was friendly and personable but not overly so. L’Ami is definitely more of a tourist trap at this point, but worth it still. Just don’t be surprised if you are seated shoulder to shoulder with other Americans who are on their way to watch the NFL in Frankfurt or a French couple so enraptured with each other I’m surprised they didn’t have sex right next then and there.

That’s as much as I can say about Paris and food there. Below I’ll list some dessert and other food places we tried. This blog post is long enough and I was going to muse for philosophically about the non-food aspects of Paris, but I hope to put that into a separate blog post. I will also put up some food pictures below.

Other food places:

La Maison d’Isabelle for croissants

Gido for croissants

La Grande Epicerie de Paris for specialty food, and they actually have decent baguette

Philippe Conticini for pastries especially their Paris Brest

Le comptoir du Relais for a quick lunch. I enjoyed their Baba and squid ink risotto with shrimp

La Cabane Opium for oysters especially the Belon variety