Without further ado, and in chronological order, a week’s worth of meals and other culinary delights from October 2009.

Bofinger

Bofinger is a Paris institution that lives off its reputation not necessarily off the quality of its food. It is an immense bistro with definite Old World charm best reflected in the magnificent stained glass cupola which you should definitely ask to sit under. The service is brusquely efficient though not unfriendly: they want you to enjoy yourself but not for long because there’s a line-up at the door. The food is nothing to write home about but not bad by any extent. The “choucroute de la mer”, an inventive take on sauerkraut, is one of Bofinger’s signature dishes and features the brined cabbage with roasted monkfish, salmon, smoked haddock, a pike quenelle and a langoustine all drowned in a beurre blanc. Sounds weird but is actually a very nice dish in which the richness of the sauce and the tang of the sauerkraut marry really well. The sole meuniere is ordinary in everything but cost. The flabby breaded fish was oily yet mushy and not worth its €40 price tag, although the accompanying  ”pommes à l’anglaise” could have been a lesson in simple cooking done well.  It made me glad I had passed on the app and convinced me to grab éclairs at Le Nôtre for dessert. I think everyone should dine at Bofinger once. After all, it is an institution but recommend following my lead in respect of the apps and dessert, or just going for lunch or on a Sunday evening (when nothing else is open).

5 Rue de la Bastille
4ieme arrondisement
Metro Bastille

Le Comptoir du Relais

The first great meal of the trip comes courtesy of Yves Camdeborde’s Comptoir du Relais. Located a stone’s throw throw from the Odeon in the tony Hotel Relais Saint-Germain, it is not nearly as snooty as the location would suggest. The line up is pretty deep even though we show up at the tail end of lunch but the reward for our wait is being shoehorned on the terrace between two ladies who lunch and a mother-daughter combo who can’t stop talking about their Chanel purchases. There can be no secrets with tables this close together.  But I would have listened to hours of drivel about Chanel for the excellent pig’s foot served with baby romaine and mashed potato. The meat has been braised, de-boned, then  seasoned, breaded and pan roasted for a delightfully rich and savoury taste without any of the surgery that is often part and parcel of that porcine delight.  The rich meat is served with a simple but perfect puree and nicely set off by the crisp freshness of the lightly dressed romaine wedges. Chef Camdeborde could take Martin Picard to school on the pig’s foot. A roasted salmon back (the back being, as we would see, a decidedly popular item) is perfectly cooked and simply served with peas in a light vinaigrette. Loved the portion sizes which were on the small side and perfect for lunch. This isn’t haute cuisine but was probably the best bistro meal of our trip. I was tempted to come back the next day.

6 Carrefour de l’Odéon
6ieme arrondisement
Metro Odéon

Chez Michel

Thierry Breton’s restaurant near the Gare du Nord is obviously no longer an underground secret but was, surprisingly, filled mostly with tourists when we visited.  Surprisingly for a restaurant with a reputation for seasonal Brittany inspired home cooking, the menu  reads a little like a novella, with almost too many options to process (especially with all the exotic game on offer). Thankfully the food was as good as advertised though not nearly as affordable as people say. A huge serving of olive oil emulsified fish soup with parmesan and croutons  is simple but perfect. A grouse gizzard and foie gras petit salé is chock full of lentils and root vegetables and served (a little too cold) with mesclun, preserved apricots, pickled peppers and cornichons as well as a plateful of toast. It could have served four people. Although I was stuffed before I even got my main course, this kind of in-house charcuterie is what makes restaurants in Paris so great. Mains included a perfect olive oil roasted cod with a rich ratatouile and a rabbit civet with roasted seasonal root vegetables  which was served with buttery pappardelle in a copper pan. For dessert a sticky, buttery kouign amann and a Paris-Brest were both home runs. I am a huge fan of the Paris-Brest and have not had one this delicate in years. The service was friendly but not particularly good but I would definitely eat here again.

10 Rue de Belzunce
10ieme arrondisement
Metro Gare du Nord/Poissonnière

L’Astrance

This was our three star selection of the trip and is the most recent Parisian restaurant to rise to these rarified heights. Located just across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower, we chose L’Astrance because of its reputation as the most casual of Paris’  3-stars and its reasonably priced lunch offering. Chef Pascal Barbot is perceived as a bit of a wunderkid having taken a roundabout globetrotting route to chef superstardom. His cuisine is modern and international, drawing foreign and esoteric ingredients into structured French cuisine in a way that is familiar to North Americans. As befits its 3-star status the restaurant is immaculate. The decor is modern yet classic with its bright yellow banquettes and griffé black wallpaper competing with the stone tiled floors, silver tin roof and ornate gold framed mirrors.

Lunch lasts a good two and a half hours and features two amuses, an entree, two mains, a trou normand, a very inventive cheese course, two desserts and mignardises and five accompanying wines for the sum of €120 each.  Highlights included duck two ways, a magret and a strip of confit with roast eggplant chinese green beans and a “black curry” composed of olives, coffee and licorice  as well as a beautiful and delicate roast cod served on a “cajun achar” pickle of cabbage carrot and pepper redolent of cumin and curcuma and a green mango and papaya compote. Pan seared scallop and Mozambique shrimp served in an Asian influenced seafood consomee with seasonal vegetables and flowers presented some weak flavours and was less impressive. The cheese course was a tube of Vacherin glacee filled with a passionfruit, lemon and olive oil cream and served with a flower gelly. My favourite dessert was a matcha mousse on chocolate puffed rice on a white chocolate biscuit served with confit grapefruit and we ended our meal with a nice jasmine egg nog served in the shell with fantastic dense golden madeleines. The technical standard was very high, but even more impressive was how the kitchen so effectively fuses together ingredients and preparations from different culinary traditions.  Highly recommended.

 4 Rue  Beethoven
16ieme arrondisement
Metro Passy

Cuisine de Bar

One of the problems I had in Paris was not being able to sample wares from all the bakeries on our list. You just don’t want to be carrying a baguette with you around the Louvre.  No such problem with Poilâne which, in a move so commercially astute it seems not French at all,  has set up Cuisine de Bar right next to its world famous premises. The blessed staff of life is served  in the form of tartines with a variety of toppings, together with a salad and a glass of wine for €12.50. The salad is heavily dressed and mundane and the wine forgettable but our  tartines, served on thick slices of Poilane’s sourdough miche, were delightful. The champion was topped with provencal tomatoes, crottin de chevre and coppa, while a crawfish and guacamole number also satisfied. It’s not highbrow but it’s friendly, cramped and interesting and also a great way to get a taste of Poilâne and a cheap lunch at the same time.

8 Rue  du Cherche-Midi
6ieme arrondisement
Metro Sèvres-Babylone

Frenchie

This was the one place we went to that was really under the radar and  (putting aside L’Astrance’s 3-star firepower)  our favourite meal in Paris. Frenchie is lost north of Les Halles and seems out of place between the fabric sellers on the Rue du Nil. It is a little warm, cozy spot that featured  a 3-course €21 lunch with six items to choose from. The food is market driven with Italian influences and feels North American owing perhaps in part to chef Gregory Marchand’s stint at Gramercy Tavern (one of my favourite places in New York). A cream of celery is poured over bright green watercress puree, roasted hazelnuts and a pear brunoise to form a harmony of flavours.  Mains continue in the same winning vein as soft as can be gnocchi are paired with a rich lamb ragout ,deep fried sage and lemon confit. Trout is roasted with carrots and butternut squash that give the dish  sweetness counterbalanced by raw fennel and pine nuts. The waitress even asks me if I’ve ever been told I look like Heston Blumenthal (I’m sure she meant a better looking version). This was the restaurant that was our “coup de coeur” . We would have come back for lunch the next day but the menu would have been pretty much the same and we had just tasted everything.

5 Rue du Nil
6ieme arrondisement
Metro Odéon

Le Pré Verre

All my sources rated it highly, but PréVerre was the only disappointment of the trip, with the best part of the meal at this Asian influenced restaurant likely the bread from Eric Kayser. Well maybe that’s not fair because the ginger marinated salmon with smoked eggplant featured tasty fish and a very interesting combination of flavours and textures. Sadly the whole affair went downhill from that point. “Hure de cochon”, a grilled pig’s snout is breaded and roasted in much the same manner as at Le Comptoir du Relais, but this dish topped with its awkward pickled date has none of the finesse of Camdeborde’s effort: like a home cook trying to make a dish out of an El Bulli cookbook, the effort was there but the finesse lacking. More of the same with the mains. Hanger steak with wasabi sauce and smoked mashed potatoes looks and tastes like a big blob of brown. Quail confit with braised pork belly and a coffee sauce ends up as a dry overseasoned bird with a too-sweet sauce. Plate presentation is  sloppy and stuck in the 90s. We didn’t stay for dessert.

8 Rue Thénard
5ieme arrondisement
Metro Maubert-Mutualité

Brasserie Lipp

Brasserie Lipp is another of those famous Parisian eateries (see Bofinger) and I have to say I really enjoyed my meal here. Not the food so much, but it was a restaurant I was happy to have tried notwithstanding that it is now owned by a soul destroying restaurant conglomerate. A beef tartare, prepared tableside and served with frites is good, but no more: adequately seasoned but pedestrian with fries that are well done but won’t make anyone swoon. The cod brandade, on the other hand, is uninspired, bland but yet plagued with an overdose of garlic. Definitely the kind of food a restaurant conglomerate would put together. I highly recommend Brasserie Lipp, but only for its turn of the century ceramic murals, painted ceilings and Old World charm, not for the food. “La Règle Bofinger” applies here as well: come at lunch; order a main; skip dessert; enjoy the ambiance. No regrets.

151 Boulevard Saint Germain
6ieme arrondisement
Metro Saint-Germain-des-Près

Chez L’Ami Jean

In many ways, Chez L’Ami Jean was reminiscent of Chez Michel. Chef Stephane Jego channels  Basque fare, from the traditional to the modern in his Basque paranephelia-laden little restaurant not far from the Eiffel Tower.  It is cozy, loud and boisterous: a magnificent setting for a big meal. There are a number of menus to choose from and  a lot of game on offer and while the table d’hote is  reasonably priced, getting your hands on some of the more interesting items on the menu can be an expensive proposition. We ordered off the prix fixe menu. Apps included a petit salé of bearnais blood sausage with radish leaf reduction and ginger foam as well as a turnip ravioli with seared scallop and  mushroom foam. Mains included confit guinea hen leg served with roasted girolles in a creamy mustard sauce  and the very Basque sauteed veal kidney with amatxi and red pimentos. While the dishes on the prix fixe were good there was a certain cookie cutter aspect to it with foam on every app and strips of crisped Jambon de Bayonne on every plate. But we were seated right by the pass and kept seeing amazing food going out. I broke down and ordered a claypot of the mushrooms Bordelaise I had spotted at the next table. Divine, as was a huge bowl of rice pudding served with pralines and salt caramel. The moral of the story: be sure to splurge if you come to Chez L’Ami Jean.

27 Rue Malar
7ieme arrondisement
Metro Invalides

Bellota Bellota

Ummm, we hadn’t planned to go here, but were tempted by the beautiful jamon iberico (de bellota of course – acorn fed and aged for three years) their outlet was dishing up on the food floor in Galeries Lafayette. When we ended up near the restaurant on the Left Bank later that day, we couldn’t resist and ended up sampling a few of their varieties of this mythical ham, some prime chorizo, manchego, pickled sweet garlic in tapenade and baby artichoke hearts. Not French but a great little meal with some rustic Spanish wine. And the bellota is an experience in itself, a sweet, nutty, dark meat with intense flavor that makes proscuitto seem like cardboard. The next best thing to being in Spain. Whole hams (hoof on) are available for take out for around €800.

18 Rue Jean Nivot
7ieme arrondisement
Metro La Tour-Maubourg

Le Chateaubriand

Inaki Aizpitarte cooked the best meal I ate last year when he cooked at La Montée. The JJ chose to eat at his bistro Chateaubriand for her birthday and we were again dazzled by this young chef’s ability to make the seemingly discordant come together in harmony. The menu is set. There are no choices, only a question as to diner allergies or dislikes. Burratta is served with a mirepoix, shaved Bordeaux carrots, cream of squash, orange segments and toasted sesame seeds and black chanterelles. Weird, but a perfect alchemy. Slices of limousin beef fillet are served on an ink-black smoked aubergine puree with pickled onions and cabbage. Dorade is seared and served in a Cevennes onion broth enhanced with kelp and radicchio leaves and walnuts. A main of roasted veal is served with coco beans charred spanish peppers and chorizo foam. A couple of little technical slip-ups (such as burned sesame seeds) but an amazingly creative meal. Chateaubriand is a must-visit in Paris today. No points for serving food on brown plates, though. That’s disgusting.

129 Avenue Parmentier
11ieme arrondisement
Metro Goncourt

Marais Falafels

One of the joys of staying in the Marais is the ease with which the delicacies of the old Jewish quarter, and particularly of the falafel vendors on the Rue des Rosiers, are so accessible. While L’As du Falafel has the reputation as tops in the game I  preferred Mi Va Mi across the street. Both make an excellent falafel, crunchy with a soft interior, and serve it on thick homemade pita with shredded cabbage salad, tahini, roasted eggplant, salty cucumber, a creamy yogurt sauce and a spicy tomato sauce. Mi Va Mi’s wins for having the tastier falafel and the better tomato sauce but it’s a pretty close race. Chez Marianne down the street makes for a good substititute when these two titans are closed, but they double fry the falafel, which I like less.

L’As du Falafel
34 Rue des Rosiers

Mi Va Mi
26 Rue des Rosiers

4ieme arrondisement
Metro Saint-Paul