simon says french food blog

SAVING GRACE

Versailles,

By Joe Ray

I may be a knight, but nobody bothered to tell me that the king’s garden closes in November.

I will remember this the next time I want to bring my mother, an award-winning gardener, to Versailles.

The Potager du Roi – a garden designed for Louis XIV so the Sun King would have fresh vegetables – closes for the winter on November 1. Oops.

Hungry – which, in this case rhymes particularly well with angry – and needing to win back a few points, I couldn’t take bringing Mom to one of those restaurants that ring the chateau’s entrance advertising ten kinds of pizza on a Plexiglas sign.

I ask a the gardener who’s very gently told us we won’t be getting in (and even if we did, our feet would get muddy), who sends us across town to l’aparthé, a restaurant and tea room tucked away next to the Notre Dame church.

Pulling aside the big velour curtain that kept the cold, wet day outside we were greeted with the buzz of French locals.

We split a ‘five vegetable’ soup, a beet and mozzarella salad and a big salad with lardons, potatoes, Roquefort, apples and sun-dried tomatoes put to surprisingly good use.

There’s a solid wine selection, twenty teas (Mariage Frères, bien sûr) and coffee comes with a Carambar candy.

“C’est une bonne adresse,” confirmed a local woman who later sat next to us with her family, probably wondering how we lucked into finding the place.

They’re not reinventing the wheel, but finding a place you’d like to have around the corner from your apartment when your primary concern is just getting something good is a real treat.

Lunch for two and peace of mind for 37 euros.

L’aparthé, 1bis rue Ste Genevieve Versailles 78000. France  +33.1.30.21.26.57 Map   

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the author of the blog Eating The Motherland and contributes to The Boston Globe's travel blog, Globe-trotting

SIR JOE?

By Joe Ray

Blame it on sloth or modesty, but I haven’t done much in the self-promo department lately.

Credit a bump in motivation or a lack of scruples for rectifying that problem posthaste.

First and most exciting, I’m a knight! Technically, I’m a young knight of the Confraria del Cava – the brotherhood of Cava, Catalonia’s sparkling wine – thanks to a series of articles that I wrote about the bubbly a few years back.

On October 11, in Sant Sadurní d'Anoia, Spain, I donned a heavy green cape, made an oath in Catalan(!) pledging my allegiance to Cava, chugged a glass, was tapped with a sword on each shoulder and officially became a knight. I was one of six knights of merit (the Spanish Olympic men’s field hockey team was sworn in as knights of honor), and as far as I could tell, the only foreigner in the room and one of the first non-Catalans in the Confraria’s history to be inducted. Quite flattering.

Earlier this month, I was ask to host a round table discussion at the American Library in Paris around the theme ‘Is French Cuisine Worthy of UNESCO Heritage Status.’ We had fantastic panelists - Clotilde Dusoulier, author of 'Chocolate & Zucchini,' and 'Clotilde's Edible Adventures in Paris,' (and former interviewee of mine!), Charlotte Puckette and Olivia Kiang-Snaije, co-authors of 'The Ethnic Paris Cookbook,' and, to spice things up a little, Catalan journalist and sommelier and author of the blog Wines and The City, Meritxell Falgueras. Great subject, perfect panelists and a full house!

Finally, I’ve made a huge update to my Web site, adding published stories and photos from South America, Sicily, Scotland and Paris – feel free to check them out at www.joe-ray.com. Please send me an email HERE if you’d like to be placed on the mailing list that goes out when a group of new stories go online.

More to come…

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the author of the blog Eating The Motherland and contributes to The Boston Globe's travel blog, Globe-trotting

TWO HANDS ON THE CANS

Lisbon,

By Joe Ray

Barcelona’s canned goods quality fanatic Quim Perez should know about this place.

I find the Lisbon landmark, the Conserveira de Lisboa (The Lisbon Cannery) - famous for their Tricana line of high-end canned seafood, completely by accident.

After I pay for a few tins, cannery owner Regina Ferreria walks out of the back room. She asks me what I’ve found, grimaces and walks to the side wall of her tiny, picturesque shop and pulls down a 125 gram tin of ovas de sardinha – sardine eggs. She uses both of her hands to place her gift into mine.

"Open them gently. Place them on a plate. Place them on bread – not toast – so the olive oil gets soaked up," she says. "No forks! It bothers them - use a spatula. Serve these to your sweetie with vinho verde."

I need to stop traveling alone.

Conserveira de Lisboa - Map
Rua dos Bacalhoeiros, 34
Lisbon
+351.218.871.058

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the author of the blog Eating The Motherland and contributes to The Boston Globe's travel blog, Globe-trotting

the tranquility of Laurence Salomon

Annecy,

By François Simon

This financial crisis – nothing could be worse for restaurants.  They’re always the first to suffer the effects.  As a result, to speak frankly, things change a bit for someone in my line of work.  That’s not to say we bury the hatchet and put away our claws, but there’s nothing worse than kicking someone when they’re down.  So a kind of goodwill gets established at times like these.  And it’s not unpleasant that things are bit sugar-coated.  The timing was perfect, in fact, this past Saturday night, as I was all alone at Annecy with a fantastic novel (Teru Miyamoto’s Les Gens de la Rue des Reves).  Which is to say I was the happiest man in the world.   Whirling about in my plate was a carousel of flavors (azuki beans, Hokkaido squash, roasted squash seeds, baby lettuce, quinoas, a bed of spinach, tofu puree with herbs…). Healthy and balanced food, wholesome and salutary.  Sometimes, it’s not the most appetizing, like the spaghetti with beats.  But that’s alright because the wise and virtuous clientele has at all times the feeling that they’re being indulged.   
Sometimes it doesn’t matter if a restaurant is excellent and produces perfect flavors, we just need to know that it’s headed in the right direction, even if sometimes it dawdles along the way, gets off the right path, makes a mistake or two.  What’s important for us is to hear it humming.
Nature & Saveur, Laurence Salomon, open for lunch Tuesday to Saturday, and Saturday night for dinner with a single-choice menu.  Place des Cordeleirs, 74000 Annecy. Tel : 04.50.45.82.29  Reasonably priced wine list.  Around 49 euros for the Saturday menu.  Web    Map

Photo F.Simon

Lisbon’s Locavores

Lisbon,

By Joe Ray

After a few blissful days in Lisbon, a local friend who lives in NYC and is back visiting her hometown takes her brother and me out to the Moinho de Baixo (a.k.a. “Meco”) beach about 40 minutes outside of town. It’s a perfect break from the city: beaches and dunes, breaking turquoise waves and not a tourist in sight. It’s amazing to think that it’s this easy to get out of town.

Once the sun goes down, we head to the Bar do Peixe, have a seat and dig in. Dinner starts with Azeitao cheese, the main course is half of a grilled Robalo (tasty snook) caught by the owner’s fisherman husband and we drink a white from the Setubal Peninsula – everything comes from less than 40 minutes away.

“The fish comes from there,” says the owner, eyeing the horizon. Cut in half lengthwise, grilled and drizzled with olive oil, it’s a lesson in simplicity.

“When I come home,” says my friend, “this is what I want.”

Bar do Peixe
Rua Praia do Moinho de Baixo
Near the town of Alfarim, Portugal
+351.21.684.732

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the author of the blog Eating The Motherland and contributes to The Boston Globe's travel blog, Globe-trotting

SOMETIMES, IT’S THE LITTLE THINGS

Paris,

By Joe Ray

Today, after a hot chocolate and a decent espresso (a sad rarity in this town) at Caffè Moro, I was refused a glass of water larger than the thimble-sized one I received.

“You can come back three, four, five times if you like,” said the waitress, noting the café’s absence of table service.

“It’s a style,” chimed in a loud and grouchy woman who had been bossing the staff around for the previous half-hour while floating in and out of the back room, yet claimed not to be the boss.

I stared at them in disbelief, at a loss to think of a more annoying or petty ‘style’ to lose customers.

“If you want, you can buy an Evian,” added the waitress.

Please. If somebody’s going to plunk the better part of ten euros down in a half-empty café and ask for a glass of water that’s larger than their thumb, have the good sense to give them a carafe or fill up a bigger glass and not give them any lip.

Caffè Moro 31, rue de Charonne  75011 Paris  +33.1.43.14.06.39

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the author of the blog Eating The Motherland and contributes to The Boston Globe's travel blog, Globe-trotting

The frog's house

Montreuil-sur-Mer,

By François Simon

A restaurant must be experienced through the nose.  You have to let it come to you, like one does when river fishing. There is a river – the Canche - that follows a course through alder trees on its way to the ocean.  It meanders through night mists.  There isn’t a sound. Earlier today, at the Genouillère, we could hear only the humming ventilation from the kitchen and the clinking of utensils.  This is one of those bucolic little places that seem to come from another time, as though gliding through a dream.  Sometimes, it materializes near Montreuil-sur-mer where you climb aboard and set sail in its sepia-toned cinema.

In the first dining room (the one on the right), the batrachian (ie. frog) occupies the place of honor, adorning the walls in a variety of splendid poses. We see him wearing a tailcoat and cavorting with a lady, gulping down champagne, appraising the maitre d’hotel.  Tonight, nothing seems to have changed – that same honey-toned lighting, the service that attends to all the little things, the clients a bit taken aback by it all.    It’s a restaurant as we always want it to be.  You arrived in the late afternoon, you’d reserved one of the four little rooms long ago. You’ve put on a nice suit to respect the decorum of the restaurant; it also stimulates the appetite.

The story of la Grenouillère is the story of a father and son.  Roland Gautier passed the torch to his son, Alexandre.  But Roland still stops by now and again, like this evening, to welcome the diners.  He is meticulous, with a kindness that is ever-ready.   He must sometimes purse his lips as he watches his son’s dishes pass by.  Because you’ve got to be pretty confident to offer portions as small as the pigeon de Licques, barely elevated by a bed of beats and red currants.  In the upper corner of the plate, on the left, expressly off-center, are two fowl salami.  And that’s it, just a checkerboard pattern of Vassarelli in the center of the plate, and there you are in front of this new kind of cuisine, marked by the excellence of the product (as for the generosity, it leaves much to be desired). 

Previously, the frogs came twisted and intertwined with a purée of garlic and parsley.  Upon hearing this description, my editor, who is moreover accustomed to such aspects of gastronomy, felt a pang of sympathy for the poor legs exhibited in such a way.  Well, sure, but did she think about all those poor frogs that all became legless cripples in the service of our cuisine? Following all this was a bold dessert with a base of strawberries and ginger  (in a naked rectangle straddling the crème and reddening it).

It was all perfect, and all the more so for the morning train having a few little difficulties.  You could feel there was something off when we made turns.  And then it completely stopped.  A bit too abruptly – you could hear in the conductor’s voice that he was remorseful.    The train slowed, and then we were gliding along in silence.  It was wonderful, because the sun was just rising.  There was a mist all about, and horses in the flat countryside.  We would have applauded, but the eight people in the car were sleeping like babies.  The train finally got going again, seemingly regretfully, and thankfully it went quite slowly for a time. 

La Grenouillière, la Madelaine-sous-Montreuil 03 21 06 07 22. Four rooms from 80 euros, menus from 39 euros.

Web  Map  Photo F.Simon