simon says french food blog

Is Paris The World Champion of Gastronomy?

By Joe Ray
PARIS

That's the question French food critic Francois Simon posed to a little panel: Nick Lander, Carlo Petrini, Ken Hom, Anissa Helou, Yumiko Inukai and...yours truly. For a recent article in Le Figaro's magazine, Figaroscope.

Here's my response in Version Originale...

World capital? That's loaded question.
Twenty years – even 10 – ago, the question was bandied about for fun but we already knew the answer, but now, just using the places I know well, it’s a legitimate debate. Barcelona combines an unquenchable curiosity and solid base to keep themselves on cuisine’s front edge. Sicily combines incredible raw ingredients with solid value and New York could win on sheer numbers yet it is Paris’ equal in quality and exponentially more diverse. India is a time machine whose cuisine never ages.

Plus, in Paris, coffee is awful and the beer second rate. It’s also pricey. That said, you forget all problems instantly when the former butcher who can hold four bottles of wine in one hand and owns Le Severo puts a côte de boeuf aged 40 days under your nose. You forget it when Pierre Gagnaire boils down a great vat of red wine to make a tiny component of a sauce. You forget it when Laetitia at Le Bistro Paul Bert greets you with a smile, seats you at your favorite table and gifts you with a glass of wine and when it comes to choosing a bottle of wine doesn’t foist something you can’t afford on you. You forget it when three bottles, two glasses of Calvados and one conversation into a meal, you realize with a start that it’s 5 a.m. and you’ve been at the table for nine hours.
Undeniable world champ? Not anymore. However, the French exception still reigns. Let’s call Paris first among equals.

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is a Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of the Year and author of the blog Eating The Motherland. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter: @joe_diner. 

 

LE SEVERO - ORDER ANOTHER PLATE

By Joe Ray
PARIS

I’ll begin with the closer; sometimes I talk about a meal having ‘momentum,’ something that gets better and better with every bite making you want more. Le Severo served a meal’s worth.

I’d wanted to come here since I first walked by years ago when I lived on place Denfert-Rochereau. The chalkboard wall full of good wines and the short menu had a wonderful ‘serious food’ air that tripped my radar.

The hard-working waiter speeds around the floor by himself. He also happens to be the owner, a former butcher and a man who knows how to age meat, which he does for 40 days in the space beneath the dining room.

Did I mention he can carry three wine bottles in one hand and though very busy, is unfailingly polite and patient with my table of nine?

On this night, we order appetizers, passing them around to share. When cep mushrooms, seared in generous quantities of butter make it to Mom, she takes one bite and commands, “Order another plate.”

There’s also a meatier-than-most blood sausage served without casing and cooked crispy on the outside, melting within. Mom immediately declares one of the best she’s ever eaten.

I mention this to the owner and he blushes.

After this, we pass to the serious meat. Just before taking our order, the owner declares that all meat will be cooked rare, fanning his arms out over the table. I mention that Mom prefers her meat on the done side and he blushes again, then caves to her wishes.

Dad and Jim get a côte de boeuf with intense marbling served blissfully rare and accompanied by fries that would make a Belgian proud. Jim gnaws on the bone, smiling the whole time and Dad’s got that “ooh, baby, baby” look on his face.

At the end of the night, the owner’s got time to come by and talk about his food – he’s wonderfully proud of it, rightfully so.

Momentum, indeed.

Count on 40-50€.

Le Severo – MAP
8 rue des Plantes
Paris
+33 (0)1.40.44.73.09

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the 2009 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of the Year and author of the blog Eating The Motherland. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter: @joe_diner. 

 

 

NO MAP, NO PHOTO. NO WAY.

By Joe Ray
PARIS 

This is a public service writeup for the “run away” column.

I’ve spent the last few weeks on the road, working on a Frommer’s guide update in Burgundy and the Rhône. Meeting an out-of-town colleague and his wife for brunch right after my return to Paris, I was happy to have someone else choose the location.

Les Editeurs sits across the street from Yves Camdeborde’s wonderful Le Comptoir and a stone’s throw from the Odeon metro. Walls of books and red-leather chairs make Les Editeurs look like a nice place to while away an afternoon, perhaps that’s best done with a beer or something else that they didn’t create on site.

Yesterday morning, 25 euros bought Sunday brunch at Les Editeurs. Brunch is a Parisian trend I’ve never understood in ten years here - a bad translation from the beautiful, bountiful American original. The French version is often overpriced and boring. Les Editeurs version included watery OJ, bad coffee, a basket of croissants and soggy toast and a plate with small ramekins of unremarkable scrambled eggs, a fruit cup, yogurt and something else that my mind has blocked out.

My colleague’s wife ordered a fifteen-euro club sandwich which she asked for without bacon. She was informed the sandwich was pre-made, but she could remove the bacon.

Really? Why do you need to pre-make a club sandwich in a restaurant? There are other time-saving/corner-cutting measures to take in a kitchen that don’t make bread soggy.

She did her best to push the sandwich around on her plate, but couldn’t bring herself to eat it. The waitress asked her about it and she couldn’t lie. To their credit, they comped it.

I’ve just come off of three days of incredible food in Lyon - fantastic three-course meals for under 20 euros. Yes, you can argue you pay for a prime location, but today’s brunch made me want to walk to the train station and have a few more meals in the Rhône before returning to Paris and pretend like I just got back.

Les Editeurs
4 Carrefour de l'Odéon
75006 Paris

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the 2009 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of the Year and author of the blog Eating The Motherland. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter: @joe_diner. 

 

My Debatable Fondness for the Armani Caffe

By François Simon

PARIS

I was going to say, "I know this place by heart," which is oddly untrue because I should, actually. But I've got a feeling that my liking for the Armani Caffe probably irritates some of you. Too expensive (I'll grant you that), too many spoiled brats (ok, we could add too many spoiled parents), too much bling and that's not all!

So what? I like it when a place is a bit "too much" because you can never get enough. Having said that, the dishes are rigorous, frequently good and I am nuts about their ice cream. They serve it like "crème glacée,"slightly soft, not hard as a rock. The wines are convincing. So much so that if I ever get squashed on the boulevard, you'll know why.

For the time being, I managed to make it to the opposite sidewalk with overwhelming literary enthusiasm; the next morning, I discovered a huge bag from La Hune bookstore on the table. What was in it? The latest Pascal Quignard ("La Barque silencieuse"), Hiromi Kawakami ("Manuzaru," edited by Piquier; I loved the previous books, "The Teacher's Briefcase" and "The Nakano Thrift Store"), Laurent Mauvignier ("Des Hommes"), Bernard Chapuis ("Le Rêve entouré d'eau") and Yannick Haenel's latest: "Jan Karski," devoured in just two days. And a book by Jules Renard.

Armani Caffe : 149, Boulevard St Germain, Paris 6‎. Tel :+33 1 45 48 62 15 Map

VICTOR - MANY HAPPY RETURNS

By François Simon

PARIS

 

It's funny, I've been here before ... have I told you about it? Victor is well done and warm, with a bistrot-style menu. My friends and I discovered a fantastic blood sausage pastry and a fine “onglet” steak. A delicious interlude with a few good bottles (a Croze-Hermitage from Graillot) and rather sexy clientele! If I lived in the neighborhood, I think I'd come on a regular basis. Victor has also just opened a similar place called Felix (99, rue Jouffroy d'Abbans, 75017 Paris; +33 1.42.27.26.16).

Victor MAP
101 bis, rue de Lauriston
 75017 Paris
+33 1.47.27.55.07

ON THE ROAD IN PARIS

PARIS
By Joe Ray 

The pre-meal e-mail back-and-forth went like this:

Me: For dinner, I want to start with cured herring on potatoes with a beer, followed by andouillette (tripe sausage) with some good wine.

Anne: MMMMMMMMMM!!!!

These are the friends you hang on to.

Dinner at Les Routiers had been pushed back several times, but was worth the wait. It’s the kind of place favored by Le Guide du Routard: a substantial meal, gentle prices, a little rough around the edges. There’s a giant zinc, assorted kitsch on the wall including a giant Georges Brassens head shot and a surly waitress.

Appetizers are a bargain and could be a meal in themselves. My herring and beer are just as they should be and Anne’s ‘figs stuffed with foie gras’ turns out to be a salad ringed with the figs - dried and fantastic - the salad is generously crowned with charcuterie not even listed on the menu.

The mains, on the other hand, are exactly what it says on the menu: my andouillette sits alone on the plate, reminding me of an infamous French dessert called rêve de jeune fille. Anne's roast lamb is just that - no thought given to the presentation, but with a crust this crispy and interior this juicy, it doesn’t matter. 

Dinner with wine, whether or not you get the prix fixe menu, will run 40-50 euros per person.

Restaurant Les Routiers – MAP
50 Rue Marx Dormoy
75018 Paris
+33 1 46 07 93 80

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the 2009 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of the Year and author of the blog Eating The Motherland. Twitter: @joe_diner. 

 

 

YOUR NAME IN JAPANESE, YOUR DINNER IN FRENCH

PARIS
By Joe Ray

My colleague who works in the 8th arrondissement felt a bit challenged when he saw I was disappointed with our last lunch near the Champs Elysées.

For this meeting, he pulled the Aoki card. Not the Japanese pastry chef with outlets around town, but the one with a tiny restaurant a block away from the ‘most beautiful avenue in the world’ (pff!) who’s busy outdoing the chef up the street. At his own game. At half the price.

When I arrive, I give the name of my dining partner who’s made the reservation. The Japanese waiter then reads back the name from the reservation notebook, where it’s written in Japanese. This must be wildly perplexing to the French.

A cod and creamy smashed cauliflower main is cooked just right, but the star is a lentil salad appetizer with petals of cured ham and a gently poached egg. The lentils are more of a soup made bright by vinegar and luxurious by the egg floating on top. There’s a fun, almost light, spin on the baba au rhum for dessert.

Aoki trained under Alain Senderens and the result isn’t fusion cuisine or even French with an Asian flair, as the other Aoki does. Instead, it’s good, clean and modern French.

In Chilean and Argentine Patagonia, I visited foreign winemakers who used their skill to squeeze the most from the local grapes. Here, it’s a warped version - the Japanese chef in Paris showing his neighbors how it’s done.

Lunch formule (appetizer and main or main and dessert) for 21.50€. Great value. Makes me want to go back for dinner.

Restaurant Makoto Aoki
19 rue Jean Mermoz
75008 Paris
+33 1 43 59 29 24
Closed Saturday lunch and Sunday.

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the 2009 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of the Year and author of the blog Eating The Motherland. Twitter: @joe_diner. 

SOMETHING BIG AND ROUND THAT I HAVEN’T TRIED BEFORE

PARIS
By Joe Ray

 

It’s a shame I ate my way through this neighborhood for two years and never once stopped at Melac.

Walk in the door of this 1938 bistrot à vins and underneath the sign that reads “water is for the plants” you’ll find the monstrously mustachioed owner greeting those who he wants with a big smile and a handshake. Sylvie, my cheesemonger friend and longtime regular, gets bisous. Behind him, giant wheels of beautiful cheese take up a counter and the walls in the shade are filled with shelves and shelves of wine.

We move from the first dining room to the second - a movie-like sequence that takes us through tables of jovial long-time customers, a corner of the kitchen complete with sizzling pans and the rack of cloth napkins and customized napkin rings given to preferred customers. The second dining room is every bit as nice as the first.

For wine, Sylvie - who has a napkin ring - has only to ask the waiter for something “big, round and that I haven’t tried before” and he nods and comes back with a bottle of Marcillac which we drink à la ficelle - you pay for as much as you drink. Get in as much trouble as you want.

The chef is new as of this summer and I’d guess he’ll be around for a bit. There will be no reinventing of the wheel and we’ll be very happy that way.  A chicken liver appetizer comes bathing in a beautiful sauce, rich in wine and onions and crowned with two broiled eggs. A bread-dipper’s delight.

Lunch is simple and solid bistro fare: good sausage on a bed of aligot - mashed potatoes with Cantal curd and garlic that nod to the restaurant’s roots in the Auvergne, and a flank steak that’s a little tough but full of flavor. Dessert is riz au lait that would send Mom over the moon. 

This is very much a place that’s the sum of the parts - a troika made up of food, wine and ambience that makes you want to eat with friends. I’ll take visitors here. I’ll take friends here. It’s a bit of the real thing.

Count on about 20€ per person, plus wine.

Melac - MAP
42 rue Leon Frot
75011 Paris
+33 1 43 70 59 27 (reserve ahead for dinner)
Closed Sunday & Monday

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the 2009 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of the Year and author of the blog Eating The Motherland. Twitter: @joe_diner. 

 

NEWS FLASH - SECRET SPRING

PARIS
By Joe Ray

Get there while you can.

We got a walk-in seat for dinner at Spring last night.

As in Spring, where you usually have to wait months for a table. We just sat at the downstairs bar and ordered à la carte.

We had walked by after being shut out at Chez Denise, which, we learned, is either closed on Saturdays or still enjoying summer vacation. Wandering aimlessly, I went in to say hello to chef Daniel Rose who opened Spring in its new location a few months back.

“Come check out the bar!” he said.

And while, at 9:30 at night, there were still people upstairs still kicking around from the lobster roll lunch he does every Saturday (no Saturday dinner), downstairs, the beautiful ‘cave’ is essentially functioning as a little restaurant with a bar.

“Spring Buvette!” he declared.

“When did you open?”

“Last night.”

As Rose tells it, he just didn’t tell anyone about it. At this point, he really doesn’t need to. 

No reservations, tiny, very reasonably-priced menu, order à la carte (as opposed to the prix fixe upstairs) beautiful space, killer wines.

Last night, we had little canned sardines with perfect bread and butter, wonderful Spanish charcuterie (including a chorizo, which, on that bread with a thin layer of that butter may have been my favorite bite of the meal), a veal and foie gras ‘tourte’ topped with little, ruby-colored radish sprouts and a lamb and cèpe stew with white beans.

Our meal was destined for a bunch of catch-up with an old friend, but we kept getting interrupted by the food that would make my friend moan.

“Some of this is better than bad sex,” I joke.

“Some of this is better than good sex,” she replies.

You’ve got about three days to get there before the word’s out and the line’s out the door.

Count on about 30 euros per person. Without wine. Most bottles start at 30 euros and go up from there.

Spring Buvette - MAP
6 Rue Bailleul
75001 Paris
+33.1.45.96.05.72

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the 2009 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of the Year and author of the blog Eating The Motherland. Twitter: @joe_diner.

GOD BLESS CHEESE. ESPECIALLY FREE CHEESE.

PARIS
By Joe Ray 

I’m late for my plane.

I’ve been simultaneously packing to leave for summer in the USA, packing up to move apartments and file my taxes for the last few days and, shutting the door behind me, realize I probably won’t be able take the metro and make it on time.

I also can’t find a taxi and have to stop in to pick up my sister’s request of fresh, salty butter. That’s all she ever wants me to bring from France and I can’t blame her. It’s sublime.
But I’m late.

En route for the taxi stand where there are always taxis but never any drivers, I run past Belleville’s Fromagerie Beaufils.

It’s early and Beaufils is one of the only shops on rue de Belleville that’s open, Monsieur Beaufils (?) still arranging cheeses.

“Hi, I’d like some butter for my sister,” I say, leaning my suitcase up against the display case.

He smiles, pulls down some fresh butter from the Ile de Ré and asks where I’m heading.

I explain the Oregon/Seattle/New Hampshire itinerary, noting the family connections along the way. Ready to leap out the door if a taxi rolls by.

“Does your family like cheese?” he asks.

"Bien sur!" I reply, wondering how the hell the guy knows I have “god bless cheese” written on my business card.

He turns around, picks up a two-pound hunk of Comté laced with those good-news crystals of amino acids, holds it up for me to see and says, “for your family.”

I’ve never met the man before and, as far as he knows, I’m never to be seen again, and he sticks what I’d guess to be a 20-euro ($26) hunk of cheese in my hands, charging me three bucks for the butter and waiving the fee to put everything in a vac-pac bag.

We eat it on a vineyard in Oregon. They like the cheese.

Fromagerie Beaufils - MAP
118 rue de Belleville
75020 Paris
+33 (0)1 46 36 61 71

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the 2009 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of the Year and author of the blog Eating The Motherland. Twitter: @joe_diner.

THE GIGONDAS CHALLENGE

PARIS
By Joe Ray

 

The waitress at Willi’s Wine Bar poured a bit in my glass to taste and waited next to me for a verdict.

Nothing good happened in my mouth. Nothing bad either. “Nothing to signal” to borrow a local phrase.

“Should it be like this?” I venture, trying to play it semi-diplomatically.

As the words leave my mouth, the wine - a Gigondas - begins to unwind. It’s good, but a bit too late now.

The waitress takes it in stride as I begin to backpedal. Later, the wine steward drops by to offer to exchange the bottle anyway. Perhaps he smiled when he noticed it was almost gone.

… 

“Willi’s?” a friend would later ask. “That place still full of Americans?”

“Smart ones,” I reply.

…

Count on 30-40 euros for a good, seasonal lunch, tasty wine and classy service.

Willi’s Wine Bar - MAP
13 rue des Petits Champs
75001 Paris
+33 (0)1 42 61 05 09
www.williswinebar.com

Closed Sunday

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the 2009 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of the Year and author of the blog Eating The Motherland. Twitter: @joe_diner.

HAIL THAT CAB!

PARIS

By Joe Ray

 

I’d been back in town for 48 hours, my mental Rolodex a little rusty and trying to think of a good place to meet a friend for lunch. My brain falls on a well-worn card.

Taxi Jaune is a perfect ‘welcome back’ - serving, on this day, radishes with good, sweet, creamy butter and salt flakes - the dish might as well have a little French flag on the top.

Later, Ari and I share mains. A bavette (flank steak) is crunchy on the outside, juicy within - a bite full of flavor, good technique and strong sourcing.

The trout, skin crisp and peeled back like the page of a good book reveals something sensual, a kind of ‘pages turned slowly’ read. There’s a fettucine next to it that’s so good, it causes me to go home and try to make my own pasta.

Outside, the sun is bright. The city shines like a diamond.

Count on about 20€ with a drink at lunch.

Le Taxi Jaune - MAP
13, rue Chapon
Paris
+33 1 42 76 00 40

Closed weekends.

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the 2009 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of the Year and author of the blog Eating The Motherland. Twitter: @joe_diner.

SUGAR FRENZY

By Joe Ray

PARIS

 

"Mmm… Almonds, fleur d'oranger, vanilla…" says Ari dissecting the Pain du Sucre confection I'm sharing.

"What else is in it?" asks her friend.

My only reply is a frenzied chewing sound, similar to the dining animals in "The Fantastic Mr. Fox."

Both friends have each ordered exactly one mint macaroon with chocolate (girls!) and they taste exactly like the mint that grew in our side yard when I was five.

Yesterday in the patisserie where we got them – Pain de Sucre, run by ex-Pierre Gagnaire partner/dynamic do Didier Mathray and Nathalie Robert – a woman, perhaps intoxicated by the beautiful fumes practically stampedes our threesome.

Today, on our return visit (Ari needed some more for her return to Barcelona), another woman snatches one of her macaroons from the box before the salesman can close the top, pretends to offer it to her infant and acts surprised when, ostensibly, the baby says 'no.'

The mom wolfs it down in one bite.

I can't blame her.

Pain de Sucre – MAP
14 rue Rambuteau
75003 Paris
http://www.patisseriepaindesucre.com/
Closed Tuesday & Wednesday

Click here to see my 2007 Boston Globe story on Pain du Sucre and other, emm, mold-breaking patisseries

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the 2009 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of the Year and author of the blog Eating The Motherland. Twitter: @joe_diner.

LUNCH IN THE BLACK HOLE

By Joe Ray
PARIS

 

Unless you’re willing to plunk down the cash, eating around the Champs Elysées is an expensive and often unsatisfying proposition.

“There’s a great Chinese, good sushi...” my dining partner said, citing his local favorites but after years of working in the neighborhood, but he still hadn’t found a favorite French place that’s a good value.

Luckily, he was prepared to plunk down the cash. 

In front of Citrus Etoile, Audis and Porsches fight for the space in the crosswalk by the valet and inside, it’s businessmen and a bit of Botox. A little too showbiz for me. The waiter will take your order using an oversized Palm Pilot. That tap, tap, tap noise is about as pleasant a sound as fingers on a chalkboard.

The Web site describes the "adorable" owners Gilles and Elizabeth Epié as “a dynamic and sexy couple.” Someone needs to turn the PR down a notch. Some eat this stuff up and love what the couple does, but this is not my cup of tea.

Having spent a big hunk of time cooking in California, Monsieur Epié makes a laudable effort to offer a menu that’s good for you, but I don’t want to come to a place like this and have a dish that looks like it was pulled from the ‘heart-healthy’ section of a menu.

I will also mention that at a wine tasting yesterday, I had a very similar main dish - fish with spring vegetables - at the wine bistrot Vin Chez Moi (18 rue Duphot 75001) and it was about twice as good (and good looking) as this. Everything we eat at Citrus Etoile is good, but there’s no point during the meal where we say ‘Mmmmm!’ I hate to say it, but I felt like I could do some of this at home.

It also feels like you need to know what to get - there’s a businessman a few tables away whose tie is thrown back over his shoulder like it was in his way. I want what he had, but at 70 euros a head for lunch without wine or dessert, I should be able to point at dishes with my eyes closed and come up with winners every time.

Again, maybe it’s just me. Everything about this place is what the French would call ‘more than correct’ but I’m not interested in paying for a seat in a semi-exclusive place unless it's going to make me want to eat with my tie slung over my shoulder.

Lunchtime prix-fixe options at 49 and 69€. It goes up from there.

Citrus Etoile – MAP 
6 rue Arsène Houssaye
75008 Paris
[email protected]
www.citrusetoile.fr
+33 1 42 89 15 51

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the 2009 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of the Year and author of the blog Eating The Motherland. Twitter: @joe_diner.

HOT ZONES AND A SLOW DANCE

PARIS
By Joe Ray

Dinner is with a pair of war correspondents. Talk ranges from world hot zones to falsifying papers.

Nothing quite like that to make a food and travel writer feel like a wimp.

I try to flex my muscles by coming up with somewhere new to eat in the neighborhood (without returning to the wonderful L’Escargot) and come up with La Lanterne, a spot I’ve spied on a side road along my jogging route near the Buttes Chaumont park.

Downstairs at La Lanterne is candlelit bric-a-brac, remnants of some bygone era that’s hard to put a finger on, but must look better on a cold winter’s night than the misty early summer’s eve we’re here on. We make a beeline for the covered roof deck, currently occupied by ten friends in their 50s celebrating a birthday.

Entrées arrive - a tartare de legumes, escargot with roquefort sauce and a salad with pork cheeks. Everything sounds more interesting that it is. Bof! say the French. Though the business card says “old Paris atmosphere” it’s really like eating at a so-so countryside restaurant.

But the table next to us has a good mood floating in the air above them and at our table, the guys are smiling, talking about dodging bullets. Mains arrive and one of the correspondents cuts his andouillette open longwise like he’s gutting it. Truthfully, they’re a bit disappointing - better, but not worth a trip, until I look around the deck - wonderful views in a quiet city spot. The woman at the table next door pulls out an iPhone to play a tinny slow song, holding it up like a candle at a concert.

The birthday girl and her sweetie - clearly still a sweetie after a long time together - get up and dance together. It’s the kind of charming you don’t always see in Paris. Which makes the whole dinner worth it.

Count on about 25-30 € for dinner. Rooftop dancing optional.

La Lanterne MAP
9 Rue du Tunnel
75019 Paris
+33 1 42 39 15 98

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the 2009 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of the Year and author of the blog Eating The Motherland. Twitter: @joe_diner.

THE PARIS CLUB?

 

Americans in Paris may enjoy checking out Francois’ entries on the French side of Simon Says - he’s on assignment to track down the best club sandwich in Paris - here and here - go figure.

Anybody out there know better? Or should we just send him to an American diner? Agawam anyone?

- Joe

NEW - M64 - NOT BAD... NOT BAD AT ALL

By François Simon

PARIS

Quickly making a name for oneself in the hotel/restaurant business isn't easy. Customers first tend use the restaurant as a hideaway to do business, rarely paying attention to the food. You're correct in thinking that the chef does everything he can to content moderate and finicky appetites while offering something memorable and innovative. This place is rather good. Not cheap, but they do have a 35 euro "Menu Passage" that's just perfect!

 

M64 - Map
Hôtel InterContinental
64, avenue Marceau
75008 Paris
+33.1.44.43.36.50). 

 

A HOLE IN MY KNIFE

 

I’d searched for almost 10 years ever for someone to sharpen my knives in Paris. Never found a thing.

Closest I got was the boys at E. Dehillerin who had some sort of outsourcing deal, but I didn’t like the idea. Once burnt…

A decade ago, I took my Wüsthof chef’s knife to a sharpening shack just north of the Golden Gate. I had the vaguest whiff of apprehension when I dropped off my knife and should have listened to my instincts: the guy put a hole in my knife.

At the end of the cutting edge, just before it meets the heel, the guy pushed a little too hard; put it on a flat surface and you could see light coming through the other side. Made me want to cry. Who knows? Maybe he was using the lawnmower blade stone.

The blade cut beautifully through 99 percent of the vegetable, then stopped, leaving me with celery that looked like a slinky heading south if I didn’t exaggerate the rocking motion of the cut.

Then I found the guys at Gaignard-Millon Outillage et Machines on a back street near my old flat in the 11th - one of those places that leaves a guy with any sort of wood shop experience slack jawed and drooling in the front window.

There are Japanese saws, chisels, hammers and beautiful knives from around the world…and the shop is quite good at sharpening.

It took a couple tries, but they fixed my knife as well as they could.

Not long ago, after years of staring longingly into shop windows at santoku knives, I walked into Gaignard-Millon and bought one, along with a sharpening stone.

The transaction was a lesson in knife care and sharpening not unlike I was taking Mr. Millon’s (Mr. Gaignard’s?) brand-new Peugeot - a car whose every feature he’d memorized the day he bought it - for a for a spin.

“You may not use this knife on one of those glass cutting boards,” was my favorite instruction/commandment. I cringed at the idea like he’d run his fingers down a chalkboard and he smiled approvingly.

My new knife corners like it’s on rails and Gaignard-Millon’s got a client whenever I’m in town.

Gaignard-Millon Outillage et Machines - MAP
24 rue Jules Vallès
75011 Paris
+33 1 43 71 28 96

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. 

BANG THAT DRUM

Paris

By Joe Ray

This is the place I used to go to in Paris to make sure I knew (why) I was here. It connected me to my city with shoulder-to-shoulder seating and decent bistro food, preferably preceded with a drink at the crowded bar.

There are simple rules: go late and avoid anything that swims. I used to make an exception for a smoked herring and potatoes that down with a Meteor draft, but I won’t be doing that anymore.

A bout a year ago, the crotchety old owner left and the new owners have tried to keep much of the same feeling while cutting a few corners and bumping prices slightly northward. Case in point? Six oysters served on the half shell served with a glass of Colombelle white for 14€. Whose bright idea was it to pair oysters with plonk marketed at women?

I digress. The aim here is to revel in the conversation, getting down to the nitty-gritty with old friends under what used to be a thick cloud of smoke that descends like a heavy carpet. (This is one of the few places that seems less enjoyable with the laws that have pushed smokers outside.)

Here, you eat a steak, have a few glasses/bottles of wine and realize with a start that it’s 5 a.m. and you’ve spent eight hours connecting.

Lucky us.

Count on 30-50 euros, depending on how much connecting you want to do.

Le Tambour - MAP
41 Rue Montmartre‬
75002 Paris, France‬
+33 ‪1 42 33 06 90‬‎

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.

SUN IN THE GARDEN

PARIS

By Joe Ray

 

After days of weather misery, a break in the clouds at lunchtime created a rule dictated by deprivation: sit in the sun.

I got lucky.

In the lonely, hilly heart of the 20th, the locals-only set at Le Jardin includes artists, teachers, funky clothing designers and old friends playing hooky and catchup over a bottle of wine, all sitting on the warm side of the giant windows.

They’ve got the right idea. The plat du jour is nine euros on this day and couscous runs from nine to fifteen - the vegetable stew served with theirs is made pungent with cabbage and a meaty broth. I’d have been completely happy with this alone.

Downside? The pocket-sized kitchen gets overwhelmed by a table of six. Everyone waits, but if no one cares, is it a downside? We’re sitting in the sun.

This isn’t the stuff you cross town for, but it’s worth an uphill walk if you’re nearby. Count on 9-15 euros.

Le Jardin MAP
52, Rue de la Bidassoa
75020 Paris
+33 1 46 36 27 99

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.