As I mentioned in a previous post, I don't think that the restaurants are my favorite part of the food scene in Paris. We have been to some lovely restaurants and some delicious restaurants and some interesting restaurants, but I am often able to find such places anywhere in the world I happen to be. That being said, I was inspired by my friend Nazanin to actually put together a list of our favorite places in Paris.
Let me start with a simple, inexpensive place right around the corner that we discovered soon after our arrival, Saigon D'Antan. The atmosphere is one small step above subshop, but the service is friendly, the ingredients are fresh, and the dishes are well-prepared. If you want a shrimp and green papaya salad with the right amount of sweetness, acid, and crunch, served with a side of rich fried egg-rolls, this is the place to go. (Glenn orders a marinated beef dish and rice but likes it just as much.)
Our go-to pizza place is Luisa Maria, also just around the corner from us. Kate and I love the four cheese pizza and usually split that and a salad. Their sauteed artichoke appetizer is also very nice. In addition to decent pizza and nice salads, it has a cozy and friendly atmosphere, a great place to linger over a pichet de vin rouge.
A lovely and delicious neighborhood restaurant of a somewhat higher class is Le Christine. (We went there last week with Peter, Nazanin, and Roya for a fantastic and celebratory dinner.) The atmosphere is hygge, with blond wood, sheepskin, and mid-century-style decor. Its logo is a big fork. The service is good and friendly, and the food is delicious. Both times I have been there, I have ordered the pork shoulder, which is cooked to sublime tenderness, pulled apart, reassembled in a small disk, and seared on the outside. It was served over velvety puree de pommes de terre (i.e., mashed potatoes, but somehow I feel like I need to use the French term here because French mashed potatoes are so different from their American counterpart). A braised endive appetizer with bits of duck was also delicious.
Last week we decided to stray from our neighborhood to try a highly-touted French-Asian restaurant, La Bauhinia. The chef has multiple Michelin stars (although none specifically for this restaurant, I guess). The atmosphere was rarified: I felt like I had walked onto a movie set of a ridiculously opulent hotel. The waitstaff was attentive, perhaps too attentive. The food was . . . ok. Not spectacular, not life-changing, not revelatory, just fine. I ordered seared steak in a very spicy sauce with mango noodles and sticky rice. The poached pear for dessert was under-ripe, but the black sesame ice cream was delicious. I wonder if this could be a better place to come for their brunch buffet.
A few weeks before that, we also ventured out of our neighborhood for Asian, to Ao Izakaya. Glenn does not love sushi, which is their specialty, but Kate and I were very impressed. We ordered and shared a number of small dishes, including salads, vegetables, and sushi, and I thought everything was delicious.
We have eaten at Evi Evane, both the sit-down restaurant and its more casual tapas-style location, a few times. They serve fairly standard Greek fare, a step above the typical quality. I don't think the food is spectacular, but it is solid. Given the dearth of decent Greek restaurants in the Boston area, we are happy to indulge our affinity for feta and phyllo and lamb and eggplant and yogurt on occasion here.
Continuing on the Mediterranean theme, we have enjoyed a few delicious dinners at Tavline, an Israeli restaurant in the Marais. I especially love their selection of vegetable appetizers. I could eat those sweet potatoes all day, and the roasted beets with labne, the roasted cauliflower, the hummus---all great!
An Italian place that all three of us loved is Le Capiello, in the 15th near Kate's school. We went a few months ago, so the details of my meal are no longer readily available, but I do remember thinking everything was delicious. And the service had just the right touch as well. It is not very convenient to us, but I think I have convinced myself in writing this paragraph that we would should make a point of going back for a special occasion soon. Ah, and I am just remembering a dinner at Pastavino several months ago that we enjoyed a lot! We need to go there again as well.
We have enjoyed the offerings at a small sandwich shop near us, Cosi. The fact that it shares its name with a chain of fast-food sandwich shops in the US is not a coincidence, but the food is not at all the same. The Cosi chain adopted Paris Cosi's formula for sandwiches served on flatbread still warm from their ovens, but the similarities end there. The sandwich offerings are inventive and the ingredients are fresh and high-quality. There is always a vegetable veloute on offer, as well, served with the warm flatbread. It's a nice change of pace from the typical french baguette sandwiches. (The photo above is from a chalkboard in the restaurant. As you can see, they have a lot of English-speaking staff as well as a sense of humor.)
Now, finally, we arrive at our top two restaurants, Semilla and Verjus. Both are special-occasion places, where one sets aside an evening to eat lots of food, linger over a bottle of wine, and not worry about either the size or timing of the check. Verjus changes its menu nightly and offers no choice (although can accommodate vegetarians and other food restrictions). The typical meal is billed as four courses, but is more like seven when you count all of the amuses bouches and little gifts from the chef. If you want to read the description of our spectacular Thanksgiving dinner at Verjus, you can look back at my previous Thanksgiving-themed post. (I somehow ended up with a menu, pictured above, that was similar, but not identical, to our Thanksgiving dinner menu.) We are looking forward to another meal there when Shannon and Derek visit in February.
To celebrate Glenn's birthday, we invited Esther and Abhijit to join us at Semilla on Saturday night. I started with a delicious salad of raw root vegetables sliced paper-thin and served with a lemon hummus. Kate had cauliflower tempura over a bed of grains, which was also delicious. The others had a sort of custard with poached egg and celery puree. I did not try it, but they said it was wonderful. My main course, a poached white fish, was served with sauteed spinach and the lightest hollandaise I've ever had. Dessert was also wonderful, especially the cocoa and whiskey ice cream and cocoa sables.
There are a number of other places on our list that we have yet to check off, including some highly recommended by friends. (We attempted to have dinner at Les Papilles a couple of weeks ago, but a case of the flu thwarted that plan.) So I'm sure there will be another post updating our restaurant preferences in a few months. (I feel like my next restaurant post should have some photos of actual food. I'll see if I can get past the embarrassment of taking pictures of my dinner to include some.)
Bon appetit!
No comments:
Post a Comment