Headed off for a week in Nice/Monaco (all work, unfortunately), but have time for a quick update from the cab
I met up with Michel for dinner at Juveniles and, as always, the food was great, as was the conversation. I go semi-regularly, so they let me pop a bottle of 2014 Cayuse Bionic Frog that I had schlepped over from the US. I don’t think keeping it in my closet for a year and a half did it any favors, but it still showed well. After hearing I’d never been to Willi’s, Michel was emphatic that we swing by for a bottle. And another glass Definitely a good time, but a great reminder that getting a hall pass from the wife until 1 AM is only half of the equation; my five year old twins are coming in at 06:30 and do not care. Other bottle pics below.
Other note that I absolutely must post… and I’m only posting here. Had dinner last night at Arnaud Nicolas - Restaurant & Store The place is spectacular. If you are a rillette, pate en croute, terrine or traditional French food fan, it’s a grand slam. Wine list was o.k. and reasonably priced, but I might have hit my foie limit in one sitting, which I didn’t think was humanly possible. Highlights:
Poultry pie with foie - table favorite and we almost ordered another one
Duck terrine was meatloaf-goodness, if that’s a word
Jambon Persille - have never been a huge fan, but enjoyed this, none the less
Pork, foie and truffle pastry pie for 2. One word - burp.
If the items above are in your wheelhouse of things to do in Paris, Arnaud’s is a can’t miss.
Great stuff Andrew. Thanks for the detailed notes and pics - helps me as a plan for a possible anniversary trip next year. The problem is, the more you post, the longer my trip will need to be!
Side note, was there label damage on the Cornas, or did you ‘redact’ ?
Andrew, it was so nice finally meeting you. Thanks for taking me to Juveniles, I hadn’t been in ages, and thanks for joining me at Willi’s for that lovely night cap. Pictures of the evening below. The postcard was in the bathroom of Juveniles and is for a town called Montcuq, which when spoken fast in French sounds like “My Butt”. The caption read “It’s just a small hole” - slang for town in French - “but the surroundings are lovely.” Ergo the pic…
Label damage; I only redact the receipts when I bring them home
Was a 2010 Thierry Allemand Cornas Chaillot that Michel picked off the wine list. Eight years in and it was still wound up pretty tight. Might have had light heat damage, as well? I still enjoyed the bottle quite a bit, although the bartender at Willi’s was not as excited about posing with the bottle as our friend at Juvies. Great night!
Good point, actually, I forgot to mention that. The Allemand smelled great, but the palate was super tight, it opened up somewhat with some decanting, yet there was a bit of a muddled, slightly bitter caramel note at the back end. This made us think there might have been some heat damage.
Apologies if I’ve disappointed anyone by not posting pics of the snow; I’ve been bouncing back and forth between Monaco and Nice this week and, while chilly at night, there is no snow in sight.
What a beautiful Saturday, perfect day for a delicious walkabout, with an obligatory stop at L’Avant Comptoir. The Seine is still very high, note the swan where folks usually walk along the riverbanks.
Place is still cramped but lots of fun and delicious as always, getting there early afternoon is key to finding a good spot. First glass with the croquettes (2nd picture posted) was a Pierre Cotton Brouilly that was delicious (but I like Cotton’s Bojos in general), 2nd glass with the pork belly was a St Joseph that was nice but not deep enough. I wanted to compare it to the one I import, and I was very happy that I preferred mine. Neither was particularly funky, and I have a pretty high tolerance for funk.
OK, off to Beaujolais/Northern Rhone for some producer visits.
Couple of quick hits, after getting home a day late.
As Michel notes, it’s strange to see the river so high this long after the rains. I can only imagine how crazy it looked with three inches of snow on the ground at the same time. There is still some snow on the ground in places, as you can see from this pic of my boys playing football in the park. We came home covered in mud, but how often do you get to play in the snow in Paris?!?
Two other notes worth passing along. Took my 10 year old daughter to Au Trappiste. Dad wins with the Belgian beer selection and she LOVES the buckets of mussels. If you’re a beer fan, definitely worth checking out. Au Trappiste | Facebook After lunch, consider walking over to Cave a Bulles. Pretty cool French beer shop, where they’ll explain that the quality of French beer now meets or exceeds that of American beer (especially with barrel aged stouts). Once you get done giggling at the cute little bearded Frenchman spouting nonsense, go over to the cash register and look at the shelves on the right; they’re stacked with Cantillon. http://www.caveabulles-paris.fr/en/
Last note - went to a great neighborhood pizza place near Republique (Oberkampf, specifically) last night. Not my neighborhood, but had heard about it from a friend and wanted to check it out. If I had a week in Paris, this wouldn’t make my top 50 list… but if you’re one of the “spend a month in an apartment” types, it’s definitely worth a trip. La Briciola has that classic “everybody knows your name” vibe and the line blows up by 8:00. Strange mix of young marrieds with kids, neighborhood people and random tourists that got lost. Pizza was great and went through my share of negronis.
Other cool thing if you go to Cave a Bulles, walk across the street to the narrow covered passageway (believe it’s a library) and check out the wall art. There are a ton of the video game mosaic tile art pieces in the area (Space Invaders is all over, but I found one from Doom, too!), but this corridor has a 15’ stretch of wall that looks like it’s exploding from zombies that are trying to break through. I found it by accident; I showed up for beers 30 mins before the place opened and was wandering.
Good to know about the pizza place. After 2 weeks of non-stop but delicious French food, I am crazing more variety, and particularly pizza. I had Udon at Kunitoraya last night (very good, but I might give the nod to Sanukiya) with a friend.
And Paris under the snow is magical, even if they’re woefully unprepared for it, resulting in lots of slippery nonsense. It was wonderful seeing grown ups giggling like children as they slipped and slid all over the place, while kids had snowball fights.
Had to post this pic; the water is dropping to the point where you can see dry land at the statue. The landscape pic didn’t come out as good as this one, so apologies for the head-tilt.
As several of you have read above, I have an ongoing love/hate relationship with my butcher. He constantly tries to tell me how to cook things (“put a steak in a very hot pan for seven minutes on each side”) and for the longest time, refused to give me the chicken feet when I bought a poulet.
Today, I picked up a couple of ducks for dinner. We went back and forth for a bit and I used translate.google.com to ensure I was saying “please give me the feet (les pieds) to take home, so I can cook a duck stock.”
The guy looked at me like I was crazy. I repeated myself.
Another butcher came over. I repeated myself again. Then, he started laughing.
“Pattes de canette, pattes de cannette! You’re asking to take home human feet.”
Then, he proceeded to tell me how to salt the bird and heat the oven.
I am taking my wife and her mom for a week in Paris, during early May, with a likely visit to the American Cemetery in Normandy. I just signed up for Velib bikes!
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