La Comète: a great local

I'm amazed at the number of restaurants in Paris. It feels as though there's at least one on every corner of every street. I guess this really shouldn't have surprised me, given that last year the 'gastronomic meal of the French' was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list as a 'intangible' cultural heritage...but it's still pretty incredible. Our apartment, located in a residential area, is close (which I define as less-than-a-2-minute-walk) to at least 8 bistrot / brasseries, and that's not counting the two asian restaurants and the two creperie / shawarma spots either!

So it's not surprising that we have found our favourite local already. It's called 'La Comète'. It's open all day, and great anytime, whether it's for a quick coffee and croissant, light lunch, delicious dinner or late-night glass of wine. What makes it our favourite local? It's not that it's close (clearly we have options), or that it's fancy (simple wooden chairs and tables), but rather that the food is FANTASTIC, and the people are pretty chill. Any restaurant/bar that has their kids drawings pinned up on the wall behind the bar, and that has local 'jazz and beajolais nouveau night' seems pretty awesome.

Relish: The food is absolutely magnificent. Simple but satisfying, and consistently good. For dinner, they do a different menu every night - a great entrecote and frites, a super satisfying 'pot-au-feu' (which I discovered is basically a pot filled with a delicious broth, veggies, a duck leg and piece of beef, which tasted like the equivalent of a home-made chicken soup, nothing will be able to beat this for comfort on a cold day), a fabulous fondent de boeuf, and great fish dishes as well. The lunches are also great; a top-notch croque-monsieur (this is where we discovered that a croque-madame is actually just a croque-monsieur with an egg on top), and fantastic salade et croustillant de chèvre (basically a piece of goat cheese wrapped in filo pastry and deep-fried, served over lightly-dressed salad).

It's fun, because once the chalkboard with the menu listed on it is set down on a chair near our table, we usually we have to ask about 30 questions to figure out all of the different french foods on the menu:
- "What exactly is a fondent de boeuf?"
- "It's a slow roasted piece of beef that basically melts in your mouth, served with onions and berries"
- "What is a pot au feu? "
- "It's delicious and you should have it" (this answer resulted in my ordering of the pot au feu)

Quaff: A solid list of wines - glass, carafes and bottles all available.

Feel: Depending on the day, it can be a simple cafe filled with people studying or reading the newspaper, or a bustling dimly-lit bistrot packed to the brim!

I will definitely be back - possibly even tomorrow morning for a cup of coffee!

Jacques Genin and the Mille Feuille

Apparently, a regular contender for the best patisseries in Pairs is Jaques Genin, with his star patisserie being the Mille-Feuille. As part of my mum's chocolate-tasting-self-tour, we decided to try it out and see whether the reviews were accurate.

Unfortunately, we arrived at around 4 on a Sunday and the on-site cafe was packed. Instead of waiting in yet another Parisian line, we decided to get them to go. The shop is designed so that it looks like you're in a very high-end luxury goods store...glass cases protect the patisseries and white-gloved servers delicately serve your chocolates or patisseries to you in the most elegant (and only slightly outrageous) manner. This is only heightened by the fact that each Mille-Feuille is made to-order, and carried down a circular staircase from the workshop upstairs, and each patisserie is then boxed individually in a separate perfectly sized carry-away box. I was impressed.

Jacques Genin - Ephemere and Mille Feuille au Caramel

We selected the Mille-Feuille au Caramel and a chocolate (what else!) Ephemere as the second dessert - layers of dark and milk chocolate mousse and praline, topped with a passion-fruit mousse (we had initially tried to get an Opera, but they were all out). Once our Mille-Feuille was whisked down the circular staircase, and our Ephemere specially-boxed, we braved the Metro ride from Republique home (all the while protecting the desserts VERY carefully).

Relish: The Mille-Feuille was AMAZING. I don't even usually like Mille-Feuilles (too much cream normally), but this was incredible. The pastry was phenomenally delicious, crispy, and almost melted in your mouth, while the cream...a soft caramel taste...sigh...sooooo good. The only difficulty was in cutting it and eating it. Because the pastry was so fresh and hadn't been softened by the creme, it made it a bit hard to cut...but I figured it out eventually (use the only sharp knife in our kitchen...who cares if it's massive...).

mmmmm....

The Ephemere was good, but the passion fruit mousse wasn't so much my thing. I separated it from the bottom layers and then the chocolate layers were stupendous!! Oh, and the chocolate siding was also fantastic, delicious and creamy rich dark chocolate.

Quaff: We made a small pot of espresso on the stove with our bialetti espresso machine (which I am in love with). It was a heavenly combination.

Enjoy!

The great Parisian chocolate taste-off: Volume 1

I've been wandering through the neighbourhoods of Paris in order to start to get my bearings, and I am absolutely amazed at the number of chocolate shops. It seems that around every corner there is another patisserie or chocolate shop tempting me with their amazing sculptures, displays and delectable creations. Not only do they have an amazing array of patisseries of all colours, shapes and sizes (perfectly sized for the single-portion requirement of the aimless wanderer), they also have counters and counters of freshly made chocolates, filled with just about every type of praline or ganache conceivable. I am in heaven.

This past week, I had a visitor come and join me for some Parisian exploring. I figured there was no better way to get to know Paris than by going on little chocolate adventures to seek out some of the well-reviewed chocolatiers, and no better partner in crime than my mum, who also loves chocolate (one could even be tempted to say that chocolate and horses are tied for love in her books...it's really close). 

Four boxes of chocolates, a cone of freshly made chocolate mousse, a caramel mille-feuille, an ephemere  (oh, and thankfully a few kilometers of walking) later, we have our initial review of 4 chocolate shops in Paris: Chapon, Christian Constant, Pierre Herme, Jean Paul Hevin and Jacques Genin (note: we only sampled the renowned Mille Feuille and Ephemere at Jacques Genin...will have to go back for the chocolates).

Three contenders: Christian Constant (Dark box), Pierre Herme (Blue box), Chapon (Cute box)

Direct chocolate-to-chocolate comparison:

• Box: The winner is....Chapon. The most adorable box by-far. Completely playing on the parisian/french theme of adorable school children eating chocolate. Their bars (see below) were also decorated in themes that provided glimpses of the origination of the chocolate. The only thing missing was a little insert telling us what was in the delicious chocolates we were eating (we couldn't remember them all). Christian Constant (CC)  was the hardest to open, while Pierre Herme (PH) had a nice turquoise leather tie. 
• Insert: The winner is....Jean Paul Hevin, for a small, square elegant insert that fits nicely in the box. PH was the most creative, with a full on pull-out poster of the chocolates, but unfortunately it didn't fit into the box, making it awkward, and the size made it difficult to pass around the table while enjoying the chocolates. Unfortunately Chapon was the loser here - no insert made it difficult to remember what was in the chocolates!

The Pierre Herme insert-poster. You can see the size (I left the remote in the photo to help scale...)

• Overall Chocolate: The winner here is Chapon, by a landslide. Really nice looking chocolates, all very different looking, with a beautiful balance between the bursts of flavour and the intense chocolate. Creative, yet still beautifully chocolatey...so that you got the feeling of 'mmm, this is a great chocolate...and wow, that's awesome flavour'. Jean Paul Hevin takes second place, with delicate chocolates and excellent soft pralines. The Christian Constant chocolates were smaller overall, very aromatic with flavours based on teas and infusions, simple presentation, but the flavours were a little too subtle, sometimes getting lost in the dark chocolate ganache. Pierre Herme was dissapointing....too much time spent on the marketing and not enough on the chocolates...overpowering and odd flavours (corn? burnt sesame?) completely wiped out the delicate chocolate taste.
• Cassis-chocolate taste-off: For the Pierre Herme and Chapon chocolates, the cassis overpowered the chocolate, Christian Constant had better balance, but even the chocolate taste was a bit muted. 
• Sea Salt-chocolate taste-off: The sea salt chocolate from Chapon was AMAZING. Pierre Herme's was overpoweringly salty. 
• Basil-chocolate / Saffron chocolate: They were good, but we felt that basil and saffron are best left for italian foods and paella...not in our chocolates. 

Chapon: The bar of chocolate, the chocolate mousse bar, and the cone of chocolate mousse to be enjoyed on the street outside the shop in the sunshine

The overall winner of this crew was Chapon. We event went back a second time in order for my mum to stock up before heading home. It was just that good.

Now on to the next 4....

Temptation in the grocery store...

I have spent a fair amount of time during my past few weeks in Paris getting acquainted with the grocery store down the street from my house. It's called Franprix, and has about 8 aisles, of which one is wine, one is cookies, one is cheese, and one is yogurt and yogurt-style desserts (amazingly, that only leaves 4 aisles for the other food groups, but somehow they have everything I need...hmmm...). 

Given the shelf-space assigned to the yogurt and yogurt-style desserts, I decided that I should give some a try. This is how I discovered the most dangerous of delicious desserts. Tempted by the incredible subway-advertising (a clearly iconic french brand, natural ingredients) and adorable red-and-white packaging, I chose the Bonne Maman Mousse au Chocolat: 

Given my usual aversion to desserts that aren't made from scratch, I wasn't expecting to like it. I was wrong. Totally BLOWN AWAY. Delicious, dark, chocolatey, mousse-y and not crazy-sweet...it is the closest I've had to the chocolate mousse that my mum makes...just amazing. 

This is a dangerous discovery. 

figs, rocket, roasted chicken and french children...

Baguettes Tradition, Roasting Chickens and Figs

This Friday, I took part in a Parisian ritual. At 6 pm, parents were lined up to pick up their adorable french kids from maternelle (yes, at 6pm on a FRIDAY NIGHT). After this, most of the parents (those who didn't already have a baguette tucked under their arm) made a bee-line for the Boulangerie to pick up a baguette, and then a quick stop at a vegetable vendor for some fresh veggies, followed by a stop at a charcuterie for some meat to cook up with the veggies and the baguette. I decided to follow suit (without the small, well dressed child in tow).

 I went to the charcuterie and picked up a just-roasted chicken, then to the boulangerie where I got a just-baked baguette 'tradition' (it amazes me that they still bake fresh baguettes at 6 pm), and then to the fromagerie where I grabbed some delicious hard goats cheese, and the vegetable vendor where I grabbed some rocket and fresh figs. I came home, found my roomate, opened a bottle of Rose and put together a delicious and super easy dinner of rocket, fig, goat cheese, drizzled with a bit of balsamic and freshly ground pepper, roast chicken and still-warm baguette. Absolutely, incredibly, delicious. 

A crepe in the pouring rain...

A quick update on a delicious Parisian late night meal - absolutely to be enjoyed in the pouring rain, while walking down the Rue de La Roquette which just so happens to be full of little bars and cafe's where the smart people are gathered under the awnings with a glass of wine, or tucked inside the bistrot at candlelit tables. The not-so-smart people (um...me) are getting funny looks from the warm, dry people, while I'm juggling an umbrella, getting soaked, and fully committed to trying to eat a most delicious jambon-fromage crepe, folded into a perfect triangle, crispy on the outside, with delicious goey emmenthal cheese, ham, salt and pepper on the inside...while walking. I finally gave up when realizing that my attempt to eat and stay dry was impacting my ability to enjoy the crepe to its fullest. I took cover under the awning of a bookstore and enjoyed my crepe from there while perusing the Tintin and Voltaire book covers (an odd and so typically french book selection).  

So this isn't me - it's from 'Midnight in Paris' Woody Allen movie, but it felt like this with the rain! 

I did think that I would share a few key learnings from this experience:

1. If it starts raining just as you're nearing the metro and you decide to walk home anyway thinking 'it will stop soon'...know that it won't, it will actually start to pour (that being said, it was gorgeous walking by the seine and seeing the rain poor down past the streetlights and old buildings)...so maybe the learning is to walk anyway, just don't forget your umbrella, and if you do, don't wait 10 minutes before caving an buying one at a street corner.

2. When ordering a crepe, ALWAYS ask for them to make you a fresh one. They generally have stacks of prepared crepes next to the crepe plates, that they then heat up with your toppings - do not fall for this. Kindly demand that they make you a fresh one. It is a thousand times more delicious. 

3. When ordering a crepe, chat up the nice crepe-making man. In this case, his name was Mahmoud, a nice half algerian and half dutch gentleman who has been in Paris for 5 years. Unfortunately he did not fully appreciate my french explanation of the difference between 'strategy consultant' and 'admin assistant'.  During the time we were chatting, my crepe became perfectly melted and hot all of the way through - a key to a great french crepe experience (even when made by Mahmoud, who is clearly not french). 

• Relish: A ham and cheese crepe - a staple in Paris. As mentioned, make sure it's freshly made. 
• Quaff: Usually best consumed after a few glasses of wine en-route home at the end of a night, or to kick off a night of wine tasting 
• Feel: There are a few crepe places as you head down Rue de la Roquette just after the Bastille - I passed about 5 until I settled on this one. Unfortunately I do not remember the name, but what drew me to it was that Mahmoud, despite the stacks of prepared crepes beside him, was just finishing up making a fresh one at the little window-counter with the crepe elements facing the street. What's funny is that most of these places also sell some combination of shawarma / hamburgers with their crepes...do not be turned off by this, but go for the crepes.

Enjoy!

Paris...and a salade nicoise to kick things off

Bonjour!

It's been a while since I've posted (my sincere apologies), but I promise I have a good reason for the delay...I've moved to Paris!

A typical Haussmann Building in Paris, fresh tomatoes at the market...and wine!

It was a busy month packing up and saying so long to a lot of great friends (and awesome restaurants) in Toronto, and so unfortunately I wasn't able to get a post up. There will be a few posts coming from amazing meals I had during the last month (a tasting menu at George, l'Unita, Grace on college etc.) that I took notes on, but just couldn't get down in writing.

So for the foreseeable future, I'll be relishing and quaffing in Paris. My home base is an adorable apartment in a typical Haussmann building in the 11th arrondissement - full of crown mouldings, floor to ceiling french doors, and an adorable kitchen. I'll be living with my friend Lindsay (who has been posting about the Parisian restaurants so far,and who keeps a fantastic blog about life in Paris at www.playingparisian.com). Stay tuned for some of our Parisian food adventures!

To get things started, we went to the Marche d'Aligre on Sunday, and had a lovely stop at the Baron Rouge for oysters, fresh bread, Muscadet and a charcuterie plate (see Lindsay's last post for a more eloquent description of the BR). We then explored the market and picked out super fresh veggies for a salade nicoise - here's the recipe!

• Relish: Ingredients: mixed greens, green beans, baby potatoes, leeks, onions, eggs, cherry tomatoes, a can of tuna, pepper, mustard, plain yogurt, salt, fresh chives and basil. Instructions: Roast the baby potatoes, leeks and onions together. Steam the green beans, then pass them under cold water (to keep them crunchy), cut the cherry tomatoes into quarters. Hard boil the eggs, peel, then cut into quarters. Plop a handful of mixed greens in the middle of the plate, and arrange the beans, tomatoes, eggs and roasted potatoes around the sides. Sprinkle over the chopped chives and basil. Take the can of tuna and mix in a spoonful each of mustard and plain yogurt, lots of pepper, and a pinch of salt. Put a dollop of tuna mix on top of each of the mounds of lettuce. Drizzle with a mustard-based dressing (2 tbsp olive oil, 1 tbsp white wine vinagre, 1 small spoonful of dijon mustard, salt and pepper to taste and some dried italian herbs if you have them. shake together, drizzle over salad). Et voila! Une salade nicoise. 
• Quaff: We paired it with a chilled rose and it was a surprisingly delicious combination!
• Feel: This one is tougher - it was our first meal at our dining room table, only we were surrounded by various ikea boxes and suitcases...so we'll work on a more appropriate parisian feel for the next nicoise!