Le Bal Café

Paris' perfect brunch spot? For those with their heads in the sand, the opening of the new Le Bal photographic arts centre has had all the hipsters and bloggers with their panties in a bunch when it opened up a few months back. Located in a tiny, pleasant passageway with a garden view and run by two great girls: Alice Quillet (former ? journalist and chef) and Anna Trattles (Saint John Bread and Wine, Rose Bakery) this modern little table serves up what they call Modern British cuisine. 

Yesterday, brunch hunters coming after 12 faced a 30 minute wait, so packed was the dining room with funky lunetted hipsters scoffing down eggs and bacon and pancakes. 

High points were (Paris' only?) kedgeree, a dish created by Scottish soldiers stationed in India in Victorian times and composed of basmati rice, smoked haddock, curry and eggs, and, obviously, "Rachel's cheesecake" (there, I said it..). 

                                                    Bacon and eggs

                                                    Welsh rarebit

                                                    Kedgeree

Aux Deux Amis

I normally avoid Oberkampf like the plague (horrible themed bars, invested by bobo wannabees, ie people who get out of bed without combing their hair thinking it's cool)  but, having been to the Le Fooding party la veille, I was looking for somewhere to lunch with my friend 'Tof that was simple and good and not too far from my shack. Aux Deux Amis (which was packed with hipster foodies- couldn't tell whether this was from Le Fooding's giving them the "best little luxury" prize, or if the restaurant was just plain popular) , really hit the spot. Old 50's-70's style café décor, great products, simply cooked and at 19.50€ for three courses, pretty hard to beat. For starters, I took a not very adventurous but very good lentil velouté while 'Tof tried the anchovies with ricotta cheese (excellent accords), we both had the onglet de boeuf (hangar steak) which was absolutely superb quality, accompanied by a decent risotto and Thiebault Jerusalem artichokes, and a dessert was a few slices of Manchego for moi and a fromage blanc for 'Tof, for which they served him ricotta (again!) by accident (it was good the first time, but not that good!). These boys apparently worked at Inaki's Chateaubriand for a few years, and teamed up with Mama (she never cracked a smile, even once..). Beware: slow and choppy service, and definitely book ahead of time. Apologies for the terrible quality iPhotos..

                                                    Ricotta and anchovies

                                                    Velouté de lentilles

                                                    Superb onglet de boeuf

                                                    Manchego Spanish cheese


Aux Deux Amis
45 rue Oberkampf, 75011
Paris
+33 1 58 30 38 13

Philou - perfect neighborhood bistro

I just keep coming back to this place, and would even trek across town for their well turned out cooking. Yesterday's lunch confirmed once again my opinion that Philippe Damas' Philou is one of Paris' most perfect little bistros. Forest mushroom "clafoutis" with gizzards, tasty entrecote and roasted potatoes, turbot with a panoply of mushrooms, and just two snafus: the incredibly long service towards the end of the meal (granted, they were full and it was a new waitress, but she did spend 30 minutes cleaning glasses...) and the Montblanc , certainly not up to the level of the other dishes..but hard to complain when three courses comes to 25€...

Forest mushroom "clafoutis"

Entrecote with roast potatoes

Turbot with mushrooms

Disappointing Montblanc

Philou
12 avenue Richerand, 10th
+33 1 42 38 00 13

La Bulle

Great winter comfort food at one of my locals, La Bulle, at the crossroads of the quickly bobo-izing Louis Blanc 'hood in the hinterlands somewhere between the Canal Saint Martin and the rue Cail Sri Lankan quarter. On the (great value15€, two dish lunch) menu: delicious tagliatelli loaded with mushrooms and pancetta, pailleron de boeuf with a delicious wine sauce and dorade cooked in olive oil with homemade purée. The new chef, formerly Flora Mikula's right hand man seems to be heating things up in this corner of the 10eme 

Ploum (plouf..)

I can't really get up the energy to review this place, hidden behind the Canal Saint Martin and the Hopital Saint Louis. Nice spot on a corner, full of local yipsters, hot Eurasians, etc, but I'll resume it all in a few tweets I did while eating:

"Chef drinking with (said) hot Eurasians and playing Facobook with his Mac, apparently showing off pix of his Laotian summer villa..."

"While Sri Lankan cooks "cook" without supervision (ie badly prepared food of questionable freshness).

"Nems are terrible, full of fish bones with sauce at the bottom"

"Chirashi au saumon a travesty, shameful to sell tiny portions, not really that fresh with badly cooked rice at 20€" (one of my locals, Kyccio, has an under 10€ MENU with better chirashi....."

"Bobo bo-bun b-b-b-b-boring".

"Dessert trainwreck: (browning) apples, caramel, and hard (ie fridge frozen) chocolate bar, that nearly bent my spoon". This was, by the way, a "specialty of the house".

Get my drift? Don't go.

Shame the Eurasian hotties weren't on the menu.

Address: not necessary ..

El Nopal, Mexican taqueria in Paris

Finally a real Mexican doing food in a little take away place just shy of the Canal Saint Martin. Two ex- Disney employees (Alejandro worked there because noone else would hire him as a non-French speaker), doing burritos, tacos (handmade dough rolled through a hand cranked machine), quesadillas and friendliness. Too bad the tortillas are ready made .. they refry their own beans and do everything made to order. 

Dishes 6,50€

El Nopal, 3 rue Eugène Varlin, 75010

Playtime in Paris

In a tiny side street off of Barbès lies this new restaurant, a stranger in a land of Doner and cheap snakeries, offering a pleasantly comforting and fusion-y menu from Viveka Sandklef, formerly of the Indigo Square in Bagnolet. One of the few Swedish chefs in Paris, she and her partner Jean Michel have created a nice little niche (very faux-50's/60's Eames) and a menu that went something like this: amuse bouche of fish quenelle and moutarde a l'ancienne, rabbit "kebab" (tasty) with honey/spice yoghurt sauce and cucumber carpaccio, tataki of salmon in nori with daikon and wasabi , filet of white tuna cooked in a nut crout en sel with a Parmesan biscuit and a creamy dashi and lard sauce, and a creme of vanilla/brebis with spiced apples (really delish). Service was predictably slow (Viveka was by herself in the dining room), but always with a smile and there seemed to be a lot of locals and walk-ins (the Figaroscope's two stars didn't seem to be in effect..). Clients: an English Russian translator from next door, a gay couple with stripey shirts and pointy shoes, a horribly dress coordinated French couple who changed their dishes at each course, and a bobo family that had a bit of trouble keeping their child in check.

P.S. If anyone out there knows where to get some aquavit in central Paris, please let me know..

playtime

5, rue des Petits Hotels, 10th

+33 1 44 79 03 98

Quick Review - Le Stube

For those globetrotting clubbers who can't get enough of the ultimate after party Berliners snack, a passable rendition of curry wurst has finally come to Paris at a small snack counter called Le Stube , not far from the Palais Royal and run by the same family who owned the (now closed) Stubli temple to German gastronomy.

Quick Review - Ginger

One of the least well known eateries on the Costes periphery, this Triangle d'Or demi bling bling establishment sells fusion-y food to mostly area businessmen and a few averted tourists. One dish made me stand up and take notice, a very tasty sea bass tartare with wasabi mayo, followed by an unfortunate "asian" fish and chips (there was nothing asian about it, two pieces of fish were deep fried to a charcoal and it was accompanied strangely by exactly the same potato chips and salad as my startare.) Oh, and it was accompanied by wasabi mayo (again) . Forgettable desserts, and Hong Kong/Paris servers.

Tartare of sea bass with wasabi mayo

Quick Review - Breizh Café

Perfect Breton comfort food for a rainy Parisian day, deep in the heart of the trendy Upper Marais. Art galleries, leggy models, hipsters. Tsarskaya oysters, crispy black flour crepe with a filling rivaling a Full English: mushrooms, bacon, fresh Normandy cream, piment d'Espelette, farm fresh scrambled eggs, all washed down with a crisp jug of organic cider.