The week in food

Hippo, Hermé, Pré Catelan, Le Tagine, Delle Stagione, Dip...

Restobus

Lobster at Pré Catelan

Birthday lunch at the Pré Catelan

Four Seasons Paris Bacon

The return of Paul Minchelli?

http://www.lesrestos.com/exclu.php

Alfredo Positano (gogo review)

Hotel Amour

Michel del Burgo taking over L'Orangerie??

http://www.madamefigaro.fr/cuisine/20060522.MAD0018.html

Has William Ledeuil been forsaken?

Here are a few images from my lunch today at Ze Kitchen Galerie, which I enjoyed alot. I wish everyone would get off the fake "fusion" bandwagon, and take another look at this gem, which deserves a little more respect.

Main dining room


...filling up

Marinated tuna with green mango, asparagus and spicy lemon jelly

Green asparagus with burrata "croquettes", white asparagus cream, lemongrass and roquette

Close-up...

Beetroot gazpacho with ginger confit, farci of cucumber, shrimp with thai spices, and salmon eggs

Excellent fish pasta and thai spices

Dessert , roasted banana, chocolate cream with caramelised coconut and coconut sorbet. Wish I'd taken a photo of the strawberry cream and wasabi mustard dessert ! Excellent!

Self Portrait with Pierre Hermé Ice Cream Sandwich

Caius review (GoGo Paris May issue)

GoGo Paris Cantine du Faubourg review

"Passage" en Enfer (or Stomach Wide Closed)

It's difficult to know exactly where to start when one is so disappointed, and for so many reasons, about a dining establishment, no less one with a two-star Michelin chef, a concept raved about in the international press, and fawning articles in publications like the Figaroscope (shame on you Cammas and co.). I am talking about last evening's fiasco at the tapas bar/annex to SENDERENS, called Le Passage. My partner in crime, Austen,and I, being the hardcore gastronomes that we are, and looking for some time to kill while waiting for his girlfriend to finish some business, decided to find something to eat. As we were both tired after a very difficult week taking care of the world's rich and famous, and after having been inspired by the latest Figaroscope on luxury tapas in Paris (shame on them!) we went through a number of options, and decided on Le Passage. The entrance was pleasant enough, located in a side passage next to the main restaurant, it's tiny, winding stairwell suggesting a private club of some sort, like something off the set of Eyes Wide Shut. The dining room was pleasant enough, in a minimalist sort of way, and we made our way to the counter-top bar, happy to see that we actually already knew both head barmen from previous establishments. A good start. That actually turned out to be the only reason we stayed as long as we did. The menu, rather limited, was divided into different tapas, followed by suggested fixed menus with tapas, wine, and cigars. We tried pretty much everything, each dish, in hopes of finding something decent. The starter was sea bream and seabass sushi , four small pieces of (obviously preprepared) "sushi", cut very fine on a mealy rice bed. Austen and I, who had been so looking forward to as taste of two-star freshness, were sadly mistaken. We looked at each other in incredulity. For the first of many times during the meal. Next, we had the gambas in vermicelli, with a sort of sweet and sour dip, which Austen enjoyed, and I found overcooked, but still okay. Next, we had probably the best dish of the evening, the mackerel, served on a sort of bed of cole slaw , which was fresh and tasty, then followed the taster of tapas with scrambled egg with spicy chorizo , which was also okay, the inedible calamari , which was infernal, and to which I compared the cafeteria at my work (and believe you me, that's a stretch) , followed by the final dish, open shell mussels with jabugo ham, which was edible and relatively tasty. During all this time, we had numerous glasses of wine, which were good, with the exception of one red, which was totally corked. Dessert, which was offered after the staff realized that, despite our feigned efforts to give the impression that we were not experiencing actual gastric meltdown, we were not enjoying ourselves, was actually quite good, Senderens famous vanilla millefeuille

At the end we felt so duped, that we couldn't help laughing about it for the rest of the night over drinks at the Forvm Bar across the street, a 1930's jewel, which, lucky for us, was still open to soulage our gastronomically stricken bodies and souls.

Caius

What follows is a taste (sorry the pun) of my recent meal at the excellent CAIUS, with my gastro partners in crime A + C. Apologies for the bad phone-photos. First off, we started with a warm oyster taster, with topinambours, with a side of Corona beer sorbet (!), sorry, I got only a picture of the sorbet , as I was drunk and ravenous.


Next was the Coquille Saint Jacques with black truffles and some sort of spice, mushroom foam.



Followed by a "tortilla" of grilled gambas with indian spices on the side




Sorry for the above mess, once again blogspot has mixed up my pics into a haphazard order not of my making. Or is it that I have no idea what I am doing..?

Anyway, it was a thoroughly enjoyable meal in my friend Jean-Marc's humble establishment, which I believe to be one of the sleeper gastros of Paris, and about which you will be hearing a lot of in the future.

P.F.C.

Alfredo Positano

Kai review in March's Go Go Paris

Transversal article in GoGoParis

Michelin Paris 2006 Guide Results

In "La Libération"'s article on the new Michelin guide rouge 2006, "La Rouge est grillé" (The red is cooked) it seems that not much has been learned from this year's intense criticism of the venerable guide. The results are as follows:

Olivier Roellinger received his long-merited third star

Joel Robuchon apparently receives four stars in total for his three restaurants in Paris and Monaco, aparently bringing a total of two for La Table, and one each for his two other Ateliers

Pierre Gagnaire gets a star for Gaya

Alain Ducasse keeps Benoit's star

Alain Senderens gets two stars for his (admittedly anti-star) Senderens

Surprise comes at not awarding a third star to the Meurice's Yannick Alleno, and the Bristol's Eric Frechon. They also express surprise at Frederic Anton's (last years two to three star "espoir"), not getting another.

Jamin closing February 7th

After all the rumours and chatter, Jamin will be closed on February 7th, having been bought by Babette de Rosière who has a TV program in the morning on France 2 "C'est au programme".

Best of luck to M. et Mme Guichard and crew

****UPDATE Jamin is closed and now a "Antillaise" restaurant with palm trees!!! ****

Kai

Ganesh Corner

It's been awhile since I've had a nice, cheap indian meal. This discovery on rue Louis Blanc, just across from the Hell's Angels Paris HQ hit the spot.