Paris Journal 2015 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com
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A restaurant in Paris that does not take reservations via email or the internet is a rarity now. But alas, that’s what Le Florimond, on the avenue de la Motte-Picquet is, and so at 3PM, the end of the resto’s lunch hours, I called to reserve a table for the evening. The manager who answered the phone was accommodating, spoke clearly, and was welcoming. He even changed my request from the European-style 19.30 to the American-style 7:30 when he repeated it back to me. After a damp, cool 30-minute walk, we arrived at the restaurant at 7:30PM on the dot. The manager welcomed us, said cheerfully that he was the one who’d spoken with me on the phone, and took our jackets off to the “vestiare,” a few hooks on the wall of the back hallway. He gave us a generous size table for two, clearly marked “reserved,” and we began our dinnertime adventure. The young, bookish server brought us a mis en bouche: a shot glass of chilled soup made from carrots, raspberries and coconut. Lovely! We perused the menus and decided to each have the 3-course, 37-euro fixed price option. My starter course was a velvety, chilled soup made of puréed cauliflower and other vegetables. It was light, smooth, and refreshingly good. Tom’s was lobster ravioli, which was really good but the ravioli was a little limp and the sauce a bit fishy for his taste. His main course, a confit de canard (duck leg), was excellent – “as good as could be,” he said. The duck was crispy on the outside and tender and sticky on the inside, with a really nice sauce. The potatoes that came with it were browned to perfection. Tom was quite pleased. My main course, a Merlan de ligne meunière (line-caught whiting served meunière-style) was super, but a little surprising. The butter sauce was actually a cider butter sauce, so it wasn’t the classic meunière, and the garniture was bulgur, not potatoes. The bulgur just didn’t seem to go with the fish as well as potatoes like the ones on Tom’s main dish would have. There’s something special about fresh fish, butter and potatoes, isn’t there? After a couple bites, I decided to ignore the bulgur. But I thoroughly enjoyed the sweetly stewed tomato that also accompanied the whiting. Next time, of course, I’ll ask about the garniture when ordering. This restaurant also serves Quinoa with some things, I noticed. We both ordered our dessert from the blackboard’s listing of the daily specials. Mine was a homemade apricot tart seasoned with rosemary. It came with a little scoop of sorbet. The pastry was rich and savory, and the apricots just exploded with flavor. I loved that dessert! Tom’s dessert was a dramatic millefeuille de fraises et framboises. It towered over our table, but Tom had no trouble finishing it. The concoction consisted of three separate triangles of pastry with whipped cream and berries in between and around. The crowning touch was a scoop of wonderful raspberry sorbet.
The service was wonderful, and the restaurant filled up with people – mostly English speaking! And there was one table of four drunken Swedes. I think this place gets referrals from local hotels, whose staff probably call and make the reservations for their guests. I, an English speaker who called myself to make a reservation in French, was a rarity, and the manager decided that we should get special treatment, I think. As always, we wanted the French menus (not English), and we ordered in French. I felt we were given an especially warm send off as well as the welcome. Only two tables were occupied by French speakers: one a group of three businessmen, and another a group of three friends. After the server fussed with helping me put on my coat, we said our goodbyes and went back out into the drizzle to walk home. Fortunately the rain stopped when we were about half-way, somewhere in front of the grand École Militaire. The evening was so chilly that I’d worn the boots I bought at Le Monde et Nous last year. I’d planned not to wear them until September, but last night the temps went down into the 50s. For subtropical mammals like us, that’s pretty chilly. Tom was able to wear his new leather jacket. I love to touch it – it is so soft. He said that it was labeled “cuir de mouton” – sheep skin, but I think it feels like lamb skin. Finally we were home in the warm apartment, where we settled down to read. I’m reading The Nightengale now, having finally finished Wolf Hall. I admired but did not enjoy Hilary Mantel’s all-present-tense writing style. Still, I insisted on finishing it because I wanted to read about Ralf Sadler (Rafe, in the book), who was one of my ancestors on my father’s side of the family. I’m much happier with reading The Nightengale, quite a tale told well in past tense, as it should be. |
Wednesday, July 29, 2015
Le Florimond, on the avenue de la Motte Picquet.
The
velouté
(above), and lobster ravioli (below).
The confit
de canard (above) and Merlan de ligne meunière (below).
The
apricot/rosemary tart. |
