Paris Journal 2009 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com
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Yesterday evening, as we
prepared for our stroll and dinner out, I donned my only shirt that has red,
white, and blue. In the first several
years that we were here for the Fourth of July, French people used to
recognize us as Americans and they’d wish us a Happy Independence Day. That was nice. But now it isn’t so obvious that we’re
Americans. In their eyes, we could be
British, Australian, Canadian, or, sometimes, they think we’re German. We went out into the pleasantly
warm and humid evening and began our stroll near and on the boulevard Saint
Germain. We bought newspapers at a
newsstand in the hustle and bustle of the boulevard. Then Tom wanted something calmer, so we
made our way to the rue Jacob, which becomes the rue de l’Université as one
walks toward the 7th arrondissement. The street was very calm. It is lined with mostly old “hôtels
particuliers,” or big old important houses, many of them from the 17th
and 18th centuries, with courtyards in front hidden by a wall and big
set of wooden doors, which when opened completely, can admit a horse-drawn
carriage or an automobile. I guess
we’d call these compounds or urban mansions. That’s what the street is like
from the 6th arrondissement into the 7th arrondissement
where it meets up with the Place Bourbon, the location of the Palais Bourbon,
where the National Assembly meets. The
Place Bourbon is one of the most handsome places in Paris, particularly if
the buildings that surround it are all restored. And they are all being restored, one by
one. The big restoration of the Palais
itself was completed, it seems, last year.
The building opposite the Palais is now the subject of façade
restoration. We would have stopped to dine at
the Bourbon, a brasserie with an enviable location on the Place Bourbon, but
the sun was blazing into its entire terrace and the front half of the
restaurant. It was a bit much. Southwest Floridians don’t really like to sit
in sun like that. We seek shade. We also admire the kind of
flowers that we cannot grow in Southwest Florida. So, remembering the lovely, flowery and
tree-shaded park in front of the Basilique Ste. Clotilde, I suggested that we
try Le Basilic, a good restaurant hidden behind the basilica. So we sauntered through the
Place Bourbon and made our way down to the rue Saint Dominique. As we did this, we were skirting around a
large complex of Ministry of Defense buildings, many of which were once hôtels particuliers. We slowly crossed through the
park in front of the basilica, pausing to photograph the church and
flowers. In the smaller space behind
the basilica, we saw that the restaurant’s kitchen staff was still eating
dinner (the restaurant does not open until 8pm), which was, surprisingly,
pizza that had been delivered in pizza boxes. I guess the pizza is
inexpensive, and maybe that’s what the staff wanted. And I suppose that if you have the staff
come in early enough to both prepare and consume their dinners, you have to
pay them for more time. At any rate,
we waited on a bench in the small Place behind the church, trying to ignore a
couple drunks seated on the other bench.
I did this successfully by photographing flowers and the backside of
the basilica. We’ve dined at Le Basilic often
enough that I was a bit disappointed that the manager did not recognize
us. Generally, the place is run
entirely by men, but recently, they’ve hired a couple of young women to help
serve. We asked to be seated inside (to
avoid the smokers), and we were placed just barely inside the open sliding
door to the covered part of the terrace, where smoking is allowed. But it was fine. We didn’t have to put up with too much
smoke because the breeze was blowing the right way. Our young server was
delightful. A little waif of a blonde
thing, she spoke the most exquisite, precise French that was absolutely
understandable, and she had a very nice smile. I think she’s been to good schools. She’s so young, she may still be in
college. Tom ordered the specialty of the
house, the leg of lamb, which comes with large white beans in a red
sauce. It was excellent, as always. I ordered the cold soup to
start. It was a wonderful cream of
zucchini sprinkled with fresh herbs. I
will remember this soup for a long time because it was so refreshing and
delicious. I shared it with Tom,
because the portion was large. All
portions are large at this restaurant.
Remember, it is run by men. I was very surprised to see a
half bottle of Pouilly Fumé on the wine list for the same price as the other
half bottles of white wine. I ordered
it, but alas, our server came back in a couple minutes and said it was not
available. I chose the Sancerre
instead. I knew it was too good to be
true, to get a Pouilly Fumé for an ordinary price. But the Sancerre was just fine. My main course was a country
sausage with puréed potatoes. The
sausage was good and authentic, and was served piping hot, but the portion
was too large. If I’d had a Ziploc bag
on me, I would have sneaked out with the remaining sausage. But I didn’t. The puréed potatoes were very good, but
only luke-warm. Tom ordered the moelleaux au chocolat for
dessert. I had just a taste. It was very correct, and it came with a
small scoop of coffee ice cream. Here,
at least, the portion was not large. As we ate, the entire, sizeable
terrace filled up completely. If you
want to dine on the terrace on a Saturday evening, you better make a
reservation. There were plenty of young
people eating there, but they were not the ordinary type of young people. These were refined, quiet, seemingly
well-educated and thoughtful young people.
We were, after all, in the 7th arrondissement – a very
expensive place to live, and a place where many powerful people live. As we sat there on the Fourth of
July, we noticed that, despite the many people dining in the restaurant, we
were the only English
speakers. Le Basilic does nothing at
all to try to attract tourists, but you know that the most adventurous
tourists always find the good places to eat anyway. But this was very strange – on a busy
enough Saturday night, there were no English speakers. There was one table near us with
people speaking Romanian or something similar. I suspect they were there doing government
business at one of the numerous government departments and agencies located
in the 7th. The manager had
some difficulty communicating with them, and he tried using his English. Then we heard how extremely minimal his
English was. For example, in trying to
help the Romanians select a bottle of wine, the manager said “Vee ave red,
white, ann – I don know hoow you say, vat iz de other vun?” A restaurant manager who does not know that
rosé is rosé in English – now that
is a restaurant manager with very limited English. Indeed, in the past when we’ve
dined there, they hear us speaking English to each other before we
enter. The manager, who does wait
tables, always dispatches a younger server with better English to serve
us. The irony is that it’s totally
unnecessary. In restaurants, we speak
only French to the servers and the managers. And so we spent the Fourth of
July completely devoid of the company of our countrymen. No fireworks, no parades, nothing. Quatorze
Juillet (Bastille Day) will have to be a substitute holiday for us. The local newspapers offer one
explanation for the lack of English speakers:
the experts say that the numbers of international tourists in France
during July and August will drop by 20 percent. I guess they can tell this by the
reservations that have been made. We wandered home through the
quiet, dark streets, finally reaching the Place Saint Sulpice which is still
alive with activity from the Foire St. Germain. This week, the Place has been covered with
booths selling ceramic works. I found
almost all of this ceramic artwork to be ugly, with only a very few
exceptions. I’ll be happy when all the
little booths are taken away from the Place, and we can once again see the
magnificent fountain and its lions. Sign
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my guestbook. Note: For addresses & phone numbers of
restaurants in this journal, click
here. |
Sunday, July 5, 2009
The
Sainte Clotilde basilica in the 7th arrondissement looks like an
old gothic cathedral, but is really a 19th century gothic revival
structure. But beautiful, nonetheless. The
back of Sainte Clotilde, complete with flying buttresses.
Flowers
in the park in front of the Basilica.
A
lone lily plant in back of the Basilica.
Pink
and blue hydrangeas behind the Basilica.
A
lace-capped hydrangea, also behind the Basilica.
The
interior of Le Basilic.
Boats
going by the Louvre on the Seine. |
