Paris Journal 2013 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com
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Yesterday was a day full of
work, but we released ourselves onto the streets of Paris in time to walk to
dinner at Bistro 121. When we arrived a
little before 8PM, there was only one table occupied. After we were seated at our favorite table
and ordered a bottle of sparkling water, there was suddenly a stampede into
the restaurant. A huge group took their
places in the back half of the dining room, then other groups of two, three
and four took all the other tables.
What would normally be a very quiet night in the resturant business in
Paris – the Monday of the Feast of the Assumption week – wasn’t quiet at all
in Bistro 121. While it is true that the
discount offered on LaFourchette.com may attract people, LaFourchette can be
a double-edged sword because of its review feature. Customers can review the restaurant on the
LaFourchette web site after they’ve dined there, providing they’d made their
reservation via LaFourchette. If a restaurant’s ratings
dip below 8 on LaFourchette, then business can suffer. So for LaFourchette to work in the
restaurant’s favor, the restaurant better be good. People who read my reviews
on TripAdvisor or LaFourchette may think I always write favorable reviews, or
that I always think highly of every place we dine. The truth is, we are
cautious about the kinds of places we will even walk into. If we’re walking by and considering a
place, we look at the cleanliness – even the cleanliness of the windows. We look at the décor. We look at what kind of people are dining
there. We examine the menu. There are many details we consider. There is a little
restaurant on our block that we have never entered, and maybe never will. If, in spite of our
precautions, we end up dining in a place that has not-so-good food or bad
service, I generally will not review it at all. The reality is, I have to live in Sanibel
and Paris, and I do not wish to create ill will. If you ever do find the few negative
reviews I’ve written, take them to heart.
If I felt I had to be negative, I really felt strongly about it. If I write about a place, I
do so because the place is worth my time and effort. They've done a fine job. I think they deserve the attention. That’s how I feel about
Bistro 121. Bravo, Bistro! You did it again. We began dinner with a
cool, creamy, light pea soup that had three warm, ricotta gnocchi’s in it, as
well as some thin strips of mint leaves.
This was a nice way to begin a summer dinner: creative, and delicious. Tom had the pork araignee again, and I had the onglet de jeune bovin – a delicious
flank steak topped with grilled Canadian bacon (photo below). Sauces like the one with this steak at Bistro
121 are pleasantly spicy. The risotto
served with the steak was rich and well prepared, but was too much for me to
eat, and Tom was not able to help.
For dessert, Tom ordered the
lingot au chocolat again, and it
was a dark chocolate-lover’s dream (pictured below).
The place was buzzing with
activity when we left. We noticed on
our way home that Le Commerce Café on the Place du Commerce was also a
buzzing hive of human activity. It is
a very different way to dine, a much more casual way, than Bistro 121, but we
understand the popularity. Sometimes
when we’re tired and we just want the casual atmosphere of the neighborhood
pub, that’s the place for us. I like the egalitarian
atmosphere at Le Commerce Café. No
matter what your politics, no matter where you’re from, no matter how much or
how little money you have, you’re treated the same as everyone else. I would suspect that
restaurant owners who are very politically active in a partisan way may
suffer from bad restaurant reviews filed by their political opponents. I would never do that. One of my political “opposites” in Sanibel
(Marty) owns a few restaurants, and I have favorable things to say about
them, particularly the one he owns on San Carlos Boulevard (hats off to Chef
Greg Nelson!). I also admire Marty’s
business savvy and the fact that some of his employees have worked for his
operation for a long, long time. But I’ve heard some people
badmouth his restaurants because they don’t like his politics. That just isn’t right. I suspect that the woman
who owns La Gauloise has been victim of some of this kind of
false-restaurant-reviews-as-political-retribution. I think her politics are conservative. I read some of the bad reviews that have
been filed on La Gauloise and I do not believe they’re honest. But that’s just my opinion. At any rate, I notice that
La Gauloise seems to have opted out of the LaFourchette system. Another one of our favorites, the
restaurant Axuria, has not ever opted to use LaFourchette. They certainly don’t need to offer a
discount, but LaFourchette can be used just for its reservation system, which
I think would be helpful to a restaurant (as long as the customer reviews on
LaFourchette are favorable). So let’s be fair out there. |
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
The
Sainte Clotilde basilica is not very old by Parisan standards (1857), but it is a gorgeous neo-gothic
church with a Cavaillé-Coll organ, and it is
situated on a beautiful square.
Statue
of Cesar Franck and an angel in the park in front of the basilica. Franck was the organist at this church from
1858 to 1890. He died from injuries
following an accident in which the carriage he was riding in was struck by a
horse-drawn trolley.
A
lovely statue in the Sainte-Clotilde square. |
