Paris Journal 2012 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com
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Tom was slogging through four or five chapters worth of page proofs from the publisher, and I had to put together the September edition of the newsletter for the Zonta Club of Sanibel-Captiva. Both are time-consuming and arduous tasks, so when the end of the day arrived, we felt that we’d earned our dinner. A fine dinner at Oh! Duo would be just exactly what we deserved, we reasoned. I picked up the phone and dialed. (The following conversations were all in French, of course.) When Madame Valero answered, I said hello and asked politely if there was a table for two available this evening. She said yes, and asked for our name. As soon as I said “Cooley,” and spelled it for her, she burst into a few enthusiastic sentences of welcome and said “a toute a l’heure!” No questions about what time, how many, what’s our phone number. None of that. Just a French version of “come on down, Cooleys!” We were not efficient in our departure because the weather had changed, necessitating the donning of jackets and finding of umbrellas. I was pleased to be able to wear my new suede jacket. Again, the restaurant was situated just a nice 20-minute walk away, down the leafy avenue Emile Zola, an avenue that I consider to be attractive, because our end of it is attractive. But as Madame Valero pointed out later in the evening, the other end of the avenue, where Oh! Duo is located, isn’t so attractive. The reason? Beaugrenelle, the failed commercial center of the 1980s which is now an enormous construction site. Oh! Duo is not right in or right across from the construction zone, but it is closeby. The big hotels, from which the restaurant has traditionally received clientele, are now separated from the restaurant by that blasted, unpleasant construction zone. The seemingly unending construction work has hurt business. I fully expected Oh! Duo to be busy last night, as La Gitane was the night before. If anything, the food is even better at Oh! Duo. The cuisine at Oh! Duo has a more refined style, and even the menu at La Gitane refers to its “cuisine bourgeoise.” The two places are just different. But the construction zone has turned what was a good location into a not-so-good location for Oh! Duo. La Gitane is blessed with an outstandingly good location. People should not let the construction keep them away from Oh! Duo; access is easy. Just don’t look at the construction clutter. When we arrived, we were greeted first by Françoise Valero, and immediately after by Joel Valero, the chef. Joel had an assistant who was working away back in the kitchen. But that was it; it takes only three people to run this resto on most nights. There was a table of three aging but vivacious local gourmands in the front corner, and a family or group of about eight must have been upstairs. But other than that, we were the only others to occupy a table! I couldn’t believe it. Madame Valero therefore had lots of time to chat with us. In fact, she was in a good mood, so we joked around a good bit. The Hitachi air conditioner was the butt of many of our jokes, because it is new, but has a leak, and the service people aren’t responding well now that she’s already signed check. The Valero’s have a temporary Rube-Goldbergesque solution to the leak rigged up. The rig consists of packing tape, a kitchen funnel, and a length of garden hose that takes the leaking condensation around into the kitchen and into a floor drain. Without this, the water would drip down on two diners at a nice round table in the corner across from us. Tom said the rigged solution was “beautiful.” Madame laughed. We like the little table for two that is tucked into a nook in the back corner of the main dining room, under the wooden steps that lead to the upstairs dining room. Oh! Duo has the feel of an intimate, small restaurant, but
is capable of serving medium-large groups because of the upstairs. (The Oh! Duo web site has
photos of both dining rooms.) After we’d discussed the air conditioner’s deficiencies a
bit, I told Madame that the problem was that it was a Japanese brand, and an
American brand would be better. She
thought that was pretty funny. She said the air conditioner upstairs has problems, too. These machines work as either air conditioners, or heaters, and they are mounted up high, at the ceiling. Madame asked, as she does every year, if we’d had any
troubles with tornadoes in Florida. I
responded “no hurricanes, no problems.”
She brought us a cool cucumber/mint soup mis en bouche, followed a little later by the appetizer that I’d
ordered for us to share: foie gras de canard fait maison, confiture
d’oignons. Rich, smooth, and
delicious! For main courses, I had a grilled filet of bass, with a few raisins and dried currents, basmati rice, and slices of roasted tomatoes and zucchini. Bass is my favorite fish. Oh! Duo does it well. Tom had the slices of duck breast with peaches and a fruity sauce. It was all excellent, tasty and beautifully presented. Then of course, Tom had to order Joel’s incomparable tarte fine aux pommes – the best in Paris, perhaps. This year, Joel has added a sprinkle of granular sugar to the top of the tarte, reminding me of rock sugar. Oh! Duo is good value.
We opted for the two-course menu at 29 euros (appetizer and main
course for me, main course and dessert for Tom). But Oh! Duo offers a fixed-price, simple
menu of three courses for only 23 euros (tax and tip included), every night
of the week. Here it is: Menu 23 Euros ____ Croustillant de chèvre, sa petite salade Gaspacho de betteraves rouges ____ Escalope de saumon d'Ecosse, beurre au citron, purée Tarte chaude aux poireaux, salade aux légumes croquants ____ Fromage blanc, confiture maison Mousse au chocolat, crème anglaise Simple, but good. I’ve had the goat-cheese-stuffed pastry with salad many times; the goat cheese is warm and delicious, the pastry flaky and fine. The beet gazpacho is good, but to appreciate it, you must be beet tolerant, which I am. The Scottish salmon is always fresh and perfectly cooked. The puréed potatoes that Joel makes are the best; a true, refined purée. I’ve never had the warm leek tart with vegetable salad; must try that sometime. Ditto with the fromage blanc dessert; fromage blanc is sort of boring, but if it is going to be good anywhere, it will be good at Oh! Duo. And it comes with homemade preserves; that sounds appealing. Chocolate mousse at Oh! Duo is smooth and light and refreshing, and the crème anglaise is divine; an uplifting experience. Another great thing about Oh! Duo’s is that its location is convenient to a stop on the line 10 of the metro. Sue O. commented the other day that she can easily hop on the line 10 at Odéon and take it to the Motte-Picquet station in order to dine at La Gitane – something she plans to do in a few months when she’s here. I responded that the same is true for Oh! Duo and L’Épopée
(the Charles Michels stop on the Line 10), and also for the Café du Commerce
(the Émile Zola stop), where Sue has dined before. Come to think of it, I think I could write an entire guide to recommended restaurants that are on or close to the line 10, which shoots across the left bank from one side to the other and back, and even goes farther out to the south end of the Bois de Boulogne on the western part of the right bank. I might do that, and scrap my other restaurant recommendations pdf which is becoming outdated again. Those who have kids in school must return within the next week at the latest; but you know how it is, with all the chaos of getting kids off to school, they probably don’t think about going out to eat until mid-September. I hope that come mid-September, or sooner, business will
pick up for restaurants like this one.
Oh! Duo is a fine restaurant offering good value, where only the
freshest ingredients are used and the approach and presentation are also
fresh, never tired; yet tradition is respected. With the Valero’s in charge, Oh! Duo is a
smiling, happy place, too, where we’ve always felt welcome and comfortable. |
Friday, August 31, 2012
Le
foie gras de canard fait maison, confiture d’oignons.
Le
filet de bar à l’anis et aux raisins de Corinthe, riz
basmati.
Magret de canard, with peaches.
Towering
flower arrangement at Le Granite. Below,
views of the École Militaire and
Eiffel Tower at sunset on August 7, from the avenue de Lowendal.
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