Paris Journal 2011 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com
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The Petit Palais is a lesser known pleasure in Paris. But slowly, it is being discovered – especially its café in the central, open courtyard garden. We arrived already a little footsore from walking along the Seine. I quickly claimed a table on the edge of the garden. Tom went in to stand in line for lunch. This café, like so many British and American museum eateries, is a cafeteria – but a really good one. Because the food is so fresh and because the place is becoming popular among Parisians, the café runs out of things. So the smoked salmon sandwich that I thought I would have was no more. Tom brought us each a delightful club sandwich on a toasted poppy seed bagel instead. No New Yorker should complain about these bagels – but as Tom said, they probably would anyway, because, you know, they’re New Yorkers! The salad that came with it was fine – much better than the salad at Le Petit Niçois the night before. Tom had a café gourmand – a double coffee that comes with little treats. He gave me the tiny brownie treat. A double coffee in France, by the way, is only the size of a normal cup of coffee – and of course, there are no free refills. But the coffee is really good and strong – the way we like it. We lingered over lunch and then wandered through the museum, hoping that a couple of its major paintings had returned. They were out on loan last time we were there. We were pleased to see that indeed, they had come back. My favorite is the huge painting by Steinlen that depicts a bal populaire, a big open party to celebrate Bastille Day. It was painted in 1889. Tom’s favorite is an even larger painting, this one by Pelez, called Grimaces et misères or Les Saltimbanques, painted in 1888, depicting circus characters. A special exhibition of photographs by Charlotte Perriand was going on in the lower level. We weren’t all that interested in seeing it, but some furniture that she designed was mixed in with some of the furniture in the museum’s permanent collection. That was interesting to us. We played a make-believe game, examining certain items, like a painting by Pissarro of the Pont Royal, or a modern black lacquer dining table by Perriand, exclaiming to each other that these things looked just like similar things that we own, or used to own. When I said that I actually preferred our Impressionist painting of Pont Royal to the one by Pissarro, Tom said, “That’s it. You’re going back to Art History school.” Finally we left the museum and continued our walk along the Seine’s right bank. At the Passerelle Solferino, we climbed the steps up to the Terrace du Bord de l’Eau, the esplanade along the south edge of the Tuileries. I love to walk through the grand courtyards of the Louvre, and so we did, exiting at the Place du Louvre, where the beautiful, gothic church of Saint-Germain-de-l’Auxerrois stands. After visiting the church, we made our way around the great, hulking, haunted, vacant home of the former Samarataine department store on the rue Baillet – a spooky place. Crossing over the Pont Neuf, we decided to rest briefly in the calm Place Dauphine. I marvel at how much I like this little park that has only dirt and no grass or flowerbeds. The old sickly trees have been removed and replaced by plane trees, which are growing nicely. A seemingly never-ending game of boules was being played by men of the neighborhood. Taking the rues Guénégaud, Callot, Seine, and Échaudée, we ended at last on the grand boulevard Saint Germain, where we took the number 10 metro home to the avenue Émile Zola. Naturally, we bought organic bread at the bakery just outside the metro exit. After resting for a while at home, we dressed for dinner, then decided we weren’t horribly hungry, only somewhat hungry, so we just went to our neighborhood pub, the brasserie at the Place du Commerce called the Commerce Café. As I’ve mentioned before, Le Commerce Café (not to be confused with the Café du Commerce, which is closer to our apartment), made itself over a few years ago. Now it follows a business model that is not unlike Doc Ford’s on Sanibel – but there is no need to have a gimmicky theme like Doc Ford’s has (based on Randy Wayne White’s novels), because, after all, this is Paris, and no theme is needed! Paris is the theme. It is for real—an honest brasserie in a real Parisian neighborhood, but this brasserie has a wider variety on its menu than most. So, like at Doc Ford’s, there is something for everyone. The food arrives at the table in an amazingly short time – much faster than Doc Ford’s, and way faster than at French restaurants. Fast arrival of food isn’t always a good sign at a restaurant, café or brasserie, but at the Commerce Café, the food is good – consistently good. And the fries are always excellent, and homemade, hand-cut, steak-fry size. Tom had the carpaccio of beef. I wish I’d photographed it for you. This café’s carpaccio is beautiful. And it comes with wafer-thin slices of Romano cheese on its salad. A separate plate of fries comes with the carpaccio. I ordered a hamburger, which is what I was in the mood for. I don’t eat hamburgers very often. This burger came with lettuce, tomato, “bacon” that was really a little slice of ham, sort of like Canadian bacon, and a little cheddar cheese, as well as “sauce Americaine,” a mysterious term which can mean different things in different places. At Le Commerce Café, it means thousand-island dressing. It was a wonderful hamburger – as good as Doc Ford’s, but less greasy. And it, too, came with a salad and fries. It was all just right. We went home, very satisfied, and listened to jazz cd’s that we recently bought at a shop near the Commerce Café – three for 10 euros! A serene, satisfying Sunday it was. Sign
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Monday, August 8, 2011
The Louvre
at the end of the Terrasse du Bord
de l’Eau.
Dome atop
the Musée du Petit Palais.
View from
our table at the garden cafe of the Musée du Petit Palais. You can
see that the vegetation reminds me of home in Florida.
Near the Musée du Petit Palais’s gift
shop is a model for a marble statue called “The Toast,” by Jean-Antoine-Marie
Idrac. The
marble version was done for the ballroom of the Paris city hall.
Another
view from our table in the garden café at the Musée. |
