I had the chance to explore another one of the restaurants in the Guy Savoy food empire last night.  Les Bouquinistes is located on the Left Bank just across the street from the Seine at the Pont Neuf bridge and Notre Dame cathedral.  I’ve been lucky to get to spend time with Greg Reinacker and Anita Taylor from Newsgator the past couple of days, and we’re having a blast getting to know each other.  Dinner together was (another) great conversation about quantum mechanics and entrepreneurial company growth patterns and shoes, with some very nice food thrown in for good measure.  The atmosphere at Les Bouquinistes feels very California to me.  It’s probably some big blasphemy in the food world to compare Paris to California, but I call it like I see it — and I saw bright, cheerful colors and contemporary art and fresh food with sophisticated flavors that I associate with dining in San Francisco.  I had an appetizer of risotto with prawns (confirmed first that it was prepared without wine) and shared bites of Greg’s swordfish and salmon carpaccio.  For my entree I had tuna three ways:   seared, tartare, and in phyllo, served with a side dish of basmati and wild rice with herbs.  The tuna was excellent and each preparation was distinct from and also complementary to the others.  The seared tuna had capers and caraway seeds and a tart, acidic finish and was my favorite of the preparations.  The tartare was good, but my favorite tartare is still at Aqua.  Dessert was hard to choose, with lots of fruit options.  I finally went with the trio of creme brulees.  They were served in oval shaped glass glasses instead of the traditional ramekin.  The flavors were fruit, nougat and pistachio, with perfectly crisp tops.  Very nicely done.  I’d eat here every week.

I’ve been feasting here in Paris.  It’s a world of culinary delights.  Two of the meals in the past two weeks definitely belong on my hypothetical Top Ten list, which got me to thinking about what that list would actually be.  I’m a list maker, love lists, think in lists, speak in lists; yet I had never created an actual Amy’s Top Ten list of restaurants and/or dining experiences.  So after considerable thought, and in consultation with Brad to confirm my memories, I’m creating at least a first pass at that list here, in no particular order:

• Le Cinq (Paris)
• Restaurant Guy Savoy (Paris)
• Biba (Boston)
• L’Espalier (Boston)
• Restaurant Daniel (New York)
• Gramercy Tavern (New York)
• Sushi:  Nobu / Matsuhisa Nobu (Las Vegas) Matsuhisha (Aspen and Los Angeles)
• Aqua (San Francisco )
• La Pont de la Tour, (London)
• Lespinasse in the St. Regis Hotel in New York, which no longer seems to exist?  Does anybody have current information?  I just spent an inordinate amount of time trolling around the internet and could find old articles from 1991 about the restaurant, but the hotel’s website doesn’t contain anything about Lespinasse.  This was my very first degustation menu, and a vegetarian degustation at that.  Forever memorable.

Restaurant opinions are very personal, of course.  As they say here: Chacun a son goût.  I’ve been fortunate enough to experience meals at so many superb restaurants, several of them on this Top 50 List.

My two Top Ten Paris restaurant experiences at Le Cinq and Restaurant Guy Savoy had plenty of similarities, all of them wonderful.  The food was exquisite:  delicate, fresh, beautiful, aromatic, unique, full of adjectives.  At both places the staff is clearly delighted to be doing what they’re doing, and proud to share their knowledge and the evening in high good spirits.  There was not a single second of feeling awkward about being an American or not really speaking French.  Both evenings were lengthy, and I never noticed time passing.  Zen gourmet.

I think I’d have to say that the major difference between the two evenings, which may make Le Cinq slightly more memorable in the long term, is that I forgot to tell the incredible staff there that I’m seriously allergic to wine, and something was prepared with that vile substance, and by the time we got home after the meal, I was sick as a dog.  I thought I might be sick in the back of the taxi or in the street.  Yippee.  Later that day (since I was up until well after 2:00, procrastinating as hard as possible the inevitable vomiting process, and then puking my guts out), while waiting to feel like a human being again, reading the menu more closely, it very clearly states, “Salade de morilles a l’araignee de mer at AU VIN JAUNE” which in English means Morel Mushroom Salad with Spider Crab and YELLOW WINE, YOU ILLITERATE, PRETENDER TO BE SPEAKING THE FRENCH, SEVERELY ALLERGIC TO THE WINE PERSON.”  Of course, the reason I was able to lazily peruse the menu was that when Brad asked for a copy of the menu during our dinner, meaning a single quick photocopy, the restaurant prepared individual copies of our own particular degustation menu for the evening for each member of our party.  That’s a new level of service for me.

The other thing that was unique in my experience was the positioning of a small padded stool near my chair to serve as the home for my purse.  My purse usually hides quietly under my chair; it doesn’t get its own comfortable seat near the table.  Now it expects that kind of treatment at home.

Brad blogged on April 7th about his experience of the evening, and very kindly left out all the yucky part that happened after the yummy part.  I’m cutting and pasting his typing efforts here (stealing?  community property blogging?)

Mercredi 06 Mars 2005
Diner au Restaurant Le Cinq
Philippe Legendre, Chef des Cuisines, Meilleur Ouvrier de France

Blanc et noir aux ecrevisses pattes rouges
Salade de morilles a l’araignee de mer et au vin jaune
Grosses asperges vertes au Parmesan et a la truffe, polenta et olives noires confites
Turbot de ligne au melon d’eau, nage aux epices et au citron vert
Langouste puce aux petits pois et aux oignons doux des Cevennes
Bar de ligne roti aux epices et aux artichauts poivrade
Le selection de nos Maitres fromagers
Granite d’ananas a l’hibiscus et parfum de litchi, emulsion coco
Du chocolat exclusivement …

Eric Beaumard, Directeur du Restaurant

or – in English – according to Babelfish

Wednesday 06 Mars 2005
Dinner at the Restaurant Five
Philippe Legendre, Chief of the Kitchens, Better Working of France

White and black with the ecrevisses red legs morel
Salade have the araignee sea and with the YELLOW WINE, YOU ILLITERATE, PRETENDER TO BE SPEAKING THE FRENCH, SEVERELY ALLERGIC TO THE WINE PERSON
Grosses green asparaguses with the Parmesan and have truffle, polenta and crystallized black olives
Turbot of line to watermelon, swim with the epices and with the green lemon
Langouste chip with peas and soft onions of Cevennes
Bar of line roti to the epices and the artichokes poivrade
The selection of our Maitres Granite Cheesemongers
Pineapple has the hibiscus and perfume of litchi, emulsion coconut
Of the chocolate exclusively…

I really insist that the fact that I’m unable to read and am allergic to wine is completely separate from the elegance and seamless luxury of the experience of dining at Le Cinq.  It’s not their fault that I ate a poison.

I was much smarter by the time Renee and I got to Restaurant Guy Savoy last week, and the first thing I said after “Bon soir,” was “Je suis allergique du vin.  J’ai une allergie du vin.  Je ne boire jamais du vin.”  Of course, since all of the staff speak beautiful English, I needn’t have bothered, but I’m going to get in the habit of announcing my allergy at the beginning of every restaurant meal so that I never have to have the retching through the night experience again. 

The differences between the experiences are more about the atmosphere than about the food.  When a course is delivered at Le Cinq it’s almost as if there’s a flourish of trumpets.  The room is grand and exquisitely French and makes one feel like Marie Antoinette (before the beheading, of course).  Guy Savoy feels like you’re dining at a friend’s home; a friend who really knows how to cook!  The space is small and intimate, divided into multiple alcoves and rooms, fairly dark with pools of light along the walls highlighting the contemporary artworks.  There were a total of four tables in our room.  There are sight lines into other rooms so that you glimpse other diners, but feel as though you’re having a very private and special experience. 

A new dining experience for me at Guy Savoy was individual pairings of bread with each course.  The bread cart is rolled out and a staff member describes the different options and makes a recommendation to complement your particular food choice.  It’s a great idea, and once you’ve heard it, seems obvious.  The flavors of the bread are an important part of the degustatory experience, and they wouldn’t want you to inadvertently choose a bread whose flavors would overwhelm the delicacy of a course, or a bread that wouldn’t hold up to something very flavorful.  The most memorable bread has little spikes along both sides and looks like some kind of sea creature and is called Mustache Bread.  The staff is always only making a helpful suggestions to enhance your experience; never any hint of snobbery.  “We recommend this, but if you prefer something else, we’re happy to accommodate you,” is the tenor of the entire evening.  Incredibly elegant and intimate.  After some course midway through the evening, I guessed that it was 9:15 and when I looked at my watch it was 10:30. 

My recollection of my food choices for the evening don’t include the various amuse bouche and extra dessert goodies that magically appear.  I do remember that we had small little delicacies like a raisin wrapped in crispy mille feuille still warm from the oven.  The first amuse bouche was a foie gras something, so after I said that I don’t eat meat, they brought me tiny carrots and sugar snap pea pods on a tiny skewer with a citrus sauce of some kind.  I started with the Soupe d’artichaut a la truffe noire, brioche feuilletee aux champignons et truffes (creamy artichoke soup with black truffles and a flaky brioche roll with mushroom and truffle butter) and then had an appetizer portion of seared tuna with various scents in a ginger cream sauce, followed by some morel mushrooms with tiny asparagus and then the entree of Breton lobster roasted in its shell, with Bordelaise sauce and tiny coral beads decorating the plate.  This dish made me wish I had a camera.  Perfectly arranged, colorful, and presented like a jewel, with bright citrus flavors in the sauce.  Just beautiful.  I love a nicely presented lobster.  I still remember the first whole lobster claw I ever had, at Jasper White’s in Boston, another restaurant that I think doesn’t exist anymore, or at least not in its Atlantic Avenue incarnation.  (Jasper White’s Summer Shack restaurant)  The lobster at Guy Savoy was perfection.

I think it was finally time for dessert, although it seems possible that I’m omitting a course in here somewhere.  I couldn’t decide between the two juicy chocolate dessert choices, so they offered to bring me half portions of each.  Now that’s a good idea!  I had a half portion of dark and milk chocolate fondant terrine with praline leaf underneath and chicory cream and a half portion of a dense dark chocolate cake with a dark chocolate ganache, dark chocolate sorbet, infused with a perfume of some mysterious Tonga flat bean  (Fève de tonka ) that was almost vanilla, but different, darker, richer, less sweet. 

Okay, I love the internet [sometimes].  Instead of fumbling around making stuff up, I just looked up Tonga bean on Yahoo and found all kinds of good stuff.  It actually is Tonka, not Tonga as I was automatically and erroneously translating for some reason.   Yahoo results for Tonka bean    So cool.  Tonka Bean  info everywhere

I was offered a bean for inspection before making my dessert selection from a glass container full, and I slid it into my purse and kept it as a rather strange souvenir of the evening.  My personally autographed menu Renee especially requested on my behalf is a rather more visually appealing souvenir — a million thanks to Renee for such a generous thank you gift from her, and for introducing me to this spectacular restaurant, and for sharing a wonderful evening.  As we were staggering out the door with our Restaurant Guy Savoy bags containing our menus, the front desk staff tried to offer me a last morsel of sweets, which I tried to decline; but they slipped it into my bag.  And since I didn’t get sick afterward, it was an especially delightful evening.  I think I’ve experienced the best that Paris has to offer, with these Michelin three star experiences, and fear that I’ve been wrecked for lesser dining experiences — but I think I’ll keep eating..

Brad met me after class yesterday and we tried to go the Maillol Museum which is having an exhibit of Gustav Klimt etchings.  There was an enormous line waiting to get in, which we don’t really do, so we walked across the Seine, through the Tuilieres and to the Librairie Galignani which is a bookstore that sells both French and English books.  I picked up a copy of the scintillating best seller Conjugations of 12,000 French Verbs by Bescherelle.  Yippee.  I also bought some trashy detective thriller books, which I love; but in French.  Juste un Regard by Harlan Coben and Celui qui a peur de loup (Who’s afraid of the wolf?) by Karin Fossum.  I also bought a French copy of The Memory of Running by Ron McLarty (J’ai reve de courir longtemps (I dreamt of running a long time)) which should keep me busy for the next year or so.

We then had late lunch/tea at the Park Hyatt Paris where we stayed for a week last April before our massage appointments which Brad had very kindly made as a surprise.  Tea was perfect little salmon roulades covered in fresh herbs, La Maison du The Earl Grey, a side of green beans, and a side of mashed potatoes that must have had a pound of butter mashed in.  For dessert we chose from a beautiful dessert cart with several chocolate options.  We shared an orange infused chocolate mousse that was dense and creamy and wonderful, with a candied orange peel slice as an accent.  The public areas of the Park Hyatt are serene and beautifully lit and have an Asian feel instead of the French gold brocade fabrics and tassels everywhere.  It’s one of my favorite hotels.

We both loved our much needed massages, followed by another sushi dinner at Lo Sushi, followed by another long stroll home down the Champs Elysee, through the Place de la Concorde and across the Seine to our neighborhood.  We woke up relatively early (8:30) this morning and had breakfast of baguette and black cherry jam and French press coffee, then went back to bed until 2:00.  We’re both pretty tired.  Two hours of French class with only two other students in basically like taking an oral exam every day.  No possibility of hiding in the back row and hoping the teacher doesn’t call on you.  I’m learning a lot, but it’s very demanding.  This afternoon we explored our neighborhood for a couple of hours, and then did some major grocery shopping at Le Bon Marche.  As long as I have Brad here to be my sherpa, I’m buying heavy things like humous and cheese and eggs and olive oil and things that come in glass bottles.  I can’t get over the incredible range of foodstuffs available at Le Bon Marche.  Everything is beautiful there.  We had fresh olive foccacia and humous for dinner. 

I took a couple of pictures from the balcony of the apartment, and then had my usual temper tantrum when the technology to transfer the digital images from my camera to my laptop didn’t work on the first try.  I hate it when I choose an option called “transfer pictures dated today” after I just took several photos and the computer says that no images fit that description.  ARGH!  ARGH!  Brad eventually had to resort to transferring all 217 images off my camera just to get the ones that you see below.  I think it was worth his efforts.  I really am fortunate to have Brad here to be my grocery delivery boy, computer/camera technician, and moral support.

The Eiffel Tower at sunset from the apartment balcony

The view across our courtyard

Ah, yes, the $60 bowl of soup.  Last night we had dinner at Gaya, which is a wonderful seafood restaurant located downstairs at the front of our apartment building.  Extra convenient.  I managed to successfully call in advance and make a reservation (in French), which was a minor triumph for me.  Brad’s starter was a bowl of creamy artichoke soup covered in a thick layer of black truffles.  I’ve never seen such a generous portion of truffles, except once at Biba in Boston when Lydia Shire, the chef there, brought an entire fist-sized white truffle to our table for inspection before grating it over some risotto.  Staggeringly rich food last night.  The soup was worth the 45 euro price tag.  I had wild sea bass carpaccio and risotto with grilled shrimp and a parmesan crisp.  Brad was full after his soup, but had already ordered curried monkfish with white beans and ginger.  We shared a peach melba dessert with whipped cream that had almost too much (crunchy) vanilla bean in it.  After dinner we walked to the Seine and along the river to let our food settle before the aerobic exercise required to get home.

I think we’re on French time now.  We went to bed around midnight and I woke up shortly after nine.  Brad slept until noon while I did my homework, so he’s definitely in happy vacation mode.  I went to class and stuffed my brain full of all the complicated various ways to talk about time and duration in the past and the future (depuis, combien de temps, il y a, pendant, en, dans, etc.).  It’s a different form when the question is about an event that was a single moment in time in the past versus an event with duration in the past, and something else entirely for the future.  And of course all of the instruction is in French.  A new word, chomage, is defined by the teacher as seeking work and not being able to find it, distinct from voluntarily removing yourself from the workplace, for example to stay home and care for children.  My dictionary defines chomage as “unemployment.”  My brain is tired.  I’m amazed both by how much I’ve forgotten since college, and how much I’m remembering.  I did my homework tonight and read the newspaper out loud for 30 minutes.  Good Amy.  I’m in the phase where my English is deteriorating rapidly; but I still can’t speak French.  Soon I shall be mute.

Brad met me at school after class, voluntarily wearing his gorgeous new Armani sport coat (thank you, Raj and Stef for the Andriesen Morton store referral) and Paul Smith shoes.  He had shaved and was even wearing a tiny bit of Hermes cologne which I brought from him in my toiletry kit.  I think he’s entering into the spirit of the Parisian way.  I shall reward him (in)appropriately.

We had Asian food for lunch and then went to Le Bon Marche to find Q-tips and dishwasher soap.  It’s a beautiful place to shop.  We came home with Marriage Freres Earl Grey tea sachets, Swiss muesli cereal, black and white striped squid ink pasta, and Q-tips and dishwasher soap.  We’re figuring out how much we can carry up to our place.  The rue de Bac, which is where our apartment is located, stretches through some of the most interesting shops I’ve ever seen all the way to Le Bon Marche.  We walked past an espresso store that was like a Zen garden, and a couple of stationery stores, and fancy linen places.  Lots of exploring to do.

A quiet night at home tonight.  Brad is reading his second book of the day.  We’re listening to Melissa Etheridge on the iPod, drinking tea, relaxing.  We stood out on the terrace and watched the incredible flashing lights covering the Eiffel Tower for awhile after the sunset.  It really is Paris here.