Le BAT and Bones - Two Winners, One Day

Who’d ever expect to find a damn good restaurant on a stretch of Parisian boulevard that looks like it could be located in the heart of tourist central Manhattan?  Stuck in between a Chipotle, McDonald’s, Starbucks, and yes, Subway, sits Le BAT, a relative newcomer to the restaurant scene in the City of Lights, though the major domos running the place bring along good pedigrees.  Entering, we’re struck by the size of the room, all tall ceilings and hard surfaces, with a large U-shaped bar where you can watch the cooks ply their craft. Meeting friends for lunch, however, we were seated at a nice, roomy table instead.

Le BAT’s lunch menu is simple; 2 courses are €22, 3 courses are €25, and the plats du jour run €16 each.  As in most Parisian restaurants, the 2-course dejeuner is your choice of entrée + plat or plat + dessert (or cheese). Significant Eater’s 2-course deal started with a beautiful entrée of marinated sardines. Gorgeous specimens these…

While I opted for the crab ravioli in a crabby, fennel-ly, saffron-ny bisque…

Quite delicious, these.  Moving on, Sig Eater’s plat was a quinoa (yeah, I know) salad topped with perfectly cooked shrimp, served with a side of some of the best tempura veggies (that includes you, Japanese restaurants in NYC) we’ve had recently...

My plat, since I’ve never met a hunk of pork I didn’t like, was great.  Check out the cooking on this piece of piggy, and the veggies that accompanied were sweet and luscious too…

A winner of a lunch, and of course getting to spend a bit of time with expat friends made it even better.

As if lunch wasn’t enough, dinner may have been even better. Bones is a year-old or so restaurant in Paris that’s getting a lot of love. With an Australian chef, it’s all the rage, as are any number of restaurants where the cooking is being done by non-French chefs, some of whom are cooking food that’s plenty French, but with some modern trucs. So it wasn’t that surprising when the second amuse here (the first was merely a thin slice of carrot enclosing a bit of uni mousse) was a single, Juniper smoked oyster that practically jumped off the plate with it’s pungency; but what a way to start a meal…

The real first course was another ocean-y treat: a scallop roe and konbu broth in which were floating little cubes of foie. Quite tasty…

Next course was asperge blanche aux casseron et encre, or white asparagus with cuttlefish and its ink. I think the only place I've had cuttlefish before was in Chinese restaurants - this dish, with the juicy white asparagus, surpassed any of those dishes by a kilometer...

Our main course was roasted loin of pig. Oh yeah, with some delicious accompaniments, including house-made choucroute, and a sauce of apple and scallop, but by this time we might've been in our cups, so to speak, and I have no picture and wasn't taking notes. Dessert, a gateau de carrote, with a fromage blanc sorbet, was a not too sweet ending to a fine meal. And while walking away, I took a shot so we'd be able to remember a quite fine day of dining. I mean, how often do you get two winners in a row?

You can see how slammed it is - there's actually a bar (and a bar menu) and tiny seating area for people who wander in, though many were being turned away.  

Le BAT

16 Boulevard Monmartre, 75009

+33 01 42 46 14 25

Bones

43 Rue Godefroy Cavaignac, 75011

+33 9 80 75 32 08