Rebelle - A Touch of Paris on The Bowery

You know, if it weren't for the Bowery Mission directly across the street, or the traffic heading to and from the Manhattan and Williamsburg bridges, or the fact that Significant Eater and I walked to the brand-spanking new Rebelle in under 15 minutes, we could've sworn we were in Paris. I mean, not on the Boulevard Saint-Germain or anything, but maybe, just maybe, somewhere in Paris.

Originally, our plan was to walk by Rebelle, see if if was slammed, and continue walking north on the Bowery to another destination. But when we peeked in, we saw two seats open at the bar, and decided to at least stop in for a drink. Once seated (and it's worth mentioning that Rebelle actually has comfortable bar seats), cocktails in hand, our plans changed and I asked one of the très chic hostesses about a table in the dining room; the next thing you know, we're being escorted to a table into the skylit (well, during the day, anyway) back room, sitting and looking at one of the très gorgeous open kitchens I've seen in New York - like...ever.

Rebelle From Their Website

Rebelle's from the team that also runs Pearl & Ash, right next door. Good start. The chef is Daniel Eddy, who was chef de cuisine, at Spring in Paris, for a few years - yep, he really cooked there, as opposed to showing it on his resume, a la every cook and his brother claiming a stage at noma.

So what does a chef, whose been cooking with great ingredients in Paris, do when he or she gets to New York City? Well, how about cooking in that style, but using many of the great ingredients we have available? I'm certainly not one who insists that ingredients have to be local or grown on the roof; that's fairly impossible here over the winter. And now it's spring, so even if the asparagus or leeks are from California or Mexico this month, I want them. And Daniel's way with these vegetables is damn good. The juicy asparagus, served with charred young (okay, spring) onions, fiddlehead ferns, and roasted hazelnuts, are just fine - especially when they've gotten an unexpected hit of sweetness - from maple. And Significant Eater barely let me have my half of this leek dish, a delicious take on a classic (with ash!)...

Rebelle Leeks Vinaigrette

Chef Eddy's fluke (local) dish was fine, but the scallop dish was a real winner in my book. I'm pretty sure these scallops are local (they should be - we have the best), though the uni that sneaks in the dish is probably from, maybe, Maine? Who cares...

Rebelle Scallops With Sea Urchin

Main courses for us were a duck breast, perhaps a play on duck à l'orange, served with endive, orange sauce and smoked almonds. Once again, showing fine cooking chops, my magret was plainly and perfectly cooked...

Rebelle Duck Breast

Significant Eater ordered the "beet bourguignon;" not totally satisfying to two carnivores, but at least we thought it was good for us. Unfortunately, we didn't notice the menu said "beet" instead of "beef" - that's what happens when you start looking at the food menu after cocktails and that first glass of wine - and I think it would be nice if your waitperson mentioned the fact that you've just ordered beets, not beef!

This being Paris New York City, we figured why not have the special cheese course before dessert?  A big plate of sliced Comté was ours - again, it would be nice if they let you know what you're in for with the Comté - that is - $21.

Desserts are the from the hands of Jessica Yang, who has cooked at some fairly heavy-duty spots. Our Paris Brest, a dessert that is not easy to make (if my attempts in cooking school were any indication), was fantastic - and averaging the cost in with the Comté, we're talking under $15 each - you can do the math.

As reported in all the food media, and as to be expected from the Pearl & Ash crew, the wine list is, shall we say, deep. After cocktails, we enjoyed a nice half-bottle of Alsatian Riesling to go with our first course or two, and then a few by-the-glass suggestions to go with the rest of our food. Any wine geeks - this is the place for you. And on my next visit back, I plan on sitting at the bar and having some "snacks." There's a beef dish that's calling my name.

Go? Are you kidding - of course! Beautiful room, great food, great wine list, nice staff - what are you waiting for? In my opinion, Rebelle's already running on all cylinders...it should only get better.

Rebelle

Le Mary Celeste & Le Richer - Brooklyn on the Seine - Not That There's Anything Wrong With That

Yeah, I know, I know - still blogging about Paris, even though we've been back for 2 weeks now. Whatevs, right?  I mean, when you're on vacation, how much do you actually want to sit at the computer and write (I think I did OK by posting 3 or 4 times)? But, now that we're back and I'm doing some reflecting, there's some stuff I missed, and since the very nature of a blog is self-indulgence, what the hell.  Also, by writing I get to refresh my memory - before I forget everything.

Now - where was I?  I wanted to talk about two places which, even though there are those who'll argue, reminded me of NYC - and since we're talking about hip, young and happening (not that I'm any of those), we might as well just call it, like I did in the title of this post, Brooklyn on the Seine.

Paris has changed a lot since the first time Significant Eater and I visited...at least a dozen or more years ago.  Cocktail places abound.  There's great coffee. And there are plenty of places to eat that don't take reservations, that have counters, that have lines waiting to get in...all unheard of back then, at least to these ears. Of course, since that's often the way we like to eat and drink, we had no problem at all dealing with the Brooklynish-ness of it all.

Take Le Mary Celeste - a fine place for cocktails and oysters. There's more on the menu, but we used it once as a nitecap place for Sazeracs and once as a pre-dinner place for Martinis and oysters...

Now, if anyone wants to argue with me about certain Paris eateries and drinkeries not trying to co-opt the alleged hipness of Brooklyn, I'd ask - what's with all the Brooklyn beer on tap? And what's with this...

Be that as it may, I love Brooklyn. Shit - I was born there. And the cocktails, the service and, indeed, the oysters at Le Mary Celeste, I would gladly consume any day of the week.

But what about Monday nights in Paris?  Used to be it was as hard as a Sunday night to find a place that was open. Not any more. Take Le Richer, in the 9er. No website, but a Facebook page, of course. No reservations, counter seats if you want 'em, open all day...just like...well, you know.

So in we wandered on a Monday evening, around 7:30 - and no, we weren't the first ones there, wiseguys.  Plenty of younger types - we were seated next to a party of 6 celebrating a birthday. Le menu...

Short and sweet, with 4 entrées and 4 plats. We began with a platter of this...

Which was quite delicious.  And since we'd had a big lunch earlier, Sig Eater just ordered an entrée for her dinner, the vitello tonnato, not exactly French, but a winner nonetheless...

I had a full plat, the lapin, simply the best rabbit I've ever eaten, so nice and juicy. Plates were cleaned.  Cheese and dessert were ordered - and shared. Not a traditional French meal in the least, but apparently the way some French men and women eat now.  A couple of cocktails to start, a bottle of wine, a bottle of water, and this great food - all at a very reasonable price.

So - Brooklyn on the Seine?  Not really. As much as they try, as many tattoos and piercings as they get, as many no-reservation, uncomfortable-counter seat places that open up, it'll still be Paris and the Seine, not the Gowanus Canal.

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

Restaurant David Toutain - Fancy Fun Food

Before I forget, Significant Eater and I had lunch at David Toutain's brand-newish restaurant (opened December, 2013) in the 7th this past Monday.  We generally don't dine in this neck of the woods - its pretty hoity-toity, if you know what I mean. But that doesn't mean we don't like heading over to this neck of the woods...after all, you have to in order to see a few of the sights Paris is famous for...

So, after reading much of the breathless praise lavished on Toutain's new venture, I added it to our dining schedule; dining being the only thing I actually schedule. David Toutain is one of (I'm guessing here) Paris' most lauded chefs - his resume includes stints at Mugaritz, L'Arpège and Corton; we're not talking a 3-week stage at Noma, if you know what I mean.

Amazingly, there's a 3-course lunch menu on offer for €42; there are 2 or 3 more expensive menus on offer as well, but at this point in our lives, 3-course lunches, especially if dinner plans have been made, are what we like to do. My food geekery was in full swing as soon as we were seated next to a bookshelf loaded with, well, books like this...

Yep, that's the French version of Modernist Cuisine.  And then the games began, with our first amuse...

You're looking at a pretty cool presentation of a salsify and parsnip cream in the edible tubes, meant to be dipped into the dollop of white chocolate emulsion; strange and strangely delicious. What followed was a more traditional amuse, a bite of beef tartare, with wild strawberries and hazelnut crunch...

Now we started our 3 actual courses, with this asparagus velouté, topped with a perfect 62°C egg...

As her soup course drew to a close, Sig Eater actually asked me if it was ok to lick the bowl.  Me, being the proper sort of person I am, said no - but the quite great bread was used to the same effect. The following mid-course appears to have been on the menu for a while, but we'd never tasted a such a combo - smoked eel served atop a black sesame emulsion. Hidden in the emulsion was a brunoise of green apple, adding a nice, tart, crunchy counterpoint to the richness of the eel and sesame...

Our main course followed, and it was a simple monkfish dish. Well, simple if you mean perfect monkfish served with roasted black carrot, orange carrot purée and orange reduction, amongst the swirls and swishes...

The palate cleanser was something in between a sorbet and ice cream, and since I don't remember what is was called, I'll just point out that it was a cauliflower/coconut thing, and it preceded this mille-feuille.  Our fantastic waiter/manager person (who had recently spent a year in San Francisco working at some of the top restaurants there) explained that the mille-feuille was actually baked in a waffle iron, giving it a different look than a traditional one. The cream is marjoram, the sorbet quenelle is cocoa. The whole was freaking delicious...

Of course, no 3-course meal is complete without mignardises to send you off...

And off we went, quite blown away by our 3-course lunch.  We had a lot of walking to do in order to prepare for dinner...

Restaurant David Toutain
29, rue Surcouf, 75007
+33 01 45 50 11 10

Restaurant Ober-Sale - Nice, Tasty, Local - in Paris, That Is

Isn't it nice to have a restaurant, with sweet service, a reasonable tariff and good food, all within walking distance of your apartment (or house, I guess)?  Also, isn't it nice, when you're a tourist, to go to a restaurant that isn't filled with other tourists all speaking your native tongue?  Now, I'm not gonna go all psycho here and bitch about tourists; after all, that's what we are.  And believe me, I don't believe there's a restaurateur that minds his or her restaurant being filled with tourists spending their moolah there - it's what helps keep them in biz.  Where was I?

Oh yeah, the local joint that you can return to time and again. Well, Significant Eater and I won't necessarily be returning to Restaurant Ober-Sale in our immediate future (unless we move to Paris), but if we were living here it would probably be in our regular rotation.

It's tiny, maybe 24 seats, and from what I could tell there was one guy doing everything out front and one guy cooking - and doing everything else.  In Paris, this is probably a bit easier to do than, say, in NYC, as restaurants like this tend to have one seating a night, with no turn of tables - you make a reservation and the table is yours for the duration - by the way, that's why if you make a reservation anywhere, and you don't show up or cancel it ahead of time, you're a douche and you should just stay home and eat your miserable frozen pizza on your couch because you're probably an asshole of a customer as well. Where was I?

Oh yeah, Ober-Sale.  We were started with a little amuse-bouche of carrot velouté, that was pure carrot essence while not being overly sweet, a nice trick.  Sig Eater's entrée (yeah, in France that's a first course) was a crab bisque; rich, decadent and she barely shared any with me! I had scallops, served atop a bed of fennel ratatouille with chorizo, and the combo worked very nicely...

For our plats, Sig Eater enjoyed her braised beef, fork tender and helped along with just a sprinkle from the tiny bowl of fleur de sel perched on our table. I, because I have to order birds when I'm eating somewhere where the birds actually have some texture and flavor, had the guinea fowl, perfectly cooked, slightly gamey, and as you can see, served with a nice, creamy (this is France, after all) sauce over mushrooms and potatoes...

No meal is complete, in Sig Eater's food mind when she's on vacation, without a bit of cheese...

And these four nice, ripe specimens hit the spot.  Sometimes we'll even have dessert after the cheese course, which is kinda proper. This night, owing to the fact that we needed to crash, and soon, we didn't.  But looking around the room, others sure seemed to be enjoying theirs.  Now, where was I?

Oh yeah - the local.  We're staying in the 11th arrondisement, a block or two from Rue Oberkampf - we like this area a lot, are a bit familiar with it and it fits our schlepping around needs perfectly, as there are probably 6 metro lines within a 10-minute walk.  Rue Oberkampf is an area with some of the city's noisiest, craziest nightlife - a walk up or down it on a Saturday night is basically like walking around on the lower east side of Manhattan at the same time - pure insanity.  But tucked away on the quiet end of the Rue, you can find Restaurant Ober-Sale.  If you're here on vacation, it might be worth giving it a try; if you lived here, it might even become your local; I'd sure be happy if it was in my neighborhood.

Restaurant Ober-Sale
17 rue Oberkamph, 75011
+33 01 43 38 46 68

Spring's Here Finally...in Paris

Significant Eater and I have celebrated rather big-deal birthdays this year; last month we had dinner at Le Bernardin. And just it time for spring, we've taken a trip - to Paris.  Anyone that lives in the northeast knows what I mean when I say that it's about time for spring.  Our bad-ass winter was starting to get to me. Oh, the weather teased us, to be sure -  one day it was in the 60's, and the winter coat was ready to be put away; the next day - snow. So it was great to land here, drop our suitcases off at the apartment, race outside and see blossoms on the trees and feel the warmth of a 65° F (excuse me - 17 ℃) day.

For lunch, I wanted to try a place I'd read good things about - Hai Kai - located on one of Canal St. Martin's quays. But we got there a little too late, as their lunch menu had been 86ed by about 1:45. So we crossed over the canal and immediately found ourselves inside La Verre Vole, a hodgepodge of a wine-shop and restaurant.  Since it was really breakfast for us, Sig Eater decided on a nice, night green and white asparagus with poached egg and crisped ham dish.  I stayed light too, deciding on a haunch of pork, beautifully cooked with cockles and baby spring onions, served on a bed of grains...

Good start, but we still hadn't had our breakfast coffee, so after lunch we walked over to one of the many coffee shops that have sprouted here over the past year or two, complete with tattooed, bearded and beautiful baristas and cooks, HolyBelly...

The filter coffee was superb (as was the chocolate cake), and we walk out happy and jittery, carrying some beans for our morning brews, which I'm drinking a cup of as I'm writing this...

Our post-coffee walk took us past the fantastic (and fantastically restored) Place de la République...

And past these gentlemen, playing pétanque...

The guy in the red came over and asked me if I was from the Bronx...fuggetaboutit!  We headed back to the apartment to unpack and relax a bit before dinner...

Some Paris Observations - Nombre Une

Okay, it's time. We've been back from our excellent European vacation for a few days now - the jet-lag has almost worn off, and before my memory totally deserts me, I gotta get a few things down. And here, in nombre une, I want to compare our experiences at two restaurants, both of which receive their fair share of hype.

First up, Le Chateaubriand. Now, Le C gets written up all over the place...goog it and see what I mean. On a trip to Paris a few years ago, we ate at chef Iñaki Aizpitarte's La Famille restaurant, and were duly impressed. Me with the food, and Significant Eater with the guys serving it. Chef moved on to open Le C in '06, in an old grocery store in the 11th, and the raves came even faster than before. I mean, THE RAVES. The restaurant is rated #11 in S. Pellegrino's World's 50 Best Restaurants thingie. Number 11? 50 Best? Hmmmm.

Le C has a 5 course tasting menu (at dinner) that everyone gets. That's all they serve, it's 50 euros, and that's that. Our meal started off with gougères and moved quickly into 4 amuse-bouche, this night consisting of a single frog's leg, ceviche liquid served with a cube of avocado in it, salmon eggs with tapioca pearls and beef bouillion served in the style of miso soup. Now, these were okay, but special? Not really. From there, we moved on to what was probably my favorite dish of the night, the salad of scallops with lots of thin slices of vegetables, dressed beautifully and looking like a painting one might see...perhaps a Soutine at the Musee de l'Orangerie.

The powder is tamarind powder, and its slightly sweet and sour flavor made this salad literally sing. Next up was a fish course...bar (Mediterranean sea bass), iirc, served with briny clams and broccoli raab....

Here's where things started to go a little haywire, as the dish took a long time to come out of the kitchen, and when it finally arrived, it was lukewarm and any evidence of crispy skin on that fillet was long gone.

Following that - a chicken course; this one a yellow chicken (they have all sorts of colors of chicken in France), cooked beautifully but again very slow to arrive from the kitchen...

Desserts were to follow, and after about 15 minutes I gently inquired if they were perhaps on the way...I don't think I got a really nice look, and then both desserts showed up at the same time, even though I saw them being served successively at other tables.

So...a top 50 restaurant? Sorry, but not in my book. However, the (sullen) boys are as cute as ever...even S. Pellegrino thinks so..."not to mention one of the best-looking brigades in the business." Enough of a reason to return. For you maybe, but not me.

The next night was Thanksgiving and our last night in Paris. I had reserved a week or so before at the rue Saint-Honoré outpost of the legendary La Régalade, the restaurant in the far out 14th that allegedly begat the whole bistronomic movement. Significant Eater and I ate at that one on our first (or maybe second) trip to Paris a dozen or so years ago, when it was in its heyday. Then a hard table to book, impossibly crowded and utterly delicious. So now, what?

Well, there's much hand wringing on various web sites slash forums populated by all sorts of food loving know-it-alls (including moi, btw). It has tumbled terrifically, they say. For instance, the terrine, which is a help-yourself beauty if ever there was one, is placed on every table at the start of the meal, along with a crock of cornichons and some wonderful bread - but, without plates! Sacré bleu - what's a diner to do? I dunno - but Sig Eater and I made a dent in it, plates be damned - and it went just fine with our coupes of Brut. Or they write that the service has slipped terribly - perhaps the house is looking for ways to save money, mon ami(e)? Friggin' nonsense. We were greeted warmly by the staff, asked if we would prefer to converse in English or French, and taken care of with grace and humor for the rest of the evening. And here's a catch - if you think the "brigade" is cute at Le Chateaubriand, the ladies serving at La Regalade put them to shame.

So, how was the meal? Here's how it started...

3 courses for 33 euros, with a blackboard of specials off to the side; the specials do add a supplement to the price, but at 33 euros, really - who's complaining? SE started with scallops, served in their shells, and with scallops served in practically every darn restaurant in Paris, these weren't particularly stand-out-ish, but were fine nonetheless. As an aside, I think the fresh scallops I get at the Union Square Greenmarket in NYC are better than any that I've had in Paris, but...that's just me.

My entree was soupe de potimarron, a pumpkin-like squash which also appears on many menus around town this time of year. This one was spectacular, loaded with crispy lardon and topped with a pair of roasted shrimp. I shared, but didn't really want to...

For our plats, SE chose the braised beef cheek, a rich, hulking tender mass of boeuf if ever there was one...

Since it was Thanksgiving, I wanted something that had wings. So, from the supplemental menu I ordered red partridge, partridge being a bird which I think I may have had once in my life when it was cooked (and delicious) over a fireplace by my friend Judith, of Aroma Cucina fame.

Though the picture doesn't do it justice, the bird was cooked perfectly; the breast tender and juicy and the little legs crispy and just this side of gamey. A revelation for the second time, and Chinatown markets, here I come...

Dessert for me was the Grand Marnier soufflé chaud, while Sig opted (as she often does) for the cheese instead. The cheese was merely wonderful; my soufflé was merely (as I posted on one of those know-it-all food boards) textbook...

There you have it; though my comparison of these two restaurants will be merely a blip in cyberspace, the arguments and battles and postings and hand-wringing will wager on. For me, La Régalade Saint-Honoré was the better of the two. It's not on the world's 50 best, but it makes my top 10 meals of the year.