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...

Le Bernardin - You Say It's Your Birthday (and Anniversary, Too)

Since my last post was about our anniversary and just how lucky I am, I figured this one would be about my birthday, which as luck would have it, falls on the day after our anniversary.  Confused? Yeah, me too, but I figured getting married on the day before my birthday would help me remember our anniversary - at least until I start forgetting when my birthday is.

This is a special year for both Significant Eater and me, as we celebrate milestone birthdays (though she only has a decade to catch up to me, since I will not be recognizing any more birthdays).  So in order to start marking both occasions (this is gonna be a long celebration), we did something we don't normally do - we went out to dinner. Okay, I kid - we go out to dinner way too much, but for this dinner we went somewhere pretty special...Le Bernardin.

It had been a long time since I'd eaten at Le B, and Sig Eater had never.  You know, Le B has its detractors; hard to believe perhaps, but google it up and you'll see it's not universally loved; after all,  what is?  Be that as it may, it's a NY Times 4* and a Michelin 3*, and as screwy as people think the NYT and Michelin might be, the *s still carry some weight in this town...just find me a chef that doesn't aspire to 4 or 3 and, well, maybe that person shouldn't be cooking?  Just sayin'...

Le Bernardin is a grown-up place.  It's not like the places we generally go to, which are geared to the way we eat now, whatever the hell that is. Men are required to wear jackets in the dining room (that was fun) and reservations are necessary. You check your coat before you even get to the host stand. There are maître d'hôtels. There are floor captains.  There are sommeliers. There are as many people keeping you happy as you can imagine - I wish my doctor's office was as functional (and since a visit to the doc is more expensive, why not?). There are big comfortable chairs and your neighbor's elbow isn't poking into you - unless, I guess, you're sitting at the bar...which I can't wait to do.

All that's well and good, but doesn't it really come down to the food? Oh yeah - the food.  I don't know if Chef Ripert was in the house (I kinda doubt it - it was a Monday night and there was some food fest somewhere else), but in a restaurant like this it shouldn't matter...and you know what? It didn't.  The food was pretty fucking great.  I think we got to the second course when Sig Eater looked at me and said: "this may be the best dish I've ever eaten."  After expressing my disbelief that it wasn't something I had cooked for her, I had to agree - she was happily devouring a sautéed langoustine with chanterelle and black Perigord truffle, and a taste was all I was allowed. My second, also from the "Barely Touched" section of the menu - was a king crab medley, served in a seaweed and shitake broth, sided with a Matsutake custard. Yes, please.

Each of our courses was accompanied by a different glass of wine that I had asked our sommelier (he's famous too...Aldo Sohm) to choose.  In a bit of a coincidence, I'd been at Cafe Katja a few nights before and mentioned to one of the owners that we were going to Le B for a birthday dinner. Turns out they're old friends, both being from Austria - and Aldo made me promise to tell Erwin that he missed Katja and would try to get there again soon. Aldo's wine choices were great - for example, I didn't know they were making Grüners in Santa Barbara, and the 2012 from Tatomer went so nicely with my crab.  The Austrian Blaufränkisch (a 2008 from Muhr-van der Niepoort) that he chose to go along with my lobster main course was a winner too. At first I was wondering about a red with the lobster, but of course it matched perfectly with the Sauce Américaine and it was hard to tell what was better - that sauce or the perfectly cooked lobster.

And that's the thing about Le Bernardin.  If you're a cook, you may think you can get seafood as pristine as this (here's a hint - the greenmarket's your best bet) but go ahead and try.  And sure, some of the preps are simple; let's face it, some of them are even plated raw - but go ahead and try.  And then there are the sauces and that's where the real problems might start, chef.  This is technically perfect cooking, with exquisite taste to match. I mean, I have some friends who are great cooks, and at this point I know my way around a kitchen pretty well - but if I said I was going to throw a dinner party "Le Bernardin style" - someone needs to tell me to go ahead and try.  I might come close on a dish or two, but...

There's a relative of mine who asks me, after I've eaten at a place, if I'd send my friends there, or if I'd go back.  As a matter of fact, I'd asked her to help me with the reservation at Le B, since I waited about 2 minutes too long before trying to make it myself, and I'd been shut out.  She's a friend of the house, and when I explained that it was our anniversary (I like to leave the birthday stuff out), we had a table booked no problem.  So - would I send you there? Yes. And would I go back? In a heartbeat - I'd eat food like this once a week, if the bank allowed me.  As it is, I can't wait to go back and sit in the lounge, and try some of the food offered there. Because this was, quite simply, one of the best meals I've had in NYC in a really long time.

And the house, knowing it was our anniversary, was kind enough to send this out as a "pre-dessert." Then they boxed it up and had us take it home so we could have it for breakfast the next day - pretty cool...

Comp Disclosure: In addition to two glasses of bubbly, which were a gift from the chef when we sat down (I think everyone gets this), we were served an extra course in between our seconds and mains.  Both the largest scallop I have ever seen, and a really playful charred octopus dish...