Last Lunch in Paris

In the middle of our marathon last day in Paris, we practiced the skill we most appreciated acquiring over our nine months in France: dropping everything to enjoy a leisurely lunch.

One last time, we visited Le Baratin, the celebrated gastro-pub conveniently located a block-and-a-half from our apartment. I'd been for lunch with my mom and Cathy; Maggie and I had been to dinner there once (Mo and Héloise's treat!); but Maggie and I had somehow failed to hit up Le Baratin for their super-economical lunchtime menu.

The whole restaurant is tiny, but we sat in the tiniest section, up a few stairs from the bar and next to a food-and-art library that we could have spent the next nine months working through.

To eat, a few staples of Le Baratin, starting with whitefish and a simple green salad.

Maggie's first course was artichoke au jus. I had some delicious braised oxtail over chickpea-carrot stew. For dessert, we shared the by-now-familiar strawberry soup and a slice of strong cheese.

When asked what we miss most about Paris, we tend to talk a lot about the food culture. It's not too hard to see why. That Le Baratin takes such care in arranging wine bottles above a bookshelf full of reference works that reinforce the professionalism of even the tiniest of out-of-the-way, hole-in-the-wall restaurants - well, that says it all.

Putting the "Agog" in Synagogue

Places of worship in Paris include such architectural gems as Notre Dame de Paris; Sacré Coeur; La Madeleine; St. Chapelle; St. Eustache; St. Germain des Prés; St. Martin-des-Champs, St. Augustin, St. Alexandre-Nevsky, the American Church; get the idea? This is what happens when Catholic and Royal power is concentrated in a single city for 1,000+ years, and when ostentation is prized over efficiency. The synagogues of Paris show exactly the opposite, namely what happens when Jewish communities remain small, relatively poor, and intentionally discreet.

Case in point: the synagogue at 75 Rue Julien Lacroix in the 20th arrondissement, on the path from our apartment to Panda's nightly pee spot.

There are two ways you know this is a synagogue: first, the two tablets over the entrance (left); second, the presence of security guards during holiday services. Like other synagogues in Belleville (there are quite a few), this one serves the Orthodox Sephardic community, many of whose members immigrated to Paris from North Africa over the last half-century.

Another example of a nearly-invisible synagogue is one you can find in a well-traveled place, specifically the Place des Vosges.


It looks just like every other part of the Place des Vosges, which was built as a new royal residence by Henry IV in the late 16th century and which prompted the French aristocracy to move en masse to majestic hôtels particuliers in the Marais, many of which are now state-run museums. I went inside this "Temple des Vosges" when choosing a synagogue for the High Holidays and it's quite beautiful inside. Too bad they don't really encourage visitors.

Compare the Temple des Vosges with the following two synagogues, the first located on the Boulevard de Belleville in the 20th arrondissement just a few blocks from the Rue Julien Lacroix synagogue; the second located on the Rue Pavée, just a few blocks from Temple des Vosges in the 4th arrondissement.


Here are two synagogues that aren't afraid to advertise. Michkenot Yaacov, I know nothing about. The Synagogue de la Rue Pavée is famous-ish for having been designed by your favorite Art Nouveau architect and mine, Hector Guimard, who was also responsible for the Métro entrances we posted about recently. Unfortunately, this synagogue is not open for tours, but at least it's possible to get a good shot of its exterior.

I can't say as much for one of the next two synagogues we attempted to photograph.

On the left you see the Communauté Liberale Juive, located on Rue Moufle in the 11th arrondissement. (This is where Adam, Rachel, and I went for Simchat Torah services.) By now you've probably noticed the fences in front of most Parisian synagogues. This is the only evidence of anti-Semitism I've ever seen in France, and it's more evidence of the fear of anti-Semitism than the thing itself. Better safe than sorry, I guess.

To finish up, the synagogue on the right belongs to an affluent community in the 16th arrondissement (affluent and 16th are basically synonymous) and is mostly remarkable for its heavy, pseudo-Art Déco architecture that seems to cry out, "The power of the Star of David compels you! Enter!" Other Parisian synagogues could take a hint from this one - unless, that is, they prefer to remain the humble, self-effacing step-siblings of all those magnificent churches.

Le Chapeau Melon

With raving reviews from any number of food magazines, blogs, and guide books, we still don't know why it took us so long to make it to a restaurant located about 500 yards from our apartment. Worse, we pass it four times a day on our way to and from the park with Panda. Worst, its founder is one of the co-founders of a neighborhood favorite, Le Baratin. What is wrong with us???

So what's our excuse for avoiding Le Chapeau Melon? Certainly we can't blame the charming exterior and cozy interior, nor the wine bar/table d'hôte concept we love so much. (They carry only organic wines. Highly-regarded organic wines. Too bad we still know next-to-nothing about wine.)


Clearly we have no excuse. Especially since this place makes us look more attractive than any other restaurant we've been to this year. But I digress.

Here's how the menu works: Wednesdays and Sundays, you can order à la carte from a smallish but excellent menu. All other nights that the restaurant's open, they offer a fixed four-course meal for €32.50, with cheese and/or dessert another €6. One slightly weird thing is that they charge a €8.50 "corking fee" if you buy a bottle of wine with your meal. (On the other hand, if you patronize Le Chapeau Melon as a wine store rather than a restaurant, you're charged no such fee.) But they have some sub-€10 wines, so even if you're watching your wallet, the cost isn't prohibitive.

On to the food. The night we were there, the menu included green apple over hearts of salmon in a soy sauce and olive oil base; vitello tonnato, which is cold, thinly sliced veal under a mayonnaise and tuna sauce; cream of mussel and saffron; and cannette rouennaise with celery purée, carrots à l'orange, and sautéed asparagus. They certainly get points for quantity and diversity of protein, and for some creative pairings.

The salmon/green apple dish was fantastic. Sweet and savory competed for attention with every bite. Plus, just look at the presentation: this is dynamic, even architecturally inspired food. 10 points, Le Chapeau Melon.

Annnnd we're taking those 10 points away. Seriously, no amount of photo editing can mask the sheer ugliness of this presentation. Even the (possibly unintentional?) happy face formed by those capers and that olive oil only made the veal look like it might just be trying to eat us. Plus, while it didn't taste bad, we wonder whether vitello tonnato might be an acquired taste.

Ok, that's a little better. And clearly my food photography is to blame for at least part of the unsightliness of this food. But imagine the great leap in beauty that could be accomplished just be throwing a sprig of something green and fresh on top of that saffron-y, creamy concoction. Also, it was a little salty. But mussels are always awesome, and I sopped up the last of this soup like it was my job.

And the restaurant gets its 10 points back with the final dish. Just like the first dish, we have all kinds of colors, textures, and tastes. The celery purée was delightful (we can't wait to get back to our food processor so we can try this at home) and the carrot à l'orange showed just how clever the chef could be. Cannette rouennaise indicates that we were served young female duck that had been raised in Normandy (see also canard de rouen). Considering the rather small portion, it might have been nice to have something a little less fatty (that whole bottom layer was basically inedible), but the meat was cooked just right, and for once there was no sauce to mask the taste of meat - instead, we could choose whether to combine the duck with one (or several) of the vegetables for each bite.

So there you have it: mixed results that fly in the face of all that hype. Considering the price (and the fact that the menu doesn't include dessert - what were they thinking!!??) we'll probably go back to passing this place on our way to Kiwizine, which is right next door, and rightfully still our favorite restaurant in Belleville.

Finding Némo

To celebrate the end of our time here, we'd like to ask a favor of our readers: take a minute to read back through your favorite posts, and send your "top 3" list to panda.a.paris [at] gmail.com. We'll be collecting your submissions throughout the week, and next week (our last in Paris!) we'll post the results. Thanks in advance, and happy browsing!

Lest you think Zoo Project is the only easily recognizable street artist in town, check out Némo.

He's a stencil artist whose trademark character is a silhouetted man in a trench coat and hat. The man often appears near a red umbrella and balloon, with other stenciled shapes and objects thrown in depending on the narrative of the piece.

There's an entire Flickr group devoted to Némo. Luckily we found out after having already taken our own pictures of his work, including this next one, which is one of our favorites from this entire trip.

Luckily for us, Némo seems particularly fond of decorating the many bare walls and deserted buildings of Belleville and Ménilmontant. He's been known to team up with Jérôme Mesnager to produce black-spy-vs.-white-spy type murals.

One of these days, maybe we'll catch Némo in the act just like we caught "Harry" of Zoo Project. Considering the scale of some of Némo's pieces, he must spend quite a bit of time stenciling and painting, so our odds might be good . . .

Mon Oncle le Vigneron

You know what they say: don't judge a restaurant by its façade. I say that, anyway. And Mon Oncle le Vigneron, where we dined last Friday night, proves the validity of my invented saying.

We first wandered into Mon Oncle le Vigneron (which translates to "My uncle, the vintner") while on a search for quality duck rillettes, which we ended up buying there. They also clearly served food, and we were intrigued by the set-up of the place: You can actually watch the owners/cooks at work in the kitchen, which is cordoned off by a glass partition but otherwise shares the same space as the dining/store area.

Not quite a restaurant, not quite a store, Mon Oncle le Vigneron is what you'd call a cave à vin or a table d'hôte. It only has seating for about 20, and on any given night, it serves the exact same thing to everyone. No choice. So it'd better be good. And it was. Especially since a lot of what they serve is what they sell - artisan-produced "produits de terroir" from the southwest regions of France.

A funny thing about serving the exact same thing to everyone: no matter how good the food is, you also have to like it/want to eat it. When booking our reservation, I made the mistake of saying "no" when Madame asked if there were any dietary restrictions she needed to know about. I didn't really consider the possibility (make that probability, given that we're in France) that two out of the three courses we'd be served would derive from pork. Luckily we stopped in a few hours before dinner to check out what was on the menu, I realized my error, and upset Madame by informing her that at least two out of the four of us couldn't quite stomach pork sausage and pork tenderloin. (She was upset because they had already bought all the ingredients based on the number of reservations they had taken.) Ever the gracious hostess, she suggested they whip together vegetarian alternatives. Crisis averted.

And so it was that our first appetizer came to be goat cheese topped with red pepper, olive oil, and spices. True to the original menu, the second appetizer was a plank topped with Basque charcuterie, with some goose rillettes on the side. Food doesn't get a whole lot simpler than this, and it doesn't get a whole lot better, either.

For the main dish, Maggie and I enjoyed a tasty cochon aux pruneaux (literally pig with prunes, it reminded us of tajine, which would never be made with pork) while Becky and Gladis received a "Basque omelette." We're not exactly sure what made it Basque (maybe the fact that it wasn't cooked to dryness like most omelettes?) but whatever it was, it was delicious.


In this next shot - of the palatte-cleansing, classic simple salad we enjoyed between the main dish and dessert - you can just make out the the shelves full of honeys, rillettes, olive oils, wines, and other products sold at Mon Oncle le Vigneron. We cannot stress enough how excellent it all is. If you can, go buy something off those shelves, now.

Finally, the dessert. There was a plate of brébis (sheep) cheese served without bread, our instructions being to spread out-of-control black cherry jam on each slice; a caramel flan; a chestnut "cream" with a dollop of crême fraîche; and the only bitter taste of the evening, a "no pets allowed" curtain (!) inconveniently placed right next to our table. (This is offered in place of Gladis's un-photographed dessert, which was yoghurt covered with honey that actually tasted like the field of flowers the bees had raided before producing the golden stuff).

All of this almost proved too much to handle, except we couldn't help but finish everything, because how could we waste such delightful food? And that, of course, is a philosophy that gets you in trouble, especially on number four of five consecutive gastronomically-rich evening meals at Parisian restaurants. Oh well, we all have to make sacrifices here and there.

The Chinese Strike Back

One of our neighbors pointed out recently that anyone who likes can figure out the code to open the porte cochère - the heavy wooden door that separates our apartment complex's courtyards from the street.

Sure, the order isn't obvious, but there are only so many combinations . . . This is a serious problem, and I plan to start pressing all the buttons every time I pass the door, until they all achieve the same sheen as the four buttons that count.

Much worse than the numbers being worn, though, is the fact that someone has written the exact code nearby - in Chinese.

That's messed up. Apparently the same deal applies to the keypad that allows entry into our building.

And again, the code is written just above, in Chinese.

This could be a way for the Chinese-speaking inhabitants of our building to make visitors feel welcome. Or it could be a subtle way of getting back at the conseil syndical (Coop/Condo board) of the building complex for forbidding spitting in the hallways. My vote is for the latter hypothesis. Either way, the conseil syndical should see the writing on the wall(s) and change these door codes!

Book Report #3

I just finished a really bloody, creepy detective novel. It wouldn't have made me quite so nervous if it didn't take place in our neighborhood.

Written in the late-1970s, Babel-ville follows a schizophrenic serial killer as he tries to eliminate the members of an all-female, neo-Saint-Simonian sect operating in Belleville. As is usual for this kind of book, the plot - the mystery - is actually the least interesting aspect, while the psychological side is fascinating. You start out feeling bad for the killer, seeing as how he's just trying to find his "missing" wife, but by the end you mostly just feel revulsion. I'm actually glad I couldn't understand a lot of the more graphic vocabulary, although my imagination probably made up for it.

What I did enjoy were Bialot's descriptions of Belleville in the 1970s, the snapshots into the lives of its residents (not unlike our own), and the unabashed, parodic treatment of the kinds of culture clashes a place like Belleville inspires. The impassioned interactions between the story's detective protagonists and the immigrants/descendants of immigrants they meet during their investigation may have been dramatized for literary purposes, but the ignorance and fear coming from both sides feels authentic enough.

The book's title draws attention to Belleville's multi-linguistic, multicultural demographics. I can't find anything on the etymology of the portmanteau "Babel-Ville," but it's clear that the neighborhood's inhabitants have embraced the notion.

Now if only France would follow. Just after finishing Babel-ville, I read a great article in the NYT about French conservatives' inability to cope with the fact that most French-speakers don't live in France, don't subscribe to French nationalist mythologies about a glorious past stretching back to Rome, don't practice Catholicism, and don't appreciate being told what to wear (but that's another issue for another time). Bad news for French conservatives: the article ultimately reinforces the possibility that Belleville's demographics, while not "typical" of Paris past-and-present, are increasingly typical of the city's future.

Portraits of Belleville: Seen at the Parc des Buttes Chaumont

Throughout this series of "portraits," we've tried to give you a glimpse not just of Belleville, but of our Belleville. And no picture of our daily experience would be complete without a survey of the Bellevillois we tend to run into at the Parc des Buttes Chaumont. 

It's easy to see why, more than its location, physical features or history, we have our friends and neighbors to thank for making Belleville a truly "beautiful city."