On the right side of the tracks

Last night, Cecco and I splurged on a lovely dinner at Café Viaduc - a restaurant that reclaimed the space under the old Gare Bastille-Vincennes tracks. My first time at the Café Viaduc was this past summer. My friends Erinn and Bryan were in town and we were determined to find a great place for dinner. So, we turned to Bob. Now, Bob probably deserves is very own entry. No, Bob deserves his very own blog. The man has enough character for ten. As a Francophile, he's lived on and off in Paris for the last ten years. And he's just a waterfall of information -- which is usually accompanied by wandering gesticulations and backwards walking. It's his apartment I'm renting now. And I sometimes wonder whether the hushed lighting and cloudy wrap-around mirrors weren't planned specifically by Bob to make him look fabulous. (Seriously, I look at myself in Bob's mirrors and think "Wow, my skin is glowing!" Later, I'll catch my reflection in a store window and, shocked, think "How did I let myself out of the house like this?")

Anyway, last night mine was a salty white fish pressed with a julienne of courgettes and enrobed in a sheer pastry crust that crackled at the touch. And this all atop a Provençal buerre blanc. It was very good, but the salt really was a touch heavy for my taste. Cecco, of course, only had eyes for a decadent chocolate lava cake with cinnamon ice cream. For my kitty, it's nothin' but the sweets....

Ice Ambrosia

My maria.... I remember the first time I tried Berthillon ice cream was with you. And the French boys you picked up on the train from England! At the time it was the glace café that really impressed me. So rich, bittersweet and unadulterated. -- And that Maison Berthillon closes during July and August. It just seemed so French.

But even when the original is shuttered, there are three or four window vendors on the île Saint-Louis who will sell it to you any day, and into the night. One of these provided me and Cecco with our celebratory treat: a scoop of bitter chocolate and one of pine nut. Delights! It's difficult to describe just how the quality of Berthillon ice cream differs from the usual premium ice cream. There's simply a purity to it, as if it had no air.

Les Philosophes

For dinner, we ambled across the Seine into the Marais, where they not only have the best falafel in town but a lovely little restaurant called Les Philosophes.
My duck was superb: moist, deeply savory, and with that crunchy skin I love so much! The chef had paired it with a cracked pepper and honey sauce as well as a simple salad and frites. Yum! Cecco, of course, had the lovely tuna steak with curry sauce over rice and little mounds of mushrooms, roasted peppers, and eggplant. One of the best things about going to dinner with your friends is sharing each other's food -- so I can say with confidence that his dish was delicious. Here are some pictures...they really capture the vibrancy of the meal.

شاي بالنعناع

Is that my rag-tag Italian alley cat dragged in from the streets?
Yes, Cecco finally made it home after his long Mardi Gras weekend. But Cecco, baby, I don't think the Madonna is going to help you now!


Luckily, I know something else that might: Mint tea!

One of the first times I was in Paris my girlfriend Janae and I wandered over to La Grande mosquée de Paris where the sun peeks through the trees of the blue and white tiled courtyard and sparrows flutter up to take bits of baklava from your fingers. It was the first time I tried that magical North African brew, mint tea. Janae promises it works wonders for digestion (and hangovers too, Cecco!), but I drink it just because it tastes so good.

Here's a recipe so you can try it for yourself:

Mint tea*

10 fresh mint sprigs, plus 4 for garnish
3 teaspoons green tea
3 tablespoons sugar, plus extra for serving
4 cups water
2 tablespoons pine nuts

Bring water to a bare boil. Pour a small amount in teapot with the green tea and swish around to warm the pot and "clean" the tea leaves. Pour this water out, retaining the tea leaves. Combine the mint and green tea and sugar in the teapot, then fill it with the rest of the hot water. Let tea brew, stirring the leaves once or twice, for 3 minutes. Pour tea through a tea strainer into glass teacups to serve. Garnish with pine nuts and remaining 4 sprigs of mint, passing more sugar for guests to sweeten the tea to their tastes.

Mardi Gras!

I wondered: What would Mardi Gras be like in Paris? Would there be a parade? Drunken co-eds? Would they be bartering beads for flesh? Would the venerable lenses of "Girls Gone Wild" be there to capture it all for posterity? Most importantly, would I be able to get one of those giant plastic green alien cups? And if I did, would it have a beret?

These questions have followed me since last week -- when I came across what seemed to be a Mardi Gras call-to-arms plastered against one of the walls along the rue de la Roquette. But the poster was elusive...prominently featuring a large red dancing cow in a shower of daisies. Hmmmm.....

Curiosity getting the better of us, Cecco and I walked up to join the celebration yesterday. You know what our biggest surprise was? ...That that poster wasn't elusive at all! There (in fact) was a big red cow -- the parade's mascot -- and showers of paper "daisies"! Apparently, the tradition is to march this cow all through the streets on Mardi Gras. Why? Who knows! But while there may not have been any beads or peek-a-boo, and all the giant plastic beret-wearin' alien cups may have been waylaid at the border, there were plenty of drunken French co-eds making merry (a group of whom Cecco befriended and wandered off with)...as well as musicians and street performers...even some capoeira dancers. My favorite, though, was the old wino climbing the awnings and shouting hurrahs into the crowd. Too bad "Girls Gone Wild" had to miss it....

The Year of the Boar

Since it's Chinese New Year, Cecco and I wandered over to the Hotel de Ville to watch the parades and pick up some dumplings.

The dumplings were delicious. Thin rice pastry, savory pork and ginger filling, just a touch of crunch, and juicy enough that after you bite the top off, you have to hold the rest of it like a little cup! They're the kind you pick up from a bored street vendor, who just doesn't seem to understand just how happy he's made you by being there.

gravlax

Driving around Montréal last week -- scoping out the last Christmas light displays and building up our appetites for Casa Tapas -- Cecco, dr. dj and I stumbled onto a darkened alley tucked away behind the boulevard St. Laurent. Nothing special about that, of course -- until we noticed the stylized blue angelfish stenciled on the side of a rusted warehouse. My eyes sparkled: "Could this be fish heaven?" We had discovered a poissonerie, where the smell of the day's (okay, the last few years') catch thickened the air.

The next day I returned, bagging a side of salmon from the eerie-eyed proprietor. But when I got home a problem occurred to me: sure, my enormous hunk of salmon was fresh now, but what was I going to do as it rapidly started becoming, well, less than fresh? But then I remembered running across a mysterious way of preserving fish in Quebec: by turning it into gravlax.* Gravlax, as I discovered, originally hailed from Norway and is considered a far finer delicacy than smoked salmon in its native land. So, since as we all know the Norwegians are never wrong about fish, with trust in my heart, I put my side of pristine salmon on the line and began the gravlax cure. In fact, there are two stages of cure, both simple. The first calls for lots of course salt, dill, vodka, pepper and citrus zest. The second cure asks only brown sugar and vanilla. For gravlax, it's the wait that's difficult: 24 hours for the first cure, followed by a week for the next. The picture is of the salmon before rinsing off the first brine.

Was it worth the wait? Without a doubt. Gravlax has a subtle complexity: the salty brine plays off the sweet against the soft background of the salmon. So far, we've used it as a relish on bagels and cream cheese and as part of a lemon cream sauce over tagliatelle and asparagus. Sandwiches and crêpes shouldn't be far behind -- that is, if Cecco doesn't eat it all while I'm not looking!