And then all of a sudden the heat came and Paris went into meltdown (actually quite literally, there was a veritable cheese melt at my local supermarket when the cheese fridge broke down due to over-heating). France simply can’t take the heat – the heatwave of 2003, during which the average temperature was 30°C, actually killed 15,000 people. There was even an ad campaign reminding people to ‘check on your granny this summer.’  To an Australian that seems utterly ridiculous but I can assure you, in Paris 25°C is the new 40°C. My weekly home yoga sessions have turned accidentally into bikram, my plants have all died,  I have been going to bed with wet towelettes covering my body and I actually shed a few tears after lugging my shopping down my street and up my stairs in the scorching midday heat.

But enough of that, lets get onto some dining with our whining. It was on a sweltering Parisian night that I made my way over to L’Ourcine, a quaint, much talked about bistro in the 13th to meet the infamous Dolly Tatin, and gorgeous couple Jean-Claude Van Ham and Almond Schwarzenegger. I was as sticky as a bottle of port but that didn’t cull my appetite, and I had heard only good things about the Basque fare at this rather hidden and very rustic downtown haunt.

For an amuse bouche we quickly downed a delicious little verrine of extra tasty celeriac emulsion, while laughing about Jean-Claude Van Ham and Almond Schwarzenegger’s dinner the previous night at Restaurant Pierre Sang.  It was there that I had one of my favourite dinners since my time in Paris, but unfortunately for Almond Schwarzenegger the guessing game concept that the restaurant adheres to wasn’t so fun with a severe seafood allergy, and a stubborn waiter who wanted him to guess the name of the pink slither on his plate which bore a striking resemblance to tuna (it was tuna).

Here thankfully there was no guessing game, just the imminent threat of a bad translation (I learned the hard way that rognon de veau does not mean veal cutlet and ris de veau does not mean veal with rice).

The poached chicken ravioli with an emulsion of chanterelles and tarragon (ravioles de poule pochée à l’émulsion de girolles et estragon) that Almond Schwarzenegger and I chose for entree was totally divine. Perfectly seasoned, light but creamy and served with tiny hidden croutons that gave an unexpected but welcoming crunch.  Dolly Tatin’s cold watercress soup was apparently absolutely delicious, although I am personally slightly wary of cold soups.  Jean-Claude Van Ham was a tad sad about his foie gras, and decided he should have gone with the ravioli.

Il était une foie a boy with food envy.

For mains I had the perfect rump steak. It was pink, tender and topped with a subtle gremolata, a roasted garlic clove, a random but appreciated piece of capsicum and a light jus. The rest went for the popular slow cooked beef cheek in a tomato (noix de joue de boeuf braisée au vin rouge, servie dans sa tomate facon l’Ourcine). The jack-in-the-box looking tomato felt like a flashback to a  70’s meal I never had, but boy was it good.

The meal was washed down with a bottle of very drinkable pinot noir (the less watery out of the two ‘watery wines’ the waiter suggested – lost in translation?) and topped off with a lot of laughs with the very animated waitress.

For desserts the chocolate ganache with praline crunch was the clear winner, although Jean-Claude Van Ham’s crunchy bonbons with confit fennel, sweet spices and a sorbet of fromage blanc was a very tasty, albeit bizarre, option.

All in all, a fabulous night was had by all – great company and delicious food in a charmingly rustic french setting.

So if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen…and go to L’Ourcine. I cant guarantee you it will be any cooler, but you’ll be tremendously happy nonetheless.

xoxo

Paris Stilton

Or at least it used to be…when it was on the menu. After an hour and a half of waiting we were finally squished into a minuscule corner table, and, thinking I was so French, I ordered two coquelets without even looking at the menu.  “Non, eet eez nut the sayson (seasonal chickens, who knew?) – zer are no more mini cheekens” answered the waitress in that nonchalant ‘you’re-wasting-my-time-why-are-you-at-my-restaurant’ manner the French have down to a fine art, “I soogest ze feesh pie”.

UTTER DEVASTATION…and a rather enduring glare from Yummy Mummy.

Nevertheless when faced with an obstacle one must step up and find a solution, and I took on the challenge wholeheartedly.  So after relentless hours spent trawling the Paris bistros for a good coq (I couldn’t help myself), I think I have finally found one that comes close to in quality to Cambedorbe’s coquelet.

I stumbled upon L’AOC (AOC stands for Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée and denotes a food product that is produced within strict geographical limits and abides to strict regulations), a warm and inviting family bistro in the Latin Quarter, one hungover Saturday when my cousin, lets call him Clint Feastwood, was in town. With its red checkered tablecloths, faded yellow wood panelled walls and the deliciously homely smells of buttery onions that permeate the room, L’AOC makes you feel like you are round at Granny’s for a Sunday lunch.  And judging by the very adorable google-translated spiel on their website, this is exactly what L’AOC intended: “[t]he success of the establishment is not due to fate.  With such warmth, the restaurant plays with our childhood memories, our grandmother’s polished sideboards where starters and desserts of the Sunday meal would lay, along with bric-a-brac objects..”

Yep this is my sort of place.

For starters Clint Feastwood tucked into the bone marrow roasted in fleur de sel spread upon little garlic rubbed toasts (os à moelle rôtis à fleur de sel, pain Poujauran frotté à l’ail) which was, apparently, utterly delicious.  So much so that when I told him I was writing my review he became very concerned that I would not do the marrow justice, “make sure you reiterate just how good it was – I’m talking euphoric marrow induced daze amazing”.

Couldn’t get much better than that.

Not wanting to be outdone in the gourmande stakes, I confidently ordered the pigs feet croquettes (croquette de pied de porc panée) served on a little wooden pig cutting board.

“Oh my gawd” squealed my herbivorous health writing sister Sienna Millet when I told her I ate breaded, fried pigs feet for lunch, “what part of the foot? Like the toe? Or the heel? Or the achilles? What has France done to you!!” But us French know very well that tout est bon dans le cochon (everything is good in the pig).  And indeed it was.

These succulent, gelatinous little fried pigs feet croquettes with a delicious herb mayonnaise went down like a treat.

The proof of the pudding…

For the mains, I, obviously, ordered the spit roast chicken while Clint Feastwood, true to his name, ordered the plate of spit roast everything – suckling pig, IBAÏONA pork loin and chicken – both with their sides of crispy sauteed potatoes.

There is a certain stigma associated with ordering chicken at a restaurant – one of those unspoken rules that goes along with not ordering fish on Mondays, or spaghetti carbonara…ever.  But on this I disagree.  On a lazy day is there anything better than enjoying a glass of red while someone else cooks you a nicely roasted chicken?  And L’AOC’s chicken is exactly that – tender juicy meat doused in a succulent jus with little crunchy parsley spotted potatoes.  It was divine.  And to prove that it is consistently divine, it was still divine when I went back and ordered the same dish two days later.

It may not be quite Le Comptoir’s whole baby mustard wrapped coquelet, but this chook is certainly up there in the pecking order.

xoxo

Paris Stilton

It was pretentious, it was expensive, it was full of, well…schmucks, but lets face it, it never claimed to be anything else.  And with comfortable floral chairs, a perfect position for perusing the Paris jet-set, and a waiter that looked like Ryan Gosling’s long lost French frère, I certainly wasn’t complaining.

Three hours and two bottles of champagne later, totally ruinée by the Ruinart, Dolly Tatin conceded to trying her luck at the little Basque bistro/tapas joint of sorts around the corner (and incidentally, probably my favourite place in Paris), L’Avant Comptoir.  There are a plethora of Parisian restaurants containing the word comptoir, which means counter or bar, but none are as deserving of the name as L’Avant Comptoir, the brain child of Yves Camdeborde, which is quite literally just a counter, with one chef on a tiny plancha servicing the neverending flow of clientele who cram through the door day and night, seven days a week.

The walls are decorated with customer’s scribblings and pig memorabilia, there are slabs of butter, cornichons, mustard and hot bread for the taking, bottles of wine spill over the bucket onto the counter, and there is no real system for ordering; you squash up next to a trendy Parisian, you study the little pictured placard menus hanging above your head, you wait until the chef makes eye contact and then you go about reeling off every single tapas plate there is on offer, and times it by two. Yet somehow in amongst the chaos, mouthwatering miniature meals emerge.

Even more impressive, however, is the delectable delights the chef whipped up without meat and without fuss, for the darling Dolly Tatin. The luscious Lou Regalat morphed into an ambrosial bruschetta, the flavoursome fricassee de poulet became a succulent salad and the sandwichless chicken sandwich managed to lose all its fillings and still taste absolutely scrumptious.  Like Homer Simpson, I have always been of the view that you don’t win friends with salad, and yet everyone in the bar was crowding around Dolly Tatin and her fabulous meatless sandwichless sandwich.  If this was a movie it would be called  When Harry Met Salad; suddenly everyone at L’Avant Comptoir wanted what she was having.

But lets not get carried away here, you don’t go to L’Avant Comptoir for its tolerance of vegans. You go there for the incredible charcuterie boards, the sumptuous spicy sausage, the sweet, tender pork belly and the unforgettable foie gras, to name a few. The old faithful croquettes de jambon never cease to make me salivate.  A crunchy little shell encases a wonderland of oozing cheesy potato and jambon that I burn my palate on every single time. I have developed such a fondness of these little treats that the chef starts preparing two servings the minute I walk in the door.

Then there are the gauffres d’artichaut et jambon (waffles with artichoke and proscuitto). I am not sure what was done to the artichoke, but it was like a tapenade on testosterone. At once a slightly creamy, slightly salty, slightly sweet paste resting on a bed of soft airy waffle with thin morsels of jambon lounging on top. These were unbelievably good. Such was the look on my face when I bit into this inconceivably gratifying gauffre that Dolly Tatin could no longer take it. And in one fell swoop she ate one, and then another, and then a croquette, and then another, until she had sampled everything on the menu.

L’Avant Comptoir is one very cool place.  It is casual, inexpensive and friendly, the wine list is small but varied and the food is as consistently amazing as the line is long. I recommend this place to everyone who visits Paris, and no one ever leaves disappointed.

Heck, it was at this very comptoir that Dolly Tatin lost her veganity.

xoxo

Paris Stilton