David Lebovitz, 2014-12-01
I was recently reading a Paris-based website
and a reader had written to them, asking them why they were always talking
about restaurants in the 10th arrondissement where “.. there isn’t much to do
there.” The response was that that’s where most of the new and interesting
places are opening. And while it’s not where most visitors dream about staying
when they come to Paris, there are certainly plenty of interesting shops and
restaurants there, as that’s where the younger chefs are setting up shop.
I get the reader’s point,
that they (like many visitors to Paris), are looking for more traditional
French restaurants, such as bistros and brasseries. The other evening I went to
a bistro in Paris, up in the 11th, with a friend who is a food writer. The menu
outside noted that the cuisine was fait maison
(homemade), and we were excited about trying this address, which he’d heard was
very good. And I had brought along my camera, hoping to share it.
But alas, the food at the
unnamed bistro was served tepid and while it was made with the ingredients that
were, as the French would say, correct,
the dishes served to us were obviously prepared in advance and rewarmed. (And
served on cold plates, which negated the reheating of the food.) It was all
very average, including the lemon meringue tart, which, due to the lack of
taste, made us conclude that it had obviously been languishing in the
refrigerator long enough so that all the flavor had been leached out of it,
replaced by that unmistakable dullness of refrigeration.
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