Day 3: Spanish on the ears, French on the palate

Slept well into Day 3 to work much of the jet lag off, and we waited at the apartment for the third member of our group to arrive from New York and De Gaulle airport.

He arrived safe and sound and off we went to Chez Margot, nearby on Boulevard Henri IV, for lunch.

It was overcast but pleasant enough to sit outside.

We ordered the 14.50 “formule” or menu – an entrée and a main. We drank 2 bottles of Perrier Blue, which I was not especially happy with (not fizzy enough).

My companions started with a creamy, well-textured pumpkin soup while I had a terrific poached egg on top of mushrooms doused in an herb-inflected olive oil. The mushrooms were fresh and had good flavor.

Mains were a farfalle de funghi, which my companion said could have used more mushrooms but came in a terrific sauce and was satisfying; a fricassee de poulet (chicken) in a tarragon butter, simple but superb, with good frites; and I had a wonderful piece de boucher, (rumpsteak), cooked saignant (bloody) as ordered, with the same frites and a really really good blue-cheese sauce. The bread had a fine crust and flavor, and the house mustard for frites/steak was very strong, just the way I like it.

Wine was a Cinsault rose, tart and refreshing, for my friends and a full-bodied Cotes du Rhone for me. Good coffee came with a little Ce’Moi bar of dark chocolate and I had an Armagnac to finish. Bill for 3, 93 euros.

Afterwards came shopping, with visits to a wonderful butcher, Eric Kayser’s bakery and Laurent Dubois’ cheese shop on the Left Bank where I scored some goat cheese and Gaperon, one of my favorite cheeses. We then returned to the flat where my newly arrived companion stayed up for a while before he went to jet-lagged sleep.

My other friend and I walked a few minutes to the great Cathedrale Notre Dame for a concert of 16^th century Spanish vocal music, with a group of 5 singers that sang solo, as a trio, as a quartet and all together in a program of a dozen or so selections by composers such as Victoria and Morales. Not the kind of thing I’d have gone to at home, and music I was not very familiar with, but a truly fascinating hour with some amazingly pure voices. I am very glad I went.

For dinner, we then walked to the Marais to an old favorite of mine, Le Temps de Cerises (not the one in the 13th). It was hopping at 10:15 and we were far from the last to sit down.

We drank Vittel water, still, as their sparkler was that Perrier Blue, eh.

We shared a plate of escargot de Bourgogne as a first. These are snails roasted in garlic-parsley butter that required being mopped up by the wonderful bread that came in copious quantity. Served sizzling hot.

For mains my friend enjoyed a chicken breast topped with marvelous langoustines, presented perfectly with mushrooms and olives with a bit of herb (chervil?) on top. The dish’s aroma was seductive.  

I devoured “grenadin du veau” – veal filet – cooked absolutely perfectly, fork-tender, good sear on outside, pink inside, served over stewed eggplant and topped with a marvelous crust of herbs – spectacular.

With both mains came a bowl of pureed potatoes that a whole cow had donated cream and butter to. First-rate.

Wine was a 50cl pot of Franck Givaudin’s Irancy, a Burgundian red made from the local Cesar grape – rich, deep, spicy, and “gouleyant”. Woof.

Absolutely superb coffee came with a Michel & Augustin chocolate biscuit.

The bistro offered memorable ambience; several large tables having a lot of fun, a festive bar crowd, and one strikingly well-dressed older gentleman who drank a bottle pf Bordeaux while enjoying onion soup and a gamba salad.

Bill for two, 92.70 euros.

As places in Paris go, I can’t recommend Le Temps de Cerises enough

Chez Margot

25 bis Boulevard Henri IV, 4th

http://www.chez-margot.fr/

Le Temps des Cerises

31 Rue de la Cersaie, 4^th

https://www.facebook.com/le-temps-des-cerises-199407043426474/

Day 2: a tuna treat

Day 2 got better quickly.

The bus dropped us at the customs entry, under construction, with all the charm of LaGuardia at its worst.

However, the line moved quickly. Entry into France has never been difficult for me, and this was routine. Baggage arrived promptly and off I went.

Well, eventually. I had to change terminals to find my public transit to the city, which meant taking the “OrlyVal” shuttle train to the South Terminal. That was fine, except the station was all glass, the temperature hotter than I thought, and I felt I was baking for 10 minutes until the train arrived – not what I needed at that point.

To the South terminal, and a walk to the 7 tramline. In a bit of a daze, I didn’t find an ATM or coffee stop, just headed for the stop. That meant I was counting on my credit card working at the machines at the stop – never a sure thing overseas, where machines sometimes take U.S. cards and sometimes they don’t and there’s no telling when they will and when they won’t. (In Germany in 2007, it was nein across the board.)

I had a “Navigo Decouvrte” card from 2011 – the French transit card, which requires a photo – so all I needed to do was refill it. And voila! The credit card worked, which considering I had no cash, was a very real blessing. I bought a monthly pass and was all set. Very handy card, just wave it at turnstiles, no inserting, swiping, etc.

The 7 tram runs to the 7 metro at Villejuif Louis Aragon … eventually.  Nice, modern trams and a pleasant ride.

Metro ride to the Sully-Morland stop, about 20 minutes, and come out to a beautiful day on the banks of the Seine. Cross the Pont de Sully onto the Ile St. Louis and arrive at the flat where my friends and I were staying.

Gorgeous place, all modern conveniences in an historic building—the shower is to die for. Just lovely.

So, off to lunch, where we wind up at the Vins de Pyreenes (photo above), an atmospheric old bistro in the 4^th just off the Rue Saint-Antoine.

A pleasant welcome, a neat table – old, painted-over wood – the effect of the place was old-time Paris, a lovely jumble of furniture and décor.

I opted for the lunch “menu” at 16 euros, which brought me a hearty bowl of green lentils topped with ham “chips” (fried, more or less) for a first and a main of perfectly-cooked and seasoned tuna with a quinoa pilaf of currants and mangoes. I added a café gourmand, coffee with three small desserts: chocolate cake; white chocolate mousse with berries and a fresh mango salad.

Wine was a glass (I was jet-lagged tired, just a glass) of red, IGP du Pont du Gard (Languedoc) 'Little Garance' Rouge, a tangy, lighter Beaujolais-esque wine despite being 90 percent syrah, not heavy or intense, a fine choice with tuna but maybe even better with chicken or guinea hen or the like. The tuna may have been better with a fine rose, but that wasn’t available by the glass and I would have been asleep with a whole bottle.

After lunch, a pleasant stroll around the neighborhood just north of the Seine, seeing some medieval buildings such as the Hotel de Sens and some lovely gardens, and back to the Ile St. Louis via the Pont Louis Phillipe and to the flat, where I managed to stay awake for a couple of more hours (to try and get on a quasi-normal schedule) thanks to some lovely Darjeeling tea from Mariage Freres – the world’s best tea shop, by general consensus – and then slept for 10 hours.

Vins de Pyrenees

25, rue Beautreillis

75004 Paris

http://www.vinsdespyrenees.com

Day 1: a living nightmare in the air

It can only get better.

That was my response after a living nightmare of a flight from Newark to Orly Airport in Paris.

I heartily do not recommend British Airways’ OpenSkies to anyone. More like ClosedSkies as in prison-style closed.

The day did start well, being chauffeured from South Philadelphia to Newark by my good friend Fred Linge in Der Blitzwagen – Fred’s gorgeous white BMW. At Newark, one of the stranger airports around, check in was painless, and TSA was fairly so. I did some work at the gate, bought some water and snacks for the flight, and read the New York Times, which was available at Newark (it wasn’t in 2007).

Then it got worse. Rapidly.

I had paid extra for an exit row seat, which, on the diagram of the plane provided when I booked the flight, was a solo seat. I had seen such a seat in 2016 flying to Paris and it was an attractive proposition.

But BA switched the plane without informing me, and while I still had the exit seat, it was an aisle seat on a row of 3.

Even that would have been fine had not a 600-pound man who did not fit in his seat descend on the adjacent seat. I am not a small person, but I fit in the seat. He took half of my seat. I spent the flight leaning into the aisle by necessity as his bare flesh – he was dressed in traditional American le slob fashion, a hopelessly small T-shirt and sweat pants – rubbed against me. To make it worse, he hadn’t bathed in a while. When he got up from his seat, I was treated to views of his hairy, stinking ass, because he didn’t bother to pull up the sweat pants, right in my face.

The plane was swelteringly hot, the cabin crew surly and inefficient (a man collapsed in the aisle and passengers had to go get the crew), the “food” unspeakable, and the plane noisy and uncomfortable even without The Malodorous Hulk leaning into me. It was even hard to read in a comfortable position, though I did finish the Sunday NYT and a couple of chapters of my book on Byzantine history.

Some seven hours later – felt like seventy-seven – we landed at Orly, Paris’ smaller airport to the south of the city, and I was greeted by a … shuttle bus.

There was no jetway, just a 1950’s style ramp to the tarmac and the … bus.

One guiding principle in my life is that I avoid “shuttle buses” at all costs. I will pay extra for anything if it avoids a “shuttle bus”. Even when such a horror is offered to media at an event, I shell out for a cab to stay off the shuttle bus.

No such choice here. So, after an exhausting and quasi-sickening flight, on a f****** bus which eventually, after a roundabout ride, deposited me at Orly’s West Terminal.

At least it was a nice, sunny day, and things were about to get better.

How could they not?