Joe Ray
Food & Travel / Words & Photos
EATING
THE
MOTHERLAND
Food writer and photographer Joe Ray's gastronomic visits in Europe - the home of his ancestors - and beyond.
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Tuesday, June 09, 2009
Scallops like scallops. Pigeon like pigeon.
PARIS – It’s perplexing when a new favorite doesn’t live up to what you remember.
A few months ago, I went to F.S. favorite Au Bascou and had a transcendent dish that, when I looked at the price - a bit more than what I’m used to paying with mains in the low to mid twenty euro range - still said ‘well worth it.’ I knew I’d go back.
Tonight, on my return, I thought of the restaurant as a place that out of town guests would never find on a first trip to Paris and it was only…good.
Scallops tasted like scallops. Pigeon like pigeon. Cooking temperatures were perfect, yet nothing was lifted to that happy level where what’s in your mouth becomes more interesting what you’re talking about.
Fittingly, a thirty-odd euro Corbières was never mentioned as good or bad. The service was as slightly understaffed and flighty as ever – nothing to complain about at a corner café, but here, it feels like you’re paying for a bit more and not quite getting it.
I want to like this place as much as I did before. I want my meal to interrupt.
Au Bascou MAP
38, rue Réaumur,
75003 Paris
+33 1 42 72 69 25
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Go With Your Gut
I like to decide quickly what I’m going to eat in a restaurant. I usually have a good instinct for what will be good, and more particularly what won’t, and if I stare at the menu too long, I start feeling like I’m in a video store without knowing what to rent.
Despite a recent, glowing recommendation by you-know-who about Au Bascou’s Lievre à la Royale, (there’s a framed version of his Le Figaro review on the bar), I was curious to try the wild pigeon cooked two ways.
I love this kind of thing; a few years back while shooting pictures for a story about Spring restaurant, chef Daniel Rose served lamb three ways and I still remember the spoonful of tartare he slid under my nose. (Squirm all you want – more for me.)
Here at Au Bascou, the deep, earthy flavor of roast breast of wild pigeon reminded me why I love game, but les cuisses were the showstoppers: black-as-night thighs, legs and claws(!), on either side of the plate that looked like set pieces pinched from “The Dark Crystal.†I wondered aloud if they were to eat or just a gutsy garnish.
Me of little faith.
I took a bite and my hand did that thing where it involuntarily flies up in the faces of my dining companions, quaintly indicating something like ‘Shut up and let me taste this.’ The preparation - en salmi - a sauce made with the bird’s carcass and, as chef Bertrand Gueneron puts it, “lots of time bubbling away in wine,†give it a depth flavor that demands all of your attention.
Deep and primordial, it made me salivate so much, I almost drooled.
The service was a bit spotty – they seemed weirdly short-staffed and flighty for a place this nice – and two of us were crammed into strange theater chairs not made for eating, in but in one bite, a return customer was born.
Au Bascou MAP
38, rue Réaumur,
75003 Paris
+33 1 42 72 69 25