Joe Ray

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

YOUR NAME IN JAPANESE, YOUR DINNER IN FRENCH

My colleague who works in the 8th arrondissement felt a bit challenged when he saw I was disappointed with our last lunch near the Champs Elysées.

For this meeting, he pulled the Aoki card. Not the Japanese pastry chef with outlets around town, but the one with a tiny restaurant a block away from the ‘most beautiful avenue in the world’ (pff!) who’s busy outdoing the chef up the street. At his own game. At half the price.

When I arrive, I give the name of my dining partner who’s made the reservation. The Japanese waiter then reads back the name from the reservation notebook, where it’s written in Japanese. This must be wildly perplexing to the French.

A cod and creamy smashed cauliflower main is cooked just right, but the star is a lentil salad appetizer with petals of cured ham and a gently poached egg. The lentils are more of a soup made bright by vinegar and luxurious by the egg floating on top. There’s a fun, almost light, spin on the baba au rhum for dessert.

Aoki trained under Alain Senderens and the result isn’t fusion cuisine or even French with an Asian flair, as the other Aoki does. Instead, it’s good, clean and modern French.

In Chilean and Argentine Patagonia, I visited foreign winemakers who used their skill to squeeze the most from the local grapes. Here, it’s a warped version - the Japanese chef in Paris showing his neighbors how it’s done.

Lunch formule (appetizer and main or main and dessert) for 21.50€. Great value. Makes me want to go back for dinner.

Restaurant Makoto Aoki
19 rue Jean Mermoz
75008 Paris
+33 1 43 59 29 24
Closed Saturday lunch and Sunday

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Saturday, July 25, 2009

The Raw and The Beautiful

BARCELONA

Take a walk through La Boqueria food market and you can’t help but get the feeling that Barcelona should be a sushi-lover’s paradise, yet I never found proof. I’ve had good Asian at Ly Leap’s Indochine restaurants and Ferran Adria apparently swears by Shunka, but still, no sushi for me.

Then I went to Ken Restaurante – bristling with sushi potential – and nobody ordered sushi.

A plate of tasty noodles came out, adorned with ultrathin feathers of dried, smoked tuna that fluttered in the heat, and there were tasty (though heavy) shrimp and veg tempuras, but nothing to write home about.

Ken came out to say hello to the family I was with and perhaps he saw the sadness in my eyes, because after that the raw and the beautiful started appearing.

A set of breaded cherry tomatoes appeared which were cored and gently stuffed with salmon eggs then flash fried and served with a delicious, mayonnaise-y secret sauce. A bite is sweet and salty, crisp and bursting. Pop a few of these and down them with a glass of Cava at the beginning of a date and your sweetie will be putty in your hands for the rest of the evening.

The dessert menu came and I panicked. I looked frantically around the table for support and found a taker in the patriarch. I don’t think he was hungry, it was probably just foodie pity. I didn’t care.

“Sushi plate please!” I said to a perplexed waitress.

Know that sound Homer Simpson makes while drooling over a bowl of chili? Nnnghhhh!!! That was me.

Each piece had its own, distinct flavor and firm texture, including a tuna belly reminiscent of the other night at Inopia.

Sushi in Barcelona? I knew I’d find it.

Ken Restaurante MAP
C/Benet Mateu 53
+34 932 032 044

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