Joe Ray

Friday, July 30, 2010

THE GIGONDAS CHALLENGE

PARIS – The waitress at Willi’s Wine Bar poured a bit in my glass to taste and waited next to me for a verdict.

Nothing good happened in my mouth. Nothing bad either. “Nothing to signal” to borrow a local phrase.

“Should it be like this?” I venture, trying to play it semi-diplomatically.

As the words leave my mouth, the wine - a Gigondas - begins to unwind. It’s good, but a bit too late now.

The waitress takes it in stride as I begin to backpedal. Later, the wine steward drops by to offer to exchange the bottle anyway. Perhaps he smiled when he noticed it was almost gone.

…

“Willi’s?” a friend would later ask. “That place still full of Americans?”

“Smart ones,” I reply.
…

Count on 30-40 euros for a good, seasonal lunch, tasty wine and classy service.

Willi’s Wine Bar - MAP
13 rue des Petits Champs
75001 Paris
+33 (0)1 42 61 05 09
www.williswinebar.com

Closed Sunday.

Follow me on Twitter: @joe_diner.

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Friday, July 02, 2010

BLEU BUT WARM

PARIS

The 11th keeps getting better.

I went to dinner with my favorite cheesemongers from Fromagerie Charonne (a.k.a. Autour du Fromage) the other night - they had a new place to show me in my old neighborhood. Who am I to say no?

po.za.da is visible from Boulevard Voltaire but tucked away on the tiny rue Guénot - you either know it’s there or it’s a lucky find. It’s not a cross-town-trek kind of place, but it’s a great addition to the offerings in the 11th and they’re making the right gestures to please the local crowd. The young chef in the tiny kitchen has the leeway to cook what he wants (the menu only exists on the chalkboard) and there’s an extensive list of good-value wines, available at a marked-down price to take home.

Sylvie, who’s ordered her steak “bleu but warm” gets exactly that and goes quiet for several minutes when it arrives. Daniel gets a burger and though I could care less about the Paris Burger Wars, I want to reach across the table for a bite - it’s wrapped in cured ham, topped with wide shavings of Parmesan and cooked like Sylvie’s steak. Pork chops ‘à la moutarde à l’ancienne’ means the mustard is whipped to a frenzy - a creamy puff as good on the chops as it is on my spuds and the salad. Chef also had the wisdom to let a sautéed girolle mushroom appetizer be just that.

Count on around 30€ with wine for dinner - lunch appears to be a good deal with 12€ appetizer/main or main/dessert options.

po.za.da - MAP
2 rue Guénot
75011 Paris
+33.1.43.70.63.24

Autour du Fromage - MAP

120 rue de Charonne

75011 Paris

+33.1.43.71.58.48

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Tuesday, June 22, 2010

HOT ZONES AND A SLOW DANCE

PARIS

Dinner is with a pair of war correspondents. Talk ranges from world hot zones to falsifying papers.

Nothing quite like that to make a food and travel writer feel like a wimp.

I try to flex my muscles by coming up with somewhere new to eat in the neighborhood (without returning to the wonderful L’Escargot) and come up with La Lanterne, a spot I’ve spied on a side road along my jogging route near the Buttes Chaumont park.

Downstairs at La Lanterne is candlelit bric-a-brac, remnants of some bygone era that’s hard to put a finger on, but must look better on a cold winter’s night than the misty early summer’s eve we’re here on. We make a beeline for the covered roof deck, currently occupied by ten friends in their 50s celebrating a birthday.

Entrées arrive - a tartare de legumes, escargot with roquefort sauce and a salad with pork cheeks. Everything sounds more interesting that it is. Bof! say the French. Though the business card says “old Paris atmosphere” it’s really like eating at a so-so countryside restaurant.

But the table next to us has a good mood floating in the air above them and at our table, the guys are smiling, talking about dodging bullets. Mains arrive and one of the correspondents cuts his andouillette open longwise like he’s gutting it. Truthfully, they’re a bit disappointing - better, but not worth a trip, until I look around the deck - wonderful views in a quiet city spot. The woman at the table next door pulls out an iPhone to play a tinny slow song, holding it up like a candle at a concert.

The birthday girl and her sweetie - clearly still a sweetie after a long time together - get up and dance together. It’s the kind of charming you don’t always see in Paris. Which makes the whole dinner worth it.

Count on about 25-30 € for dinner. Rooftop dancing optional.

La Lanterne MAP
9 Rue du Tunnel
75019 Paris
+33 1 42 39 15 98

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Saturday, May 01, 2010

HEN DON’T?

I did something with this place I don’t usually do: I recommended a restaurant to a friend without having been there to eat in a long time. A friend from London was coming into town for what the Brits call a ‘hen do’ (a.k.a. a bachelorette party) right around the time another friend who runs Slow Food Barcelona was talking about a favorite restaurant: Mam i Teca. There seemed to be a bit of serendipity involved, so I went with the flow. Now that I’ve gone, I can’t decide if it was a good idea.

At first, I thought the tiny restaurant lacked a bit of soul, but I figured out that it feels like that you’re eating in the semi-industrial living room of the guys who run it, right down to the Johnny Hallyday on the radio and the waiting for the waiter/barman to finish up his conversation with the client/friends at the end of the bar before you can ask for another napkin.

If you like that sort of stuff - it can have its charms - you’re in for a treat. I love that feeling that the two guys who run the joint are clearly doing exactly what they want to be doing, but I wonder how many other people come out of there feeling a little weirded out by the experience. The cuisine is Catalan and you can understand the Slow Food connection; product is excellent. Xató - a salad of escarole with salt cod and olives with romesco sauce wasn’t much to write home about, but it was counterbalanced by a sweet and salty rabbit stew with apricots and prunes. Mmm!  Our favorite dish, a mix of just-cooked mushrooms, asparagus and garlic drizzled in olive oil was so good, we ordered it twice.

I can’t remember the last time I did that.

Maybe it was a good idea to send the hens here.

Mam i Teca - MAP
Carrer de la Lluna 4
Barcelona
+93 441 33 35

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Tuesday, February 09, 2010

COMFORT ON WINTER’S MENU

After lunch at Jeu de Quilles, I really wanted not to like dinner at Au Bon Coin when it was set in front of me. (So much so, I seem to have accidentally erased all photo evidence of the meal.)

Came out too fast. Skimpy portion of string beans, I thought as my main course arrived. Then I dabbed a spud in the sauce next to my steak and reconsidered.

Au Bon Coin is packed with locals on the wonderful north side of Montmartre for a reason. The quality/price ratio is where it should be. ‘Comfort’ should be on the menu.

“I was here a week ago and the didn’t have the stuffed cabbage. They only have it in the darkest part of winter,” said my friend and dining companion who lives three blocks away. On this night, it’s on the menu and it arrives, dark, pungent and delicious a moment or two after my pièce de Charolais.

Is it me, or are the days getting longer?

Count on about 20€ with a drink or two.

Au Bon Coin MAP
49 Rue des Cloÿs‬
75018 Paris
‎+33 1 46 06 91 36 ‎

P.S. - If you’re going to make a night out of it, start with an apéro at the nearby La Renaissance - 112 Rue Championnet - where Tarantino shot a scene from “Inglorious Basterds.” With any luck, there will be an impeccably-dressed woman delivering your drink. “Wearing jeans in public,” she once told me, “is despicable.”

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Tuesday, February 02, 2010

DEATH BY PIERRE

“You’re not going to write about this place, right?” asked Pierre.

I smiled, but truth be told, I didn’t answer.

I’m a bit of a pho fanatic. Years ago, I worked in chef Didi Emmons’ restaurant Pho Republique in Cambridge, MA. As a birthday present to my sister, I made up a gift certificate for the place before it opened. Once we went, I liked Didi’s version of Vietnam’s signature soup so much, I got a part-time job in the kitchen. I had to know.

Knowing in Paris may require a compass. Or a Pierre with Vietnamese heritage.  This place - a pagoda-lined pedestrian street lined with residential high-rises - looks more like Mars than Paris. Just before you open the door, however, you can smell that you’re in the right place.

It’s all in the broth. Good pho broth bubbles away all night, pulling flavor from a giant pot of goodness that usually includes beef, bones, ginger, charred onion, star anise and lemongrass. There are scores of variations including vegetarian, chicken and seafood versions. I could have imagined a version of this one - clear, clean and complex as any wine - as part of a recent meal at El Bulli. (!)

In Paris, I’m a regular at Belleville’s Dong Huong, where they make a very respectable bowl, but until today, I’d forgotten the magic that made me fall in love with pho in the first place.
While the star is the soup, the whole meal is fantastic. Consistently good plates like a Vietnamese crepe with mushrooms and marinated pork, fresh nem, pork ribs and marinated, grilled pork strips, all play with flavor and texture - even at dessert. Nothing misses the mark.

At less than 20€ for a royal feast and a drink, this is one of the best-priced meals in Paris.

Restaurant Quan Ngon MAP
63 rue Javelot
75013 Paris
+33 1 44 24 35 59

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Monday, November 16, 2009

Hot Pan. Hot Oil.

BARCELONA

When I die, I’m sending friends to scatter my ashes in a couple of my favorite places around the world. Barcelona’s La Boqueria food market will be one of those spots.

I’ve said it before: I’d trade a meal at the market’s Pinotxo food ‘kiosk’ for many a three-star meal in a heartbeat. The world hums at a happier frequency whenever I’m there.

That said, I’ll make sure they keep my ashes on Pinotxo’s side of the market when the time comes.

We checked out Kiosko Universal a while back and though it felt a bit like I was dining with the enemy, a friend had sung its praises and I wanted to see for myself.

One of the wonderful things about the kiosks is how it’s all there for you to see. You sit at the bar and watch the cooks cook up the best the market has to offer. Look left - there’s someone selling fish! Look right - there’s someone cooking fish! There’s flash and bang and life everywhere and there you are in the middle of it all with a glass of Cava to celebrate. If you can’t draw inspiration from a space like this, check your pulse.

You also see when it all goes wrong.

At Kiosko Universal, we ordered Cava and immediately watched somebody’s fresh-cooked lunch get cold on the counter for five minutes before being delivered once a cook finally remembered it. Then we watched a cook work on our mushrooms by sautéing a big batch in a wok. It’s a great idea: blast something fresh with heat and serve it up quick, but there simple rules to sautéing that should be observed, most notably, as a chef once barked at me, “Hot pan. Hot oil.” Heat the pan, then heat the oil and then (and only then) add whatever you’re cooking. Flub up and need more oil? Send a trickle down the side of the pan so it heats up before it hits your food.

Cold oil on cold product leads to mush.

Here, however, we watch the cook pour an extra dose of cooking oil right on the mushrooms.

The cook looks bad, the chef looks worse and we lose our appetite…

…almost. We repent with coffee and dessert at Pinotxo.

Count on about 10-20 euros.

Kiosko Universal - MAP
La Boqueria
La Rambla 91
Barcelona

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Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Monks At The Table

MANHATTAN

There’s a lot to notice when we arrive at WD-50. The most outstanding is a booth of guys who look like they could be fraternity brothers, yet they’re silent as monks, paying close attention to what they’re eating; the antennae are up, they love the challenge.

You have to be up for the ride. Chef Wylie Dufresne bristles at the thought of preparing anything leaning toward making standard bistro fare for his customers. He’s just not interested.

What would he rather do? Stuff like floating plump scallops and pine needle udon in a bowl of grapefruit dashi. He deconstructs eggs benedict. He chars avocado. (?!?!) Even if his family is in the business you have to wonder how he thinks of this stuff, but when you put bites in your mouth, the combinations and preparations will stand hairs on end and leave you wondering how no one thought of it before.

Daniel Boulud’s kitchen at Daniel has a beautiful wall of spices sourced from around the world while Dufrene’s wall has pectins, starches and syrups. Yet the adjectives Dufresne cuisine inspires are words like ‘clean’ and ‘clear’ – you leave feeling like you’ve eaten a healthy Japanese dinner. His parsnip tart somehow makes me rethink my understanding of the vegetable. Parsnips!

Some argue the validity of this type of experimental cuisine - they should eat here to join the converted.

Finally, all hail Dufresne for having the confidence to keep and highlight the work of pastry chef Alex Stupak. Instead of a clash of egos (that would usually lead to the latter getting dumped), you just sit there and say ‘wow’ all meal long.

Count on about $65 plus drinks if you go à la carte. The tasting menu runs $140 plus $75 for wine pairing.

WD-50 – MAP
50 Clinton Street
New York
+1-212-477-2900
www.wd-50.com

Full disclosure: I ate at the restaurant while working on an upcoming story about Dufresne and his collaboration with chef Daniel Boulud. That said, Dufresne didn’t realize we were in the restaurant for dinner until dessert was over and the check was paid.

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Tuesday, October 20, 2009

New York City Burger Attack - Part II

MANHATTAN

Our gang watched late-summer jazz in Madison Square Park, but eyes rolled when we saw the line at the Shake Shack. It snaked hundreds of feet from the order window out through the park gates.

“What about the secret burger place?” said Maria.

We all stared and she smiled and dragged her toe in the dirt like she might not share her secret. It was rather sexy.

We got her to spill the beans and six of us bolted uptown by bike and subway to the … Parker Meridien. A burger joint in one of the city’s fanciest hotels? Hard to figure.

The lobby was everything you’d expect: high ceilings, artwork and fancy bars and restaurants … but it smelled like burgers.

Sure enough. A David Lynch-esque floor-to-ceiling curtain juts out into the lobby concealing the secret space. Approach and you’ll notice a skinny corridor with a neon-sign hamburger and a right-pointing arrow at the end.

Inside, it’s night and day; the space looks like a cross between Arnold’s Drive-In from “Happy Days” and my fraternity house basement. The burgers are great -you get to choose the cooking temperature and usually, you can elbow your way to a just-opened table right when they call your order number.

A good burger joint in one of the city’s fanciest hotels. Go figure.

Count on around $15-20.

Burger Joint – MAP
119 W 56th St
New York, NY
+1 212-708-7414

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Thursday, October 15, 2009

Kill Soup Dumpling!!!

NEW YORK CITY

Years ago, when I cooked at the Left Coast’s Betelnut, a hidden army of wizened Chinese men would come in to roll dumplings in the basement. These quiet, artistic men were lost in their craft, turning dough into flat discs that, with a twist of the fingers, would encase whatever filling they put inside them: crustaceans, meat, vegetables, love.

They would make what seemed like thousands at a time and, unlike the other cooks in the kitchen, once that task was done, so were they.

Lucky bastards.

My first visit to Joe’s Shanghai was part of a get-to-know-you weekend with a former sweetie’s parents a decade ago. Then as now, there’s a reason the grease-splattered walls are festooned with pictures of mayors and glitterati with their arms swung around the owners: Joe’s dumplings are the bomb.

Instead of searing something (like a steak) and hoping all the tasty juices stay inside, here, the pork and crab goodness is held neatly inside the dumpling.

Skewer one with a chopstick and sip the juice that fills the spoon, or take a bite and blush as it runs down your chin.

Shudder with happiness as you swallow.

Joe’s Shanghai
http://www.joeshanghairestaurants.com/ - while on their site, do not miss the “Kill Soup Dumpling” video.

Three Locations – I went to Chinatown - MAP
9 Pell Street
New York, New York 10013
+1-212-233-8888

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