Paris Journal 2011 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com
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Cynthia, bless her heart, sent a link to the follow-up article in the New York Times about the problems of using American credit cards in Europe and elsewhere. It makes me feel better somehow, as misery loves company, I suppose. At any rate, here it is. I plan to use it to suggest to Capital One that if they really want their card to be a “world” card, they need to put a chip in it as well as offering it without foreign transaction fees. I’m even willing to pay an annual fee for this. Yesterday’s long walk led us to the bottom of the 15th arrondissement at lunchtime. We looked for a restaurant we remembered seeing near the end of the rue Balard. We’d seen it last year, but when we went back to try it, it was closed for renovations. We could not find it yesterday, but thinking back on it, I think it was probably a pizza/Italian restaurant that we passed. This has happened so many times in Paris – French restaurants turn into Italian ones. This is not a tourist-related phenomenon, because I’ve seen it happen so much in non-touristy areas, like this one, in the lower 15th arrondissement. Why do so many French people now want to eat Italian food? I am as fond of good Italian cuisine as anyone, but I still don’t understand what’s behind this trend. So we kept walking, checking out several restaurants, but only one really met the Cooley initial criteria, qualifying a place for a tryout after superficial observation. Criteria used in this superficial, initial observation include: 1. Are the windows clean, and are the menus posted in/on the windows clean? Cleanliness is a sign that the restaurant cares. 2. Is anyone eating there? How many people? If few or no people are there, it must not be great. 3. Is the décor nice or at least interesting, and does the dining room look clean? Again, this is a sign that the restaurant cares. 4. Most importantly: who is eating there? What do they look like? What language are they speaking? What we’re looking for here is a restaurant where almost all or all of the diners are French speakers. And we don’t want to see just young people. A good restaurant has people of some age and substance in it. Also, there should be a number of people who look like they are French, but they really don’t seem to care that much about whether or not they are stylish. A mix of stylish and unstylish people, including lots of older middle aged folks, who consume their food with gusto and talk while using animated gestures is a very good sign. 5. Does the food look good? Is there anything appealing on the menu? Le Terminus Balard, at the end of the rue Balard and the end of the metro line 8, meet all the above criteria and then some. We arrived about 12:30PM, which in Paris is on the early side for lunch. But as it turns out, this was the only way we would have been given a table. There were plenty of tables available and plenty already occupied when we arrived, but by 1PM, the place was packed. All of the food coming out from the kitchen looked marvelous -- generous, fresh, colorful, and beautifully presented. Portions are big for Paris, so there were plenty of men eating there. I ordered the special of the day, lamb shank, which came with an apricot infused couscous. Tom ordered the lamb chops and a side order of fries. The lamb shank came with one of those cute white paper decorative things on the end of the bone – so French! It was incredibly tender, and the apricot infused couscous was delicious – especially where it merged with the juice from the lamb. Tom’s lamb chops were large – larger than I’ve ever seen in France – and expertly grilled. With them were a serving of garlicky, yummy green beans and a bit of salad. His fries were hand-cut steak fries. Excellent. After that generous lunch, we could have hopped on the line 8 metro and gone home, but we needed to walk off some of that food. And so we strolled up the leafy avenue Félix Faure, back to our neighborhood. I was stunned to see a big, new Starbucks along the way. The morning part of the walk included the Parc Violet in our neighborhood, and the good, old-fashioned shopping street called the rue Saint Charles. That led us to the Parc André Citroën, which is looking better than ever as the trees mature. I just wish the staff would do a better job of cleaning the litter out of the water features in the park. In the cobblestoned space between the Seine and the Park André Citroën were a set of new, giant, rusty metal sculptures which I thought were very good. Unfortunately, vandals had toppled a few of them. Back to that Balard area – yesterday’s Parisien described an upcoming project to transform a 1.3-kilometer section of the old “little belt” railroad that used to circle Paris into a promenade through nature. It seems that nature has already taken over somewhat in this section of the old railbed at the bottom of the 15th arrondissement. The railway was built on an elevated embankment. I was looking at it from our table in Le Terminus Balard, noticing the trees growing up the side of the embankment. This promenade, which will be completed between now and sometime in 2012-13, will not be quite as developed as the Promenade Plantée on the right bank. Instead, it will be more natural, and it will be reversible in case the owner, RFF, decides to reactivate a railway there. One option, which I think is wonderful, is to extend the new promenade a bit on each end of the 1.3-kilometer project so that it connects the Parc Georges Brassens with the Parc André Citroën. That would be a great, long walk: from our apartment, to the Parc Georges Brassens, to the Parc André Citroën, and then home again. Of course we can do that walk now, but the busy street at the bottom of the 15th does not have wide sidewalks and it isn’t all that good for pedestrians. A raised walkway through nature would be much better. Sign
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Thursday, July 7, 2011
Yesterday’s
lunch – lamb shank and apricot infused couscous at Le Terminus Balard. Note the paper decoration on the end of the
lamb shank bone. Below,
images from the Parc André Citroën.
I
spotted these trees growing on a rooftop on the rue de l’Eglise. Below is a closer look. What a terrace!
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