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A
Moroccan food shop on rue Montorgueil.
Notice all the
E. Dehillerin, in business
since 1820 on rue Coquillière,
L'Escargot,
38, rue Montorgueil. Founded in 1875 by
This
bell, or cloche, is the one that
was rung in the wee
An
exhibit in the
Some
of the ancient street signs, carved in stone, remain on |
Tuesday, September 4 The FedEx package from Up through the ancient rue The rue Montorgueil is still a market street – the
lower part of it was once the oyster vendors’ section of Les Halles, and the
upper part is still a part of the city’s garment district where there are
still remaining a few sweatshops where clothing is made. But the area is rapidly being spiffed up,
and is reflecting the ever increasing prosperity and optimism of Paris and
France, for that matter. Yet it is
here that I find much of the character of We saw many places that we’ve read about or heard
about. This includes some of the
places shown in the photos on the left.
And we saw Au Pied de Chochon,
the large restaurant famous for being open and serving food 24 hours a day, 7
days a week, since 1946. Such a
restaurant was needed at Les Halles, which was also once busy around the
clock. Tom and I loved the authenticity of the area, and we
were fascinated to find that in the upper part of this neighborhood, there
was still a garment district functioning, although much reduced. The rents and labor costs in The lower part of the neighborhood is interesting, too,
because it really is a remnant of the former, historical, Les Halles markets.
The major part of Les Halls which was
moved out to Rungis, in the southern suburbs of We returned and rested for a bit after this adventure,
then Tom wanted to go out for dinner.
I mean, really go out for dinner.
He had selected a “bib gourmand” recommendation from the new Michelin
red guide: L’Epi Dupin Restaurant, 11 rue Dupin,
near Bon Marché in the 6th arrondissement (telephone
01-42-22-64-56). This is one of those places where you must order all
three courses. There is an optional
cheese course you can fit in between the main course and dessert. We are simply not able to do that cheese
course! I opted for a starter from the blackboard, the salade de joue porcelet (green salade
with pork cheeks). It was as
beautifully and creatively presented as anything Kent Rigsby’s restaurants
ever produced. Somehow, the dish was
topped by curly, long, thin slivers of onions that had been crispened and
turned orange! My main course was a crepinette de queue de veau (soft, moist filet of veal tail meat
in a membrane envelope) served on house-made pasta with black truffles and
tiny, seasoned croutons with a light sauce made from butter, olive oil, and
reduced jus de porc, I’d say. It was divine. But I could not eat all of the pasta if I
wanted to survive for dessert. Tom had a starter that consisted of lightly battered
and fried large shrimp served with a house-made tartar sauce. This sauce is a form of hand-made
mayonnaise with garlic and herbs – quite savory. His main course was a lamb ragout, served in a hollowed
out, roasted half of an eggplant. It
was excellent, too, but I think he thought my main course was even better. I had a roasted peach with a bit of cucumber sorbet for
dessert, and Tom had another version of a fraisier
with something like cantaloupe sorbet on the bottom. I ordered the least expensive small-size bottle of The restaurant is very tiny, and reservations are a
must. A large group of large Americans
was just leaving shortly after we arrived.
They were all very pleased with their dinner, and were profusely
congratulating the one amongst them who had been selecting their restaurants
for each evening of their stay. We were sandwiched in between two other tables of
two. On my left were two 40-something
men from somewhere in Eastern Europe, and, on my right, two Asian women,
well-dressed and soft-spoken, probably from I thought the men were speaking Russian, but Tom
thought it was Romanian. Since Tom
once studied Russian for a while in college, I defer to his judgment. Tom got into a brief conversation with the
one Romanian who was relying on his English to get by in Quite frankly, I’m glad the servings are not any
larger! There were people from all over the world crammed into
this little place. I was very
impressed with how all the servers were able to speak English well enough to
explain the menu options to everyone.
We used just our French, no English, and I sensed that our servers
were relieved to have such a break when serving us. In fact, when the server arrived at our table to take
our order, the tension and worry was written all over his face. As soon as I opened my mouth and began my
order, he relaxed and smiled just a bit – I could almost detect a sigh of
relief. After that, each server who
removed something from our table most earnestly asked us what we thought of
each dish. Having this kind of
exchanged added all the more to the meal.
Don’t miss L’Epi Dupin! |
