Day 13: Paris, May 22

Day 13: May 22, Paris

Weather: Fresh!

Breakfast of day old baguette (warmed up just fine), fruit and coffee.

Down to the last two days and there is some heavy strategizing going on and DB comes up with a brilliant idea. Since we now want to go to the ceramics museum and it is way out of town, we’ll do that tomorrow early, taking the train and arriving when the museum opens. That only means cutting into our morning cool down from the late night before. This plan works especially well if we get back early tonight. We’ll see how we do, since we are going to Restaurant ES, starting at 8pm.

WHOA!!!! EIGHT PM? Hmmmmm…it’s a good plan, we’re sticking with it.

That means being at the Musee d’Orsay at 10am this morning. We bought audio tours because you get to skip the lines, the tour includes an entrance ticket. We’re there right on time. OOOOPS! You actually pick up the audio tour about 10 minutes from the d’Orsay, And, there are no lines.

Rush hour on the metro

It’s good to have a plan. It’s bad to be wedded to the plan as events change. We buy tickets (11E/pp) and jump into the museum; the info person said just go back and get a refund. More on that later. In the meantime, we’re in before the place is crowded.

“Modern” art came before contemporary art (when contemporary art gets really old, we won’t be around anymore). Lots of modern masters like Cezanne, Sisley, and a whole special feature on Bonnard. THB is here for you: Don’t bother with Bonnard, very third rate. Guy did about 2 good paintings and many, many poor to just plain awful ones. Interestingly enough, not too many Matisse or Picasso pieces, the top two with everybody else in the lower minor leagues.

The other special exhibit is Dolce Vita?, the period just before WWII (THB is here for you, that was the really big war of the last century, unless you were British, then it might be WWI).  Somewhere between Deco, design, and surrealism, this exhibit is very sharp and lots of fascinating pieces, most of it 3D objects (THB is here for you: you don’t have to wear 3D glasses for this one).

Around noon, we head off for steak and frites. We pick Le Relais de L’Entrecote, their St Germain location. For food, you only have to answer one question: how do you want your steak cooked? This is a very basic menu: everyone gets a green salad with a mustard/garlic dressing, some baguette slices, all the frites you can eat, and a pretty big helping of steak done your way, served in a mustard-style sauce in two portions. With a Heineken (no other beer choices…how can that be?) and a glass of red for DB, 63E. 

And, if you order rare, it comes rare, including the 2^nd portion that stayed in a warming tray. THB is here to tell you: lots of French people eating here, including ones in our age bracket and even the next bracket up. The French really don’t want to have to make a lot of decisions when it comes to ordering (didn’t they invent the fixed price meal?) This is the ultimate version of the fixed price meal!

Back to a highly recommended jewelry store near L’Entrecote (hey, this part of the plan worked great) to check out rings for DB; info gathered and sizing done and we’re off to our next adventure: two museums called Cartier.

Another metro ride and we’re a few blocks from Fondation Cartier. A pretty large building, a few very large exhibition spaces (basement and first floor…that’s the American first floor, not the French first floor) and something in the garden. The guest artist is the conceptualist Bruce Nauman. Four pieces, VERY conceptual. Two videos, one merry-go-round with a few taxidermy animals dangling and endlessly circling, and in the garden what sounds like a 4 year old learning to play the piano, slowly learning.  10.5E each…that’s about 2.5E per concept per person. THB is here to tell you: that’s too much per person per concept.

Next up: we walk around the Montparnesse Cemetery (it’s got high walls, so THB cannot be here for you on this one…from what THB has read, there are a lot of dead people in there, some of them very famous is you are French….AND, THB is here for you: Jim Morrison was NOT French and he isn’t buried in this cemetery)…where was THB?

 

Oh yeah, walking around the cemetery, to the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson (THB believes Fondation Cartier is not related to Fondation Cartier-Bresson). Henri and his wife converted a 4 floor (or is it 3? 3+1? 5?) building into a photography museum; the current exhibit is a group of Patrick Faigenbaum photos, mostly from India. Then there is the top floor with 15 photos by Henri. THB is here for you: some of these are top-notch, the guy could take a picture!  4E/pp because THB is now carrying copies of our passports (sweetly provided by the eyeglass store where DB bought two pairs of eyeglasses; THB forgot the passport copies, they are in E-ville being devoured by goats).

Back on the metro (we’re using up those 20 metro tickets today, saving .3E each ride) to the Tuileries exit to walk along the Rue de Faubourg Saint Honore, full of famous upscale stores. THB knows nothing about this street or the stores other than at the end of about 10 blocks, we’ve arrived at the place where we get our audio tour refund (remember that? Way back at the beginning of this post).

THB stands in line for a while, and when his turn comes THB finds out that the refund comes from some on-line company that sold us the tickets, not these guys.

Another metro ride and since it is now approaching 5 the metro is packed. Since everyone goes to work at 9:30 to 10am, this is the second rush hour of the day for THB and DB. THB is here to tell you: the French do not work a long day when rush hours are 9:45am and 4:30pm.

Rest up, drink some Citron Vert with water and not near enough sugar, a few crackers, take a sit in the bath shower (THB should’ve bought that 53E shower stool because THB is here to tell you that he can barely stand up after all the walking around today….or was it the steak, frites and brewski for lunch?).

Dinner at Restaurant ES in St Gerrmain, a Japanese chef doing French style cooking. Metro and walk to the restaurant, an easy commute for experienced tourists such as THB and DB.

 

No name, just a number and open door

Little info sheet in corner of front window

Lots of courses, many of the excellent. For second time in three nights, no menu, and loose translations tonight. The plating is spectacular. For one of the few times, THB is pretty sad about his almost-no-pics-of-food-in-restaurant rule, these are works of art. 

Well, the food wasn't at or on our table, it wasn't even our food!

And, the restaurant is small: three other tables of 2 and two tables of 3 each. Maybe only one Parisian couple; THB is here to tell you how he knew: they got up and went outside to have a cigarette at least twice.

Le undocumented menu (please excuse any lapses, along with no pics, THB did not take notes):

• Smoked squid and caviar
• Crab meat on toast and a green asparagus soup
• Oyster with Jerusalem artichoke and oyster foam
• Fois gras with sea urchin and a clear broth that when you mixed the three together became something extremely good (the guys next to us sent this dish back)
• White asparagus (one spear, perfect!) with lemon sauce so pretty THB desperately wanted to pull out his camera
• Cod with a salty crispy skin and green sauce and green peas
• Chicken breast with more great sauce, also green
• Mint soup and a small taste of stinky cheese in a crispy wrapper
• Rhubarb parfait in a crunchy shell, THB almost ordered another one except there were more desserts coming and it was a lot of food)
• Strawberry done four ways in a little tartlet
• Petit fours (small cookies, one lemon, one….?) with decaf espresso
• Two glasses each of champagne, white burgundy (chardonnay) and red Bordeaux (mostly merlot), all very good (best wine on the trip)
• Total of 320E and comparable to the French Laundry or Aubergine (and cheaper than either).

Now the official version of dinner last night from an e-mail from Steeve (he spells it with 3 e's) Benzaken, the chef sommelier. That's an interesting title...Steeve isn't Japanese, so we know he isn't the chef, and there appeared to be only 4 people on-site, so could he be the chief sommelier? In any case, Steeve's version: 

That's the menu have you got :

- Puff pastry with the tartar of squid, caviar and scallops chips.

- Soup of Green aspergus.

- Oysters beignet, Jerusalem artichock and emulsion of oysters juice.

- White apergus from "Val de Loire", Sabyon of old parmsan and lemon meringue.

- Duck liver with the sea hutcher and the turlip consommé.

- Cod fish with the green beans sauce and kolhrabi.

- Yellow chicken from the "Landes", herbs of the bear and potatoes.

- Tricorne cheese with the mojito ice.

- Declinasion of Rhubarb with the philadelphia ice cream, emulsion of vervein and lemon.

- Strawberry sorbet whit the tartar of strawberry and the mascarpone cream.

Taxi ride back from the restaurant: 18E (the meter had 7E on it when we got in). Get home at 11pm and there’s a party going on next door! First time we’ve heard anyone in the building.

THB and DB are exhausted…three museums, two great meals, five (or was it six) metro rides (actually, this was not exhausting, this saved us much walking), one jewelry store, some window shopping, one taxi ride, two happy campers