Paris

We had many nice meals in Paris and especially nice times with old friends. We tasted some classic French specialties in places like Fontaine de Mars (the foie gras!), Perraudin and Wepler.

But for the blog I want to focus on two restaurants where young chefs are adapting classic French cuisine in new ways. Chef Gilles Ajuelos at La Bastide de l'Odeon, a small restaurant tucked in next to the Odeon where we had lunch the day we arrived, seeks to reinvent Provençal cuisine.

For starters, we had rillettes de saumon and a roasted eggplant timbale they called a millefeuille. Both were delicious -- the rillettes were fluffy on toasted baguette slices and the eggplant was al dente with a great vegetable flavor. What stole the show, though, was Andrea's tagliatelle with girolles. The homemade noodles were perfectly cooked and the girolles were redolent of garlic and butter without reeking of either, firm and tender without being chewy or tough and were simply delicious. I had a very nice mullet filet with a version of ratatouille also done as a timbale (yes, somewhat similar to my starter).

On Sunday, after a nice appero at Closerie des Lilas, we walked down to Christophe, another small eatery behind the Pantheon on Rue Descartes, for another inventive meal. Where Bastide was all warm Provençal colors, Chef Christophe Philippe wants to paint in earth tones.

I had a spring roll with cochon basquaise that was delicious and we were asking ourselves what was Basque about it because Andrea ordered the echine as a main course. It turns out there is no spice or rub, these are simply a breed of pigs that are raised in France's Basque country. So Andrea's echine (loin) had the most marvelous pork flavor, savoring of the marbling that characterizes this cut. It was a dark brown rectangle on a white plate, with another brown rectangle of polenta overlapping it. Not a presentation to my taste, but the flavors were delicious.

I had a similarly monochromatic main course with my sweetbreads and mashed potatoes, both an off-white on a white plate. It was certainly the largest portion of sweetbreads I've ever eaten and tender beyond belief, with that oh-so delicate flavor of this cut. The potatoes may have been the smoothest whipped potatoes I've ever had, with a strong earthy taste and just the right hint of butter. Andrea's starter, by the way, were some very green haricots verts with a slice of bacon, no doubt from those same Basque pigs.

Wines were a good deal here (three young diners at the table next to us went through at least four bottles), and we had a nice chilled red (sorry, forgot where it was from).

Both of these restaurants were among the 102 reviewed in Alexander Lobrano's Hungry for Paris. These chatty descriptions, apparently a collection of magazine reviews, are supplemented by a helpful "In a Word" summary and a "Don't Miss" catalogue of signature dishes. Equally helpful are the listings at the end. We found both these restaurants under the heading "Bistros, Contemporary", as opposed to "Bistros, Traditional" and other restaurant categories ("Haute Cuisine", etc.).

To my amazement, under "Foreign Cuisines" (a short list of four), Lobrano listed L'As du Falafel, which indeed was exactly the takeaway falafel place in the Marais that I always went to on Sunday and that we visited again on Sunday for a falafel sans pareil.