Lunchtime in Paris

Wenzhou lunch in Belleville

I'm just home from my Arabic class (hopefully we'll be going to Syria for summer vacation next year) and my head is exploding...Arabic is not easy. But anyway, I've got photos to post from last weekend so here goes.

On Sunday, Aisha and I went to "Maison de Wenzhou" in Belleville. We've been there before and as I mentioned in a recent post this is my new favorite Chinese place.

And as you may be able to guess we ordered the barbecue. This was so fun because I'd never done Chinese barbecue before, wow, what a blast!

Barbecue is on the Chinese menu only. The  first time we went to Maison de Wenzhou I saw Asian people eating things that did not seem to be on the menu (and they looked really delicious too),  so I asked the waiter what these things were and he explained that they did indeed have a special Chinese only menu...

This time we were smart.

Maison de Wenzhou is not a fancy place but the waiter who works there on Sunday afternoons is really helpful and friendly, after all he did let us in on the secret Chinese menu... he explained that we had to start with the cabbage.

And then we should add the beef.

And even some onions. There was lots of good sauce too. One for the cabbage and another one with peanuts to dip the beef in. yum!

It was all really delicious. The beef barbecue at Maison de Wenzhou  costs 35 EUR but it is easily enough for three people and so much fun. Considering Paris prices it's an excellent deal, there is really a lot of meat and very fresh too.

It was really cute because not only did the waiter patiently explain exactly how to do the barbecue (and also did not complain when I managed to send several pieces of cabbage and onion off the table and on to the floor, sorry gotta work on chopstick dexterity...) he also spontaneously offered to take our photo when he saw that I was taking photos of the lunch (I didn't look particularly fab but I think Aisha looks radiant).

So, what a lovely lunch and we gave our chopstick skills a good workout too. They also do a seafood barbecue so perhaps we'll have to go back and try that someday soon...

Pho dac biet for lunch

Alas, although the pho was quite good (went to Dong Huong again) I failed in my quest. As those of you who visit regularly are aware, I get lots of good info from Kirk at mmm-yoso!!! and when he wrote about tendon and how much he likes it I decided I wanted to try some too.

So, on Sunday I went back to Belleville and got the Pho Dac Biet (Pho Special - the pho with everything...so they say). And just for those of you who want to practice your French, here is the pho entry in wikipedia.fr.

This is the small bowl for 6,10 euros and ok, it has the raw beef, it has the brisket, it has the tripe, and the beef balls but where oh where is the gân (tendon). Unfortunately it was not in my soup so I will have to head over to the 13th sometime soon.

In order to console myself I also ordered:

A strange drink. On the menu it is called the four seasons (quatre saisons). I've often seen these in Asian restaurants but never had the courage to try.

Here it is all mixed up. It turned a much lovelier shade of pale green as time wore on. Anyway, this drink contained julienne strips of green jello, bright orange tapioca pearls, some strange ingredient that was like a rice crispy, crushed ice, and milk. It cost 2,80 euros.

And, how did it taste? Actually it was not that bad but I don't think I'll order it again. The nearest thing I can compare it to is the milk left over in the bottom of the bowl when you've finished your fruit loops.

And that, fellow lunchers, was how I spent my Sunday afternoon, happy lunching to all of you!

Duck's tongue for lunch

Sunday afternoon my oldest daughter and I decided to try Sinorama, a Chinese place in the 13th arrondissement of Paris that's gotten several reviews for being really "authentic".

It doesn't look like much from the outside, just a little low building on the corner of avenue de Choisy and rue Docteur Magnan. We went for a late lunch (14:30) and so by the time we were finished the place was practically empty. The service was good, although a little rushed but I imagine they just get in the habit of rushing when there are big dinner crowds. In any case, they are very efficient and polite.

It was nice and spacious and they stay open all day so you can eat at odd hours (anytime before 8 pm is odd for the French) and avoid the crowds. They also have those excellent big tables with the round tray part in the middle that holds the various dishes and turns around. When we first arrived there were two very big groups enjoying their lunches as well as several smaller groups and they were majoritarily Asian (a very good sign).

Anyway, I wasn't sure that I would dare but I did it, I ordered the duck's tongues.

5,50 euros, they were served in a very nice black bean sauce. As for the tongues themselves...I ate them as did my daughter but really the taste is pretty boring. They are sort of soft and gelatinous but the sauce was really good! This is probably not the kind of thing you would want to order if you are in the early stages of dating either because there is a lot of cartiledge and you may have to wind up using your fingers.

We ordered another starter just to be on the safe side. Shrimp roll fried in bread crumbs. They were nice and crunchy and there were a lot of them. It was really enough for two people and cost 7,00.

Then we ordered two different dishes and rice. Both dishes were served on sizzling platters (I think this is hot plate in English but really I like sizzling better) and they did come out of the kitchen sizzling. The first one was "three stuffed treasures" (trois trésors farcis):

It was sizzling so much my lense got steamed up:

Tofu, both green and red peppers, and eggplant stuffed with a shrimp filling. This was also served in a excellent sauce with black beans. It cost 12,00 and was most definitely enough for two people but of course we wanted to try lots of stuff so we also got:

The sizzling seafood! It looked beautiful but this sauce was more boring than the stuffed treasure sauce. Kind of bland, but perhaps it was because this was just so much food...and in Paris they don't do the doggy bag thing so no sense ordering too much.

It is very unusual in Paris to get such gigantic servings of food. When things are sort of expensive you just figure it's because the ingredients are more costly.

So, next time (and I do plan on going back) we will know better and either they'll be ten of us or we'll order less. With two appetizers, two main dishes(12,00 each), rice 1,40 and tea 3,00 the total came to 40.00 euros but it was enough food for 4 people! So Sinorama gets thumbs up from me and I suggest you check it out as well.

Happy lunching!

ps. I posted at work today and now I'm back home and I've been informed that  Calvin Trillin ate here, way back in 1998 (in English)

Lunch: a tale of two sandwiches

First of all if you can read French I would like to recommend an excellent restaurant review site mmmm!  and yes, that's the name: mmmm! I like the name and for my money it's the best Paris site for restaurants.

I went back to Belleville today and although I didn't eat here this time I'm posting the photo because perhaps it will make you smile.

The Hawaiian restaurant. Look closely at the sign in the upper right hand corner: it's the laughing cow!

Anyway getting down to today's lunch. I decided to do a taste test and compare two Vietnamese sandwiches. They were both purchased on the same street about twenty meters from one another. The first sandwich was purchased here:

And it looked like this:

The "special" for 2,20 euros.

The second sandwich was purchased here:

Panda Belleville? I think this may have been a Chinese place in a former life and they must just have left the sign...ah, the charms of Belleville and mixed Asian neighborhoods.

Here is the sandwich:

Once again the "special" and it cost 2,50 euros (,30 more than at Hoa Hung).

Here are the sandwiches side by side:

The Hoa Hung sandwich is in front and it is slightly bigger than the Panda sandwich. Now for a close up of each sandwich and my review.

Hoa Hung, this sandwich on a buttered baguette contains somekind of luncheon meat (perhaps chicken), sliced pork, diced chicken, shredded carrot, onion, cucumber, very hot chile pepper (yes I am a daring luncher), coriander and some sort of Vietnamese sauce. It tasted good but unfortunately it got points off because the baguette was kind of stale.

And so the winner is:

Although these sandwiches look similar the Panda wins for two reasons. Firstly it was served on a crispy unbuttered baguette, and secondly, it just tasted better. It contained the same luncheon meat, sliced pork, diced chicken, shredded carrots mixed with some shredded white vegetable, cucumber, onion, chili pepper, coriander and Vietnamese sauce. Somehow the white vegetable mixed in with the carrot soaked up more sauce and just gave that little extra flavor. So, for 2,50 this was a good sandwich!

Tomorrow is Easter so I'm going to the big Chinatown in the 13th for Easter dinner.

See you then and as always, happy lunching!

Bad lunch photo day

I'm kind of disappointed in my photos today. There was not enough natural light and so the flash just went off automatically. Perhaps this will motivate me to read the manual and figure out how to change the settings.

Anyway for what it's worth here are today's photos. I had the couscous

This is a traditional North African dish (Tunisia is a former colony and Algeria was a French department). There are lots of North Africans in Paris (Magrebins). It was not the greatest couscous I've ever had; I didn't choose the restaurant so at 15,50 euros I consider this overpriced and I will not be going back.

Couscous is a grain made of wheat; it is served with a broth made of various vegetables (turnip, carrots, celery, zuchini, sometimes pumpkin and this  particular couscous included green beans as well) and meat (here you can see chicken and lambà. It is one of those dishes where every family seems to have their own special ingredients and preparation techniques.

One of my workmates had the tartare de saumon (salmon tartare)

Lots of salad and a very small tartare served with something resembling tzatiki. I've had this other places and it's good. Tartare du saumon is like steak tartare except that instead of raw ground beef it's raw minced salmon.

And the moral of the story is: Avoid trendy overpriced places with square plates!

So, until tomorrow, Happy Lunching

What's pho lunch?

Oh sorry for that bad pun. Today I went shopping in Belleville. It's Paris' second Asian neighborhood after Chinatown in the 13th. I had lunch at Dong Huong (cool name). Some pho:

This was the very delicious chicken pho with an egg. And I learned something. A lot of Asians eat in this restaurant so I watch them in my quest to learn perfect chopstick etiquette. Anyway, as I was watching I saw a women taking out bits of meat from her soup and dipping them in the sauce (lower left hand corner). I thought the sauce was supposed to be added to the soup (I did and it gives a nice color) but no, it is for dipping the meat. So there you go.

And the pho after I added all the lovely green herbs (and one small bit of chili pepper). Excellent lunch today.

I will soon be posting this month's guest luncher photos. Dana was kind enough to send me some pics from her husband's trip to New Orleans. Very nice so stay tuned and

happy lunching!

No lunch today - just memories

I'm just home from the dentist and so no lunch for me just a walk down memory lane to a lunch I had last October at L'Estaminet, rue Oberkampf, 11th Paris

It's a cute little neighborhood restaraurant with really small tables. I went with a friend, she had the special of the day, shrimp and lotte and I had the steak tartare with fries.

This is the steak tartare. It was already prepared, which is not my preference. I like it better when the meat and the fixings are seperate and I can mix myself. A steak tartare is very fresh raw ground beef with shallots, parsley, capers, worcestershire, tobasco, and an egg yolk all mixed together. Of course there are variations, the weirdest I ever had involved diced peanuts and wasabi...

This was the daily special, shrimps and lotte in a delicious sauce. Kind of messy with the shells still on.

This picture is not from the same meal. It is from one of my trips to Etretat. I just thought the pink religiouse looked so delicious that I'm adding it as desert.

And in an effort to improve my photos I found picasa2 from google  (check it out if you can't afford photoshop). It does some nice things for free!

happy lunching!

AOC Lunch

In a comment on my first post my sister Lisa asked me about AOC. I thought it would be easy to explain but after shopping for and preparing my lunch today I am just more confused.

Check out all these guarantees of quality:

Clockwise from upper left, parmesan from Italy, roquefort cheese, roquefort cheese, organic cheese, balsamic vinager from Italy, silver medal from the salon d'agriculture for wine, butter, ham from bayonne and wine from Alsace.

The agency that handles all this in France is the INAO (Institut National des Appellations d'Orgine) there is some info in English on the site but not much. Here is a quote from the pdf brochure:

"Geographical indications are, [...], indications which identify a good as originating in the territory [...], or a region or locality in that territory, where a given quality, reputation or other characteristic of the good is essentially attributable to its geographical origin.

This definition of the GI is extremely wide-ranging, such that the notion can include
agricultural, agrifood or industrial products, or indeed goods originating in the handicraft
industry, whose association with their geographical origin can at times be extremely
tenuous."

That reminds me too much of work (I'm a bilingual secretary in a law firm) so here is a photo showing some AOC butter and then we'll just get down to the business of making a lunch from all this good stuff

Well now that that's settled let's move on to the actual practical aspects of the products and the lunch.

Home from the grocery store and look what I bought,

here are the raw materials:

mmm...a baguette pas trop cuite (not too done), roquefort, parmesan, ham and butter. I also bought some roquette which is so lovely that it deserves its own photo:

You will never go wrong with my recipes if you follow the golden rule "Only the best and who cares how much it costs". I made a lovely salad with this roquette:

This is an easy and delicious salad

What you need:

• Roquette
• Olive oil
• Balsamic vinager
• Fleur de sel (gourmet salt)
• Parmesan

How to do it:

• wash and dry the roquette
• put the roquette in a salad bowl
• pour on some balsamic vinegar (to taste)
• pour on some olive oil (to taste)
• add some fleur de sel (to taste)
• toss and let stand for 5 or 10 minutes (this is so the flavors will infuse)
• add some parmesan shavings and serve

(Note to myself for future food photos: remember to carefully wipe down plate edges before taking photo)

And the final lunch:

Salad, bayonne ham with roquefort on baguette and an apple cake from the bakery.

What a lot of work, I think I'll have a nap now (oh, I do so love Saturday afternoons).

See you tomorrow and have a nice lunch!

An ordinary Paris lunch

This is my first realtime lunch post and it is what I intend this blog to be; a celebration of lunches both ordinary and extraordinary. I often eat at my desk, it's quiet and I can catch up on the news or my emails, so without further ado here are the details of todays lunch.

Today's lunch was a delicious and very simple jambon beurre, this is a ham sandwich with butter on a crispy baguette. I went to my favorite boulangerie which I discovered after a very unsatisfying lunch at a tapas place (since gone out of business). I was still hungry and so what better than a jambon beurre to help me make it through the afternoon. I also got a slice of apricot tart and of course, a diet coke (here we call it coca lite).

The apricot tart was particularly nice so I thought it deserved another photo. I'm going to have to perfect my food photo skills and what better place to practice than here.

This lunch cost me 6,60 euros and was purchased here:

This is a nice inexpensive lunch spot in the 8th arrondisement of Paris not far from Saint Augustin. I come here often and I'm sure I will be posting more delicious lunches from this place.

So, until tomorrow, Happy Lunching

Another Normandy lunch

This was just supposed to be a test to see if I could post bigger pictures, my oysters from yesterday are so small, anyway, it looks so good I think I'll leave it up.

It's a delicious crêpe jambon gratinée that I had for lunch in Granville at this very charming crêperie:

Well that's one problem resolved, now only if I could figure out how to make links...10 minutes later and well I guess a second problem is solved...all I had to do was click on the icon that resembles a link. So if you're in France and in the mood for oysters I've linked in the post below. Unfortunately, L'Echaugeutte does not have a website but when I do find links I'll be sure to post them.