Some folks describe things as “very unique.” They are the same careless people who say “irregardless,” “ATM machine,” or “He’s a politician I can trust.” The rest of us know there are no gradations of uniqueness. Something is one-of-a-kind, or it is not.
“Delicious,” for me, is like “unique.” Delicious food is maximally good. Two dishes may be delicious in different ways, perhaps one savory and the other sweet, but one cannot be “more delicious” than the other. If you say one food is more delicious than another, what you really mean is that at least one merely tastes pretty good.
I know what you are thinking. You are thinking, “Dan, you are being a pedantic word nerd.” That is why I like you. You enjoy the delicious irony of showing off by using “pedantic,” possibly the most ostentatious of all luxury words.
But I am not being merely didactic or punctilious. I have a larger point, which is that delicious food in an expensive restaurant is not better than delicious food in a neighborhood bistro. In Paris you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a great little restaurant, one that probably could do wonders with that cat, butter, and a little cream.
Take, for example, the Marx Dormoy neighborhood where we stayed. It is a working-class district with lots of people from North and sub-Saharan Africa. We left our hotel thinking about food and within seconds saw the Darbar Restaurant. We walked in and asked to look at a menu.
We were talking to a large man from Sudan and his business partner, a smaller man from Afghanistan. I have forgotten their names. I will call the Sudanese man “Greg,” and the Afghani, “Ernie.”
Greg said, “Today is our first day open. We do not yet have a printed menu.”
Denise pulled at my arm, signaling that it was time to go. Ernie asked, “Do you like meat and rice? I can bring you meat and rice that you will like very much.”
Denise pulled a little harder. I ask, “What does it cost?”
Ernie rolls his eyes a little, not contemptuously like a teenager, but like he is trying to find the answer inside his own head. He shrugs and says, “Fifteen or twenty euros.”
I look at Denise and say, “Let’s eat here.” She is a trooper, so we follow Greg and Ernie to a table.
Fifteen minutes later Ernie brings us food.
For a few seconds we eat like ravenous hyenas, and then decide to take this picture.
You remember Uri Geller, who could bend spoons with his mind? That is the level of focus and concentration we had to summon just to put our forks on the table long enough to snap a photograph.
No doubt you’ve had meat so tender that you could cut it with a fork. Well, this beef saw our forks approaching and immediately divided of its own accord. If we looked dissatisfied it would divide again. Never before had meat come so close to simply dissolving in my mouth. The rice included raisons and thin, slightly sweetened, carrot slices. It could not have been improved upon. It was DELICIOUS!
Pretty soon the plates were clean. Neither Greg nor Ernie brought us a check, so we walked to the counter where Ernie was standing. I asked, “How much do we owe you?”
He again looked for an answer inside his own head. He said, “Seventeen euros.” I silently wondered whether I should pay with cash, or a credit card. Ernie misinterpreted my hesitation as disappointment at the cost. “Fifteen euros,” he said, bidding against himself.
We gave Ernie twenty euros and assured him that we would be back (not a lie).
* * * *That night, our first evening in Paris, we walked to a wine store, Le Cave de Don Doudine. The very nice English-speaking proprietor sold us €18 and €20 bottles of French wine which were almost as good as the €3 and €4 wine that I can get in Spanish grocery stores. That may not seem like a terrific bargain, but he also recommended two restaurants. Those recommendations made the wine a very good deal, indeed.
The next evening we went to Les Trois Frères, which was a ten minute walk from the Kube Hotel. It was decorated with bicycles and seemed more like a bar than a restaurant. Its menu was on a chalk board, hanging on a wall behind our table.
I know what you are thinking. You are looking at those prices and thinking, “Dan, you surely did not go to a restaurant where the entrees cost €74!” You are right. I surely did not. Apparently the French like to write their “1’s” with a big crossbar, like they are about to play “hangman.” They signify a “7” by putting a slash through the upright.
The French are a very fancy people.
I had the filet mignon de porc, which is like a pork ternderloin, but more posh. Denise opted for the parmentier de canard ala patate douce and salade verte, which is duck with sweet potatoes and green salad.
Notice that we snapped this picture of our food before taking a bite. You cannot even begin to imagine the iron will it took to delay eating. Lesser people could not have done it.
The next night we went to the vintner’s second recommendation, Le Normandie, also about a ten minute walk from our hotel, but in another direction. We had a reservation and were the evening’s first patrons, so we scored a table by a large bay window. I can’t say the view was particularly impressive, but it was cozy.
Le Normandie frequently changes its menu. On this particular evening we were given a choice of three appetizers and two entrees.
For our appetizer we chose the soft boiled egg, roast leeks and creamy chorizo. I would show you a picture, but we started eating before I thought about the art. There is nothing attractive about food topped with a soft boiled egg after the yolk is broken. Take my word for it. The appetizer was pretty. And delicious.
Here are the main courses.
Had we more time, we might have eaten at Georges, a restaurant at Pompidou Center’s rooftop. Apparently it offers a great view of the Eiffel Tower, and the rest of Paris. The waiters wear uniforms and the fish costs over €50. There is something attractive about such elegant pretension. But I know one thing for sure.
The food there would not have been more delicious than what we found in the bistros of our working class neighborhood.
