Back (sigh) from our Paris - Barcelona - Paris 3 week trip, so time for some meal reports:
Jeanne-Aimée
This was our first meal back in Paris post pandemic-shutdowns . Each person chooses four or five courses total from the menu. Other than the desserts, we pretty much tried one of everything on the menu that night.
The amuse was tempura-ed broccoli in an Asian sauce - nice.
The first courses were without question the best.
A red pepper sorbet with zucchini and cucumber blend - like gazpacho but wonderful texture contrasts. Fantastic, and a prime reason we go to great restaurants:
Cepes with coco de Paimpol beans (which seem to be ubiquitous in Paris now). Also really good.
Eggplant with crisp onions in a sesame/shiso sauce:
The 2nd courses were less successful.
“Mochi” dumplings with onion and seaweed, and mushroom agnolotti. Both just ok
The dish on the menu I was most looking forward to was the oysters with Camembert cream, but IMO it didn’t “work”. It was the rare dish in Paris where the sum was not greater but actually lesser than the parts.
The fish course was smoked trout in a miso sauce. It would have been much better as an appetizer to share among 2 or 3, rather than a main as we’d assumed it would be.
The other “main” was chicken with corn foam. Very good.
We skipped dessert, but I did have some cheese to finish. It was a Morbier with berry jam and mustard seed accompaniments. I usually prefer my cheese plain, but the accompaniments combined here turned an ordinary cheese into a much more satisfying experience.
At 52E for 4 courses, 62E for 5 I thought it was an an excellent value, and we’ll probably return. Overall, thought the food very good, but as another HO poster commented, after the first courses, it went a bit downhill and certainly nothing else “wow-ed”.
The next day lunch was a return to Montée. While nothing there was a “wow”, either, at 55E it’s another excellent value. I already posted that report here:
Dinner that night was at Huguette. I decided I’ll write up all my oyster meals in a single separate post.
Lunch the next day was Breizh Café. This is one of my wife’s favorites. Very good and pretty much as I remembered it. Nice to have a sit down meal that cost no more than upscale fast food to go does now here in CA. Plus, we love the Breton caramels they bring with l’addition.
Virtus
Dinner was the 7 course tasting menu.
The amuses were a very good goat cheese tart plus roe on a puffed cracker
The first course was an amberjack crudo with a lemon thyme sauce
Next was artichokes and cepe. The mushroom was the star, but this dish didn’t feel innovative at all.
Next came grilled lobster with chanterelles and a nice vin jaune sauce
Next was sea bass with haricots vert and more cocos. Tasty but not innovative
The meat course was a spectacular roasted, lightly smoked filet of veal with a sweet onion and potato accompaniment that I will remember for a long time.
Dishes like that are a big part of why I am a foodie.
The first dessert was a refreshing lemon ice/sabayon in a hollowed out half lemon. The second was plums with a delicious ice cream.
The mignardises to finish were unremarkable.
I thought our Virtus meal was the opposite of Jeannne-Aimée: not the strongest start but kept getting better all the way through to the meat course. And while only the veal was a “wow”, the experience was very enjoyable, and we will definitely return.
Mordu
Lunch the next day was Mordu. Entree/plat/dessert for 40E
Appetizers were a chicken and mushroom ravioli, and a gazpacho and sea bream tartare. The cold tomato at bottom helped make the dish. For France, a surprising amount of garlic in the dish
My wife’s main was a red mullet which she didn’t like at all, but I thought was ok. The tempuraed sweet potato accompaniment was really nice. I had duck breast with beets. Just good (by trip’s end we definitely tired of all the beets chefs are using this fall).
The desserts were better: a chocolate ganache with a mint cream sauce, and a financier with rum ice cream and figs
Overall, it was fine, but except for the desserts nothing noteworthy. We’re unlikely to return.
More soon.