Manger -- Restaurant Review

Manger
24, Rue Keller

75011 Paris

Tel/Fax: 01-43-38-69-15

Website:manger-leresto.com

Rating Standards: 5-Stars = Extraordinary; 4-Stars = Excellent; 3-Stars = Average; 2-Stars = Fair; 1-Star = Poor

€ = Inexpensive: 30€ and under; €€ = Moderate: 31€-49€; €€€ = Expensive: €50 -75; €€€€ = Very Expensive: more than €76 (prices based on minimum 2-courses)

1-Bell = Pleasantly quiet (less than 65 decibels); 2-Bells = Can talk easily (65-70); 3-Bells = Talking normally gets difficult (70-75); 4-Bells = Can talk only in raised voices (75-80); BOMB = Too noisy for normal conversation (80+)

  2 - Star...............................................................€€.............................................................1 - Bell

-->

We went to a new restaurant called, “Manger” in the 11eme. It’s only been open for a little more than 3-months.  As we first walked in, I was impressed. Whoever designed this restaurant needs to get an award.  There is a terrace and right behind the terrace is the bar, which I think is strategically and functionally located.  As you walk further in, you’ll notice there are 3-major focal points in the restaurant.  To your left is the dessert station, with the dessert of the day prominently displayed.   

Towards the center is a gigantic sun roof with one of the largest skylights I’ve ever seen. It’s beautifully arranged with banquette seating, and to the right is the open kitchen.  It is very modern, sleek, beautifully designed, and well thought out, we were quite impressed.  And, to make it even more attractive it is air-conditioned. That’s a major plus in Paris.

Now onto the food.  There is a lunch pre-fix menu. For 2-courses it was 25€, for the entrée, plat and dessert it’s 34€. And, they had the daily specials, which on this particular day was a tomato salad entrée and duck plat.  

ENTRÉE:

Three of us got the “Heirloom tomato salad with chevre”.  OK, how difficult can it be to slap on some tomatoes, cream the chèvre and add a light vinaigrette.  While the tomatoes were delicious, it was truly a very dull, boring, uninspiring plate that my 10-year old niece could’ve put together.  The chèvre had very little flavor.  So, this entrée did not wow us at all.

One person had the “Tartare de Maigre” marinated in ginger, soy sauce and a spicy oil. This was the only hit of the day. We all loved this dish, the freshness of the fish with the ginger. In most Asian cuisines, ginger is used to cut out the fishiness of the fish. But they did to basically add a nice flavor.

Rather than ordering a plat one person ordered one additional entrée, which was the “Gaspacho d'Amande douche, compote de pêche blanche, huile de citronnelle”. The taste took me by surprise, and not in a good way. Since I didn’t see the menu, I had assumed it was regular gazpacho. So, I tasted it without knowing what was in it, and my first thought was, cold milk. That’s all I tasted  At first I thought it was coconut milk, since it had a nutty flavor, but it turned out to be almond milk. I really despised this dish. There was no peach that I tasted, and no citronelle, it was like they literally poured chilled cold milk in a bowl and called it a day.

Also, even by Parisian standards service was painfully slow, it took at least more than half an hour if not more to get our main dishes. In fact, one of our companions had to remind our wait person.  They're all very nice, but their timing is really off.

PLATS:

Two of us ordered “canard laquée”  lacquered duck. It was the thigh and leg. It looked pretty enough, and was even blackened.  So I was really excited to taste it. As I bit into it my first thought was not only was it blackened, it was burnt salty soy sauce.  The soy sauce was reduced so much, especially on the skin, that it actually had a very, very salty burnt bitter taste. In fact, one of our friends could not finish the dish because of the saltiness. I was able to finish it since I did not eat the skin, but even the meat alone made me thirsty for the next several hours. It tasted like a very salty bad imitation of  "Adobo" .  

 It was accompanied with fried rice that any Asian housewife can make blind folded. It’s basically fried rice with oyster sauce, cubed eggs, chicken, baby shrimp and peas, very standard. Maybe exciting for non-Asians, but for me it was home cooking. It was the only part of the course I liked, since it was comfort food.

One person had the “Curry rouge de cabillaud, Julienne de papaya, citronella riz vénéré.”  Red curried fish with papaya and lemon grass served with wild rice. Oh my God, this dish was horrible!  It had such potential since the fish was cooked perfectly.  However, there was no red curry to speak of. The fish was floating in a sea of light creamy sugar that I detested. If you’re going to say it’s curry, then dammit add curry. It was so overwhelming sweet it distracted from the fish.  It definitely could’ve used some fish sauce and some citrus such as lime.  And since when does a red curry dish have no red color?

DESSERTS:

We had the tart of the day, which was a tart topped with cherries, lychees, raspberries and strawberries.  The group unanimously said it was just that. Not inspiring, boring save for the fresh fruit.

Then we ordered the Cherry Clafoutis. Again, it was just that, boring and uninspiring.

And, I had the cheese plate, which I liked. As I always say, you can never go wrong with cheese in France.

SUMMARY:

I wanted so much to like this restaurant, because it’s so beautiful, and it’s air-conditioned.  It is what it is. It’s the French trying to do an Asian fusion restaurant that went wrong. Where they missed was on some key taste elements.  They exaggerated a lot of the ingredients to the point it became inedible or did not put emphasis on a key taste element, e.g., reduced soy sauce on duck, or sweet, tasteless red curry.  If you’re going to do Asian-fusion, than add some stronger flavors and watch the salt. Since a lot of Asian cooking does use soy sauce or fish sauce, if not used properly it can really be a sorry state of affairs. It will probably be a hit with the French, but for Asians and more seasoned eaters, this just “ain’t gonna cut it.”

It’s only been open for 3-months, and maybe they’re still trying to find that key “balance” especially with the flavoring. Good luck to them, but I probably won’t go back until after a year of getting their “footing”.

With a 2-bottles of Premiere Vandage, 3-coffees, and a Coke, to add insult to injury for a mediocre lunch, our bill came to 188.50€ for 4-people, which is quite expensive for lunch!

L'Ami Jean -- Restaurant Review

L'AMI JEAN 

27 Rue Mallar

75007 Paris

Website:http://www.lamijean.fr

tel: 01 47 05 86 89

Lunch
from noon to 2.30 p.m.
Diner
from 7 p.m. to midnight

Always Open

Rating Standards: 5-Stars = Extraordinary; 4-Stars = Excellent; 3-Stars = Average; 2-Stars = Fair; 1-Star = Poor

€ = Inexpensive: 30€ and under; €€ = Moderate: 31€-49€; €€€ = Expensive: €50 -75; €€€€ = Very Expensive: more than €76 (prices based on minimum 2-courses)

1-Bell = Pleasantly quiet (less than 65 decibels); 2-Bells = Can talk easily (65-70); 3-Bells = Talking normally gets difficult (70-75); 4-Bells = Can talk only in raised voices (75-80); BOMB = Too noisy for normal conversation (80+)

  3.5 - Star.............................................................€€€...........................................................3 - Bell

 

This restaurant has been around awhile; it’s always been very popular with locals and tourists. I have a friend who lives in the 7eme (Little America), so I asked him if he wanted to join me for lunch.

 

We got there at 1 pm and it was about two thirds full and we got a table next to the kitchen, which is open for viewing. I now know why it was open; the Chef Stephane Jego is quite the character. He’s like a one man show, sometimes funny, sometimes very “Gordon Ramsey” going off on his sous Chefs and helpers.  When he needed to sneeze, he’d sneezed louder than anyone I’ve ever known. So, I guess in a nutshell, he’s quite eccentric. Actually, he looks like he’s crazed. But one thing I can say, he’s a hands-on Chef, I don’t believe any plate left the kitchen without his final touch.

There are two pre-fix lunch menus, one for 35€ and another for 42€. We chose the 42€, it looked much more interesting.

 ENTRÉES:

For our entrée my friend had the “Tartine de - tante - coquine… Jardinier de saumon” whichliterally translates to “Aunt’s naughty tart of gardener salmon”.  I have to say, I tasted this dish and it was delicious. It had a salmon atop a nice crunchy crust and the citrusy flavors just enhanced the oiliness of the salmon. This dish was definitely a winner.

I had the “Fondue de veau de tête… Navet Boulangère en gratiné", translated to Fondue of veal’s head with the baker’s turnip gratiné.  Interestingly enough, it was served in a square plexi-glass with a bowl molded into it. My friend really liked the dish, I thought it was good, but what was a little disconcerting I bit into some tiny inedible cartilage, but the overall taste was OK, but it did not wow me like the salmon.

 PLATS:

My friend had the “Volaille de sélection… Pochée, rôtie, ail et thym” which translates to “Selected poached chicken, with roasted garlic and thyme.”  The chicken was poached really well, and the surrounding girolles (chantrelle mushrooms) were to die for. And, they gave an extra bowl of the girolles, which we shared, in addition to mashed potatoes.

I had the “Cocotte de boeuf de race…., Girolles mitonnées” translated to Beef casserole with simmered chanterelles”.  When it first arrived in came in a bowl with what looked like a dollop of herbed butter.  Then the cocotte came and it was in a very, very hot casserole. The waitperson later spooned the cocotte into the bowl. I have to say, in addition to the salmon, this was equally my favorite dish. I know the beef was simmered in wine, but it almost had a taste of anise. I wanted to ask the Chef if he used pastis (French anise flavor liquor); whatever it was, it made it even more delicious.  The portion was huge; fortunately my friend helped me eat it.

 

 DESSERTS:

For dessert, I had cheese with some jam. As I mentioned in previous blogs, you cannot go wrong with cheese in France.

 

My friend had the “Clinique du bonheur en forệt noire”, translated to Happiness Clinic in the black forest”.  It was really rich. It was the Chef’s interpretation of a Black forest cake, with lots of whip cream. It was a pretty large portion. My friend loved it, but did say it was a bit too much (portion). Interestingly, we got what look like a Chinese take out box filled with macaroons shaped like gigantic “kisses candies”, that was a nice touch.

SUMMARY:

It’s a small restaurant, extremely hectic and frantic, at times the busyness felt unnerving. The Chef doesn’t care what you hear or see in the kitchen, it can be a good sign, but at the same time annoying, since I didn’t come to watch an episode of Gordon Ramsey. The service is fast and efficient, lots of activity and running around, I felt like I was in a “Mash” unit, only the patient is the food. And, for this reason I rated them a little lower than I would normally.

Regardless, the food overall was very good. My two favorite dishes were the salmon and the cocotte. I think the 42€ pre-fix menu was a bit pricey.  Net-net go for the food, not the ambience, and definitely NOT for a quiet romantic dinner or just to even have a conversation. It’s very noisy and frenetic.

With a glass of wine, a bottle of their filtered water, which by the way I thought was free but was 5€ our bill came to 97€.

Le Florimond -- Restaurant Review

Le Florimond
19, av. de la Motte-Picquet

75007 Paris

Tel/Fax: 01-45-55-40-38

Website: wwwleflorimond.com

Fermé Samedi et Lundi midi, dimanche et les 1er et 3e samedis du mois

Rating Standards: 5-Stars = Extraordinary; 4-Stars = Excellent; 3-Stars = Average; 2-Stars = Fair; 1-Star = Poor

€ = Inexpensive: 30€ and under; €€ = Moderate: 31€-49€; €€€ = Expensive: €50 -75; €€€€ = Very Expensive: more than €76 (prices based on minimum 2-courses)

1-Bell = Pleasantly quiet (less than 65 decibels); 2-Bells = Can talk easily (65-70); 3-Bells = Talking normally gets difficult (70-75); 4-Bells = Can talk only in raised voices (75-80); BOMB = Too noisy for normal conversation (80+)

  2.5 - Star...............................................................€€.............................................................3 - Bell

 

We wanted to take our good friend out to dinner for her birthday. Because she works, and had to get up early the next day she requested that we stay in her neighborhood.  We’re not familiar with the 6eme or 7eme otherwise known as “Little America” since the majority of the people there are either American/English speaking expats or visitors staying there.  JJ researched and found “Le Florimond”; it had great reviews from several sources and even had the endorsement of Rick Steves, which to me is not always good, I’ll explain later.

The restaurant is really cute, small but quaint. And, the staff couldn’t be nicer.  We got seated while we waited for our friend and I noticed that 90% of the patrons were foreign and mostly American. I suppose not unusual for the 7eme arrondissement.

They had a board with today's suggestions and they have a prefix menu of 35€, which included an entrée, plat, and dessert.

Once our friend arrived, we both ordered a coupe de champagne to hit off the celebration and JJ ordered a pastis for our apéros.  

Entrée:

We all started with the “salad d'épinards, pickles d' asperges et radis au vinaigre de pommes” loosely translated, a spinach salad with pickled asparagus and radishes with apple vinegar.  It looked fine when it was served, but there was literally no taste. It was bland, plus extremely oily. I noticed our birthday celebrant kept sprinkling salt on her salad and so did I.  For me, it was primarily to cut back on the oiliness and blandness.  So not a good start.

Plat:

For our plat, our birthday celebrant ordered the “Confit de cuisse de canard et Corrèze, pommes de terre miettes” loosely translated, confit of duck with potatoes.  The first thing that caught my eye was the presentation, or lack of. The potatoes looked like hash browns and the confit looked dry and overcooked and the salad just seemed misplaced. They really could’ve plated it much better.  And, according to our birthday celebrant, the looks matched the taste.

I had the fish of the day, which was the “turbot”. I have to say the fish was cooked perfectly and tasted really good, after I salted it with sel de mer; the chantrelle mushrooms were good as well. It wasn’t the best I’ve ever had, but it was passable!

JJ had the “Chou Farci” translated to stuffed cabbage. It was cooked in a clay pot as would a boeuf bourginon.  I had a taste of it, and I liked it. It was nothing to scream about but it was a good, wholesome dish, just like they said, as Grandmother would make.

Dessert:

I had the cheeses, nice selection so really nothing to add there.  You can never really go wrong with cheeses in France, unless they serve it to you spoiled.

Our birthday celebrant had the “Millefeuille à la vanille bourbon”  loosely translated, puff pastry with a vanilla bourbon cream.  Well this gave a new meaning to size isn’t everything.  Our celebrant said that it was very bland and had absolutely no flavor. As the restaurant knew it was her birthday, they added a candle; a nice touch!

JJ had the “Molelleux au chocolat noir, coeur fondant au Gianduja, coulis de litchis”  loosely translated, chocolate fondant cake with coulis of litchis.  It wasn’t anything special, and it was somewhat overcooked. It was more cake than fondant, so not a big hit with JJ.

Summary:  It is a small restaurant, so the noise level got really high once it filled up.  It was very difficult to follow a conversation. The tourists seem very happy with the service and food. One thing I have to say, the service was impeccable. They’re friendly, observant and couldn’t be nicer; unfortunately, the food, not so.

Going back to my Rick Steve’s comment we jokingly said that once Rick Steve put his stamp of approval on a restaurant it’s as good as the “kiss of death” as the restaurant becomes filled with American tourists and the quality seems to fall.

I wanted so much to like this restaurant because the staff are so nice. Would I go back, probably not? I think I’ll leave this restaurant to the tourists.

For 3-people, we had 2-coupes de champagne, a pastis, a glass of chardonnay, a bottle of Malbec, and coffee our bill came to 173€.

 

Martin Berasategui -- Restaurant overview

Loidi Kalea, 4 - 20160 Lasarte-Oria (Gipuzkoa)
Lat. 43.2668 / Lon. -2.0155
Tel. (+34) 943 366 471 / (+34) 943 361 599
Fax: (+34) 943 366 107 info@martinberasategui.com

Rating Standards: 5-Stars = Extraordinary; 4-Stars = Excellent; 3-Stars = Average; 2-Stars = Fair; 1-Star = Poor

€ = Inexpensive: 30€ and under; €€ = Moderate: 31€-49€; €€€ = Expensive: €50 -75; €€€€ = Very Expensive: more than €76 (prices based on minimum 2-courses)

1-Bell = Pleasantly quiet (less than 65 decibels); 2-Bells = Can talk easily (65-70); 3-Bells = Talking normally gets difficult (70-75); 4-Bells = Can talk only in raised voices (75-80); BOMB = Too noisy for normal conversation (80+)

  5 - Star...............................................................€€€€.............................................................1 - Bell

It's not often that I go to 3-star Michelin restaurants, because of the costs; however, I've been fortunate to go to a few and had wonderful experiences and have also had experiences where I had to ask myself "what's all the fuss?" and how they hell did they get their stars?

It was a special occasion, my partner's birthday so we decided to celebrate big with our friends who live in the San Sebastian, Spain area part-time and had been to this restaurant and highly recommended it.

We arrived for lunch at the restaurant during a rainstorm.  As we approached the building from the parking across the street, several waiters ran out with umbrellas to ensure we arrived relatively dry.  A nice greeting!

With that said, as you enter, you'll first be greeted with a beautiful display of flowers, very simple but very elegant and understated beauty.

As you enter you'll notice that it's quite spacious. Tables are far apart and you definitely have a sense of being with your party and not having to listen to everyone else's conversations. My guess they could seat 45-50 people.

I had to laugh, because the staff, all men surprisingly, dressed like the CIA, except they served with white gloves.

I did notice that many patrons did not overdress, in fact some came in jeans and a nice shirt, which made it very comfortable for me and it wasn't so stuffy that you always had to be concerned about laughing too hard or just not being formal enough.

We all decided ahead of time that we would get the tasting menu which consisted of 13-courses, yep 13!  It wasn't cheap at 185€ ($241) per person not including libations. Three of us started with their local "cava" champagne, and my partner had a Pastis aperitif.

So, onto our eating frenzy.  Normally I would critique each dish, but I have to say there was nothing to critique, each dish was punched with flavors, each distinct from one another. And, the descriptions by themselves are so beautifully descriptive, no explanation is really needed.  So, rather I would just like to detail what we had:

Entrees

Mille-feuille of smoked eel, foie-gras spring onions and green apples.

Squid soup, creamy squid ink ravioli served with squid crouton.

Another variation of the squid soup. with ink broth.

Main dishes "Plats"

We started with Oysters with cucumber, kafir and coconut.

Sauteed black garlic (fruit garlic) with beet ceviche, ice radish and raifort (horseradish) cream.

Little pearls of raw fennel, risotto and emulsion.

Roast foie gras with seaweed resting on horseradish curd, fermented soy broth and hazelnut salt

"Corrotxategi" -- egg resting on a herb liquid salad and dewlap carpaccio.

Warm vegetable hearts salad with seafood, cream of lettuce and iodized juice.

Red Mullet with edible scale crystals soybean sprouts, wheat semolina and cuttlefish.

Roast pigeon and onion with Iberian Pig's snout, ginger juice and caper.

Desserts

Blood-orange ice cream and slush over liquefied tubers, muscovado sugar, yogurt and pepper.

Mist of coffee and cacao over banana with whiskey sorbet and slush.












Finally a tower of little petit fours and some digestives, for me a local apple brandy akin to calvados.

Since we had mentioned it was Jack's birthday, the restaurant presented him with a plate, personally written by the Chef, noting the occasion, for him to keep as a remembrance of this experience.

 Summary

I have to say Chef Martin is an artist! My hat off to him, or as they say in French "Chapeau!"

What I loved about this restaurant is that, although it's a 3-Michelin restaurant, you felt comfortable. No doubt the formality existed with the staff, but they were friendly and not snooty as in some places I've been to. I've been told that many aspiring wait-staff are trained here in the art of serving.  The kitchen was amazing. They had an army of people to create the Chef's food vision.

It was by no means cheap, but worth every single Euro. With apéros, 2-bottles of wine Ossian 2010 red and one white, with accompanying digestives, our total bill came to 1,100€ ($1,400) for 4-people.

It was a wonderful experience, would I go again, most definitely, after I save up for it.  Thank you Bill and Fermin for recommending this wonderful restaurant! If you go in the summer (and it is not raining!), ask to be seated on the balcony, you'll have a wonderful view of the surrounding mountains.