Thirty Minutes

A few days in London

We caught the Eurostar from Paris to London and arrived on Saturday 12th May.  We said a sad goodbye to C & JR as they were staying with friends at Richmond, whilst we were to stay with my cousin L in Fulham.

After unpacking and a decent cup of tea, we went for a walk along the Thames to Hammersmith, where we had a drink at a pub on the waterside, before returning home.

Dinner that night at Odette's.  We had been tempted to try this by this review on London Eater. This review is so good and has such lovely photos I can hardly better it.  We had similar entrees, although we didn't have the degustation.  I had the duck egg with truffle, and J had the pigs head and black pudding terrine, and both of these were exactly as KL describes them on his blog.  Very very tasty.

We had some different dishes as we weren't having the tasting menu.  These were:

Organic Salmon with sprouting broccoli and pea puree

Sprouting broccoli, blue cheese gnocchi, walnut pesto

Braised Welsh beef, mashed potato, glazed shallot, parsley salad

Lemon sole, charred leek, brandade & grapes

They were all delicious, though JG said the lemon sole was a little overwhelmed by the sauce.

Desserts were:

rhubarb in mango soup with honeycomb - it was sensational, not too sweet despite the collection of flavours, refreshing, interesting

Warm chocolate cake, banana, caramel ice cream

Blackberry soufflé & vanilla ice cream

All delicious, if rather conservative.  L and JG live in Fulham, and Odette's is in Primrose Hill, clear across London for them.  They said that whilst the food was very good, there were many good ones also between Fulham and Primrose Hill.  They'd be back if in the area.  As for me, I'd try it again on my next visit to London.

The next day we raced into the city and went to the Turner and Claude exhibition at The National Gallery.  This exhibition shows how Turner was influenced by the French painter Claude, and it's amazing how many works they have in common, for example Claude's Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba inspired Turner's Dido Building Carthage, although Keelmen Heaving in Coals by Night is completely Turner's own, and shows a grip on reality painting that Claude doesn't seem to have.  Since we love Turner it was all good, and I have long been a fan of Claude's landscapes with their depth and fantastical imagination.  Here's a link to some photos of the paintings in the exhibition.

We went back to Fulham to prepare my Slow Cooked Greek lamb for JG's birthday dinner.  Which was lovely and we had some great wine and prosecco and conversation and tumbled into bed.

Next morning we got up early and caught the train to Oxford! Next post....

A week in Paris - Restaurant Semilla

This restaurant more than deserves a post of its very own.

One lunchtime C and JR were out walking in Rue de Seine and they saw a queue up the street.  'Ahah', they said, 'this place must be good so we will come back and try it at night.'  So that night, which was straight after we had listened to Vivaldi in Sainte-Chappelle, we wandered back to Rue de Seine and went to the cafe.  It was called Cosi.  And it was a sandwich place.  Oh dear.  We wondered what to do....

Across the road was a restaurant called La Boissonnerie in all its Art Deco glory

(actually it is known as Fish ;-) )

We walked back up the street towards St Germain and passed a doorway with no sign but which was obviously a restaurant.  A menu was taped to the glass window. It looked pretty good and one interesting fact was that you could have most of the meals as small or large portions.  So in we went.  It was called Semilla, and is of the new breed of tapas restaurants, where you can order meals to share or eat one all to yourself.

We were asked if we had a reservation, to which we replied No, but they said no matter and led us towards the back of the restaurant up a small step.  We passed the small but busy kitchen on our way.

The menu was really interesting.  This is what we had that first visit (because of course we went back a second time!)

Here is the interior showing the minimalist but lovely decor; note the growing seed on the wall (semilla means 'seed' in Spanish).

House smoked salmon - lightly cured with horseradish, creme fraiche

Risotto with squid and basil leaves

Somehow I missed taking a photo of J's entree which was parsnip soup, small size.  He said of it: 'I hate parsnips and somehow didn't connect the ''soup'' with parsnips.  However, one mouthful and I was a convert.  Amazingly wonderful.'

Dorade (sea bream) with tarragon and salad leaves

pork spareribs with caramelised sweet potato and confit garlic

Monkfish wrapped in pancetta en brochette, with quinoa

I forgot to take a photo of JR's dessert, which he pronounced fabulous - figs poached in armagnac with goats milk ice cream.  Mine was the strawberry biscuit with lemon cream

Our waitress was a lovely young lady from Detroit, who spoke brilliant English and French.  She said she loved working here because she got to try all the new dishes. When we remarked on how amazing the dishes were, and with how much care and thought they were cooked, she said that the chef was a Meilleur Ouvrier de France, Eric Trochon.  This means that he has been awarded a Master Worker certification and is entitled to wear the red white and blue around his neck for always, and will be a mentor to other chefs.  He won this award last year, in 2011.  Isn't this amazing that we just happened to luck onto this great cafe??!!  We went to the kitchen to thank them very much and he was there, so in halting French we were able to express our great appreciation.

Rue de Seine runs off Rue Saint Andre des Arts, and this is one of the most exciting and buzzy streets of Paris, at night and in the daytime, full of young people going for cocktails and snacks at the many bars and restaurants along it.  Many of the shops are open at night also, adding to the light and colour and noise!

We decided to take the whole crew back there for our last dinner in Paris.  We were at 2 separate tables, as there were 9 of us, but again the food was splendiferous.

Veal stew with peas

Dorade with tarragon and salad leaves

Risotto with squid, mushrooms and basil

J had a classic rare steak.  For dessert, I again had the strawberry biscuit, and J had the soup of Aloe Vera - it was sensational!!  A delicate cream scented with Aloe Vera and with passionfruit and pomegranate seeds, pineapple, mango; a most amazing and creative dish.  He loved it, needless to say!!

 

The restaurant, as well as Cosi, Fish and a wine bar called La Dernière Goutte, is owned by American Juan Sanchez and New Zealander Drew Harré.  Read Patricia Wells' review here.

Don't miss it on your trip to Paris.

Postscript: I found another good review here, at Lost in Cheeseland.

 Semilla
54 rue de Seine, 75006
+33 (0)1.43.54.34.50
Métro: Odéon, Mabillon
Open daily; lunch (fixed menu), snack, dinner

 

 

A week in Paris - Concert in Sainte-Chappelle

I had visited the chapel of Sainte-Chappelle on my first visit to Paris in 1982.  I had always remembered the beautiful stained glass there, and the small private chapel and the expanse of polished timber.  I was keen to see it again, as we had been put off on our 2008 visit by the huge crowds. 

This time we pelted back from our tour of L'Orangerie to make sure we were in the queue by the final admission time of 5.30. Only to be told that you have to be in the queue by 5 to make the 5.30 admission!  We turned away, disappointed, then saw posters for a concert in Sainte-Chappelle that night, Vivaldi's Four Seasons.  We turned back and were informed that we could buy tickets down the road at 6.15 and the doors would open at 6.30 for the 7pm concert!!

So we plumped ourselves down in a local cafe across the road and had a restorative glass while we waited for 6.15.

We bought our tickets and went in through the Palace of Justice.

What an amazing place to have a concert!! The light was still bright, though not sunny, but strong enough to show up the glorious colours.

The back door, where we came in, and the beautiful rose window:

the windows above the organ loft

The chamber orchestra taking their places

The conductor and solo violinist and master of the chamber orchestra, Frédéric Moreau

The chamber orchestra he conducts, and plays with, is Les Violons de France.

This is a great way to get inside Sainte-Chappelle without queuing for hours, and you get to hear beautiful music!!  Though you can't see the small chapel unless you take the tour.  But something to remember for future visits. The cost of the concert was 30euros, and for that we got the hear Meditation of Thais, the Four Seasons and other lovely pieces, and sit in the chapel for an hour and a half!

 

 

A week in Paris - Montmartre

J and I visited Montmartre whilst in Paris.  Despite having been to Paris several times before, I had never visited Montmartre.  I have to say that it's a bit of a tourist trap; it would have been great to visit it in 1982 on my first trip to Paris, or in 1987 on my 2nd.  Because I am sure it would have been very different then.

Luckily for the locals, the touristy parts are pretty well defined, so I am sure the local inhabitants learn to avoid them and use the back streets as their own.  How would it be, I wondered, to have been born and lived in Montmartre when it was a bohemian artistic jazz quarter, and then have fame and a million tourists thrust upon it?

We caught the train to Abbesses and walked up the stairs.  We did see the lift on our right but ignored it in favour of the stairs. Hah!! Little did we know that Abbesses is one of the deep metro stations, 36metres underground. My legs were shaking by the time we reached the street!

So we walked to the funicular railway and caught it up the hill!! (Montmartre is built on the side of a steep hill!) (and of course it was raining....!)

At the top is Sacré-Coeur.

The terrace below has a wonderful view of Paris

and luckily one of those horizon maps which tell you what you can see!

We went into the church and listened to a group of nuns singing, which was lovely.  Not so lovely are the thousands of tourists who ignore the signs saying no photos, no talking, please respect the service taking place.  Sigh.

We went out and wandered around the main artists streets and square, but of course it was full of tourists and rather garish and it seemed to me, art directed at people with no taste.  I didn't take any photos.

However, there were streets like these two:

and we wandered down them and around the outside of the mostly tourist areas, keeping to the back streets, until we found a lovely cafe called Cafe Marcel which is in Avenue Junot, well off the beaten track.  We had a really nice lunch - a lamb curry for J and a salad nicoise for me.  It is a delightful space, as the review (under the link) shows.

We walked back to the train station, shopping along the way.  There wasn't much to keep us in Montmartre, sad to say.

 

 

A week in Paris - The Opéra de Paris

I visited the Opéra de Paris on a very warm day, and paid to look around inside.  What a marvellous building it is!! To me it encapsulates so much or Paris in a single building - totally over the top and yet breathtaking and unique.  Here are lots of photos ;-)

The outside of the building - note the gold statues!

The view up the staircase

The second floor and part of the ceiling

More of that...

They were setting up for a dinner - this must have been a special occasion as I am sure they usually don't use the hallways for a dining room.  What a lovely place to dine!

One of the ceiling roses:

We were very lucky that they were doing a stage lighting check, so we were able to see the interior all lit up.

This is the ceiling, by Marc Chagall (1964)

and here is the interior

The Opéra contains a library with copies of the music, libretto and choreographic scores as well as the plays performed here.

 

It is a lovely building, and worth a visit if you have never seen it before.

Plus it's across the road from Printemps!

 

 

A week in Paris - marvellous sights in Paris

Many many wonderful things to see in Paris, from street markets to shops selling wonderful food (see name of blog!!) flowers, wine, restaurants (a separate post on this!) churches, wonderful things!  Here is a selection!

Bastille Markets

 

 

and the flowers at this market!! So fresh and vibrant!! If you lived in Paris you'd be here every day that it was open!

and more food!

Pain de Sucre, a fabulous patisserie near the Pompidou Centre where we bought a take away lunch

The inside of St Eustache at Les Halles

Windows - a clothing store - look at all those sewing machines!! and a wine bar

Street art of a different kind

A week in Paris - Museums

As you can imagine, we visited quite a few galleries and museums.  Here's a selection.

Musée de Cluny

Or to give it its proper name, la Musée National du Moyen Âge (Museum of the Middle Ages).  The Bishops of Cluny were the bishops to the city of Paris in the Middle Ages, and this museum is housed in what was their Paris headquarters.  It is a really lovely building.  This was my 2nd visit, and now they have planted several gardens around the grounds, with only plants that would have existed in the Middle Ages.

The courtyard

This museum contains items of life in the middle ages, such as carved wooden seats

bits of old churches

tables, carved boxes, wall plaques, carved frescoes and capitals, the Roman bathhouse which is actually underneath the Cluny Abbey, lots of tapestries, rings, crowns and prie-dieu embossed with jewels and velvet, caskets to hold saints bones etc etc.

But the crowning glory of the museum is the collection known as La Dame à la Licorne, the Lady and the Unicorn.

Believed to have been made in the 15thCentury for a wedding, these 6 tapestries are thought to show that the Lady refuses earthly temptations and uses her mind for her sole desire.

Here she refuses to be swayed by Taste

Here she refuses to be swayed by beauty (Sight)

Here she refuses Touch (this image from the Cluny website as my photo is a bit dark)

Here she refuses Smell

Here, Sound

and the final tapestry, where she removes all the jeweled neckaces and rings she has worn in the previous scenes, For My Sole Desire

Of course, no-one knows whether this is the first or the last of the series.  They are beautifully coloured and richly adorned with details - monkeys, flowers, jewels, lapdogs, and of course the Unicorn.

One of my very favourite museums in Paris!

 L'Orangerie

This museum is situated in the west corner of the Tuileries gardens, orginally built to house orange trees.  It is now home to a collection of modern art, including works by Picasso, Renoir, Cezanne, Matisse, Modigliani and others.  And of course Claude Monet.  In his later years he worked with the architects to remodel the building to hold 4 of his Nymphéas - Waterlilies - which he had donated to the French people.

We took the English guided tour, and it is one and a half hours long.  Very tiring!!

We also visited the Musée Carnavelet, but that really needs a good reorganisation, though the gardens are lovely

It is the Museum of Paris, and there are rooms after rooms of paintings that have no guides so the non-Parisian is left to wonder what they are all about.  Sigh.

Buildings one cannot enter.... (without a legitimate purpose) 

The French National Archives

Hôtel de Sens (now a public library) and its garden, from the back

and from the front courtyard

(there is a side room which has occasional exhibitions, one can enter there!)

This building is one of only two civil buildings from the Middle Ages still standing in Paris (the other is the Hôtel de Cluny). Until 1622, Paris was a diocese that was dependent on the archdiocese of Sens in Burgundy, and when the archbishops of Sens came to Paris, they stayed in this hôtel, built between 1498 and 1507. One of the hôtel's most famous residents was Marguerite de Valois, whose life inspired Alexandre Dumas's 1845 novel La Reine Margot. (from the Frommers Guide)

 

A week in Paris - The Apartment

So we arrived in Paris from  Bordeaux around 3pm, and hopped in taxis to our apartment, in Rue Galande, in the 5th.  What an amazing place!!!  We had found it on the internet, here. It was absolutely beautiful, putting aside the fact that it isn't really suitable for 6 adults (it sleeps 6 but the bathrooms are behind the 2 bedrooms, making it problematic for more than 4 adults, we felt).

It is in a pretty quiet tiny street, 2 blocks from the Seine and Notre Dame!  One enters the apartment via the lift, which comes straight into the apartment via a code. One enters a room which runs the length of the apartment, with a kitchen tucked off to one side.  The double height room has windows that allow one to step out onto a tiny balcony and see the view

View from the balcony, at night

On the main floor there is a large bedroom with separate toilet and ensuite, and the upstairs mezzanine has a second large bedroom with ensuite, and a smaller bedroom.  There are 2 sitting rooms and an outside terrace.  This photo is looking at the terrace from the sitting area outside the 2nd large bedroom

Here is the view from the terrace

As you can see we are in a fantastic location.  Out of our doorway, into the little laneway, down to St Julien le Pauvre and across the Seine onto the Ile de la Cité.

 I hadn't stayed on the Right bank before, but we are so close the the shops and the quirky little streets and laneways of the Latin Quarter and St Germaine.  Great to explore!

 

To Paris

Before we left Bordeaux, J and I headed out to take in some last tourist spots and grab some last photos.

It was pretty early when we went out, and after yesterday's busy streets everything was quiet and empty.

We walked to a small church nearby, Eglise St Pierre,

and from there around to the waterfront, or riverfront,

and along to the Place des Quinconces, looking very calm and bourgeouis in the early morning light

then along to the public gardens

then breakfast in one of the cafes along the Cours de XXX juillet.  Back to the hotel to pack, into a taxi and off to the station.  We boarded to TGV to Paris and spent the next 5 hours in comfort, watching the countryside go by.

I've decided that there are many many posts around about Paris, one of the loveliest of cities, so mine will be the highlights of our week there, rather than a daily blow-by-blow (hey, of course some will be longer than others ;-) !!)

 

 

 

Dinner at Le Pressoir D'Argent, Bordeaux

One of the things we decided to do whilst we were in Bordeaux was to eat at a top restaurant.  Le Pressoir d'Argent is a 1 Michelin star restaurant in the town; it is recommended by Shannon Bennet in his Guide to France, and has many good reviews on Trip Advisor.  So we decided to eat there.

We arrived at 8 after a glass at Bar à Vin, see previous post.

The restaurant is on the 4th floor of the Regent Grand Hotel, in the Place de le Comedie.  It is a lovely, rich and very opulent space.  There were 8 of us, and we had a long table in the centre of the room, with a banquette on one side of the table acting as a room divider.  There is a lot of space between tables, so we never felt hemmed in or cramped.  Nor were we privy to the conversations of others.  The banquette was covered in purple velvet - there's a mark of opulence if ever I felt one!

We were offered a choice of champagne to start, and several chose the Moet Blanc de Blancs to start, though I chose Dom Perignon.  We had appetisers of macadamias (probably a delicacy to the french but not to us!), cheese twists and bread with oil.

We all chose the Discovery menu, a set menu of 6 courses with matching wines.  However, there was a special of the day, a baked turbot with 2 hollandaise sauces, and we asked if, as a table, we could swap the usual main (Roasted pigeon from the Arcachon bay and octopus - « Saint Germain » mousseline, forest mushrooms, tandoori flavour, bacon, red pepper coulis) for the turbot.  It was agreed that we could do this.

Before I start on the food I have to confess that I didn't take note of the wines we drank, except that they were all French and I recall that they we all perfectly matched to the food.  Each one complemented the food extremely well, so if you do eat here make sure you have the matching wines!

Aside - the restaurant name translates as the Lobster Press in english, and this is the specialty of the house.  A silver press is used to crush a lobster shell and bones, and the diners then eat the lobster as soup and many other courses based on their shellfish.  The table next to us was having this treat, so I was able to take a photo of the lobster press:

Back to the food.....

The first course arrived - « Cinderella » butternut squash cream soup.  Hidden in the foam was a perfectly cooked scallop, causing one diner to state that he had never had such a wonderful scallop before.

Second course - Poultry consommé and asian flavours - Duck foie gras confit, spices, pomelos, crunchy vegetable.  This was beautiful, the foie gras perfectly complemented by the asian soup and crisp vegetables around it.

Third course - Langoustines and sweetbread - Roasted and caramelized, citrus fruits, carrot, saffron and almond.  This course was also fabulous.  The langoustines were so sweet. I confess to only tasting the sweeetbread, as it's not a favourite of mine. The grapefruit perfectly complemented the sweet richness of the saffron foam and the carrot puree.  The leek was buttery and yielding.  An amazing assortment of flavours.

Fourth Course - Blue lobster from Brittany and caviar from Aquitaine - Watercress chlorophyll, «Gillardeau» oysters, lemon seasoning.  My least favourite course, because I don't like oysters.  The watercress was also flavoured with them.  The lobster and the caviar (here spherified on the watercress) were fabulous.

The fifth course was to have been the pigeon but, as mentioned, we swapped it for the turbot.  A large piece of this fish was bought to the table on a carving trolley, and carved in front of us. It was served with gnocchi, spinach and potato curls, and we were offered tomato bearnaise or oyster bearnaise, or both, to go with it. I chose the tomato bearnaise.  The fish was moist and well cooked, the sauce went very well with it.

Here is a photo of the dish before I added the sauce...

The next course was a palate cleanser, and I think it was a mango and passionfruit soup...

(As you can see, beautiful presentation of all the courses.)

The final course was dessert - Persian lemon biscuit - Ice-cream with saffron, tangy sensation, almond milk and vanilla foam.  It was absolutely sensational.  The lemon was at times sweet, at times tangy, at times bitter - a marvellous collection of flavours.  The ice cream and the macarons complemented each other beautifully, crunch and sweetness together.  A really fabulous dessert.

Some of the group had tea, and the tea trolley was rolled in. Each of these canisters contains a different type of tea:

We were also brought petit-fours, but we ate most of them before I could take a photo - Cannelés, fruit pastilles, sponge bites with cream and chocolate, macarons

 

We left very full and very satisfied.

The ladies were given a lovely ribboned box to take home - it contained 3 mini-cannelés in individual compartments (a nice snack for the train the next day).

The service was excellent, attentive  without being intrusive.  The space is lovely, and the theatre of the restaurant well worth a visit, and the food is very very good. Definitely worth the money (about 120 euros a head).