10, place Edouard VII, 75009
Luna di Miele - 0 stars
49, passage Choiseul, 75002
Wadja - 3 stars
10, rue de la Grande-Chaumiere, 75006
Tresor du Kashmir - 0 stars
rue de la Michodiere, 75002
Santi - 1 star
49, rue Montorgueil, 75002
Regular readers of this blog (of which there may be one or two) know about my complex relationship with the city of Paris. I was just there for six days, and this time I was determined not to repeat the usual tour of my favorite places to eat, and in fact I succeeded in not visiting Denfert, or going to any Left Bank patisseries.
However, my company's new Paris office is actually just two blocks from the old Bibliotheque Nationale (BN), or national library, which is where I spent most weekdays back when I lived in Paris thirteen years ago. so the trip was not without its share of nostalgia. The first night I was there I ate with my friend Alex at the same Italian restaurant in the northwest corner of the funny little road that surrounds the Palais Royal gardens where I used to eat with my old friend Peter. (Back then Peter was a love-struck graduate student in German history who lived in Paris to be with his French girlfriend; now he's a tenured professor at Harvard.) I had a pizza with capers and anchovies, which was quite good, the crust nicely blackened the way I like it. And just before I left the city we went to the Cafe San Jose on the rue des Petits Champs, just around the corner from both the office and the BN, and it was just as crowded and friendly as ever.
In between, though, I had two of the nicer days I've had in Paris in a long time. On Saturday I got together with Jay (then: impoverished graduate student like the rest of us; now: MacArthur fellowship-winning professor of French medieval history) to drink kirs in his rented 17th-century apartment on the Ile St. Louis, see an old Fritz Lang movie in Action Ecoles in the 5th, drink French beer at a cafe in the 6th, and eat a very nice dinner (and drink a bottle of wine) at Wadja. I had a somewhat overbearing sardine tarte, a wonderful filet of bar (I always forget how to translate names of fish), and what did I have for dessert again? Anyway, it was great. And the best part (ok, maybe not the best part) was being able to pay the 120+ euro bill (we split it) without blinking. (For those from my company reading, I didn't expense it.) Who says money can't buy happiness?
On Sunday, I took my friends Alex and Sigrid (newcomers who are staying in Paris for six months) around the city with the general mandate of avoiding major tourist sites (minor tourist sites were ok). The undisputed high point of my entire trip, surpassing even the pilgrimage to Berthillon, was lying on one of the hills of the Buttes-Chaumont on a perfect day (completely sunny, temperature around 70) and watching the unbelievably cute Parisian dogs playing with (bothering) their people. ("Come on, let's play! Oh, you have food? I need some food. Why don't you give me some food? OK, I'll go over here and ask these nice people. Hey! Why did you put that leash on? I don't want to lie down! OK, I'll lie down ...") So maybe you don't need money to be happy.
Overall the food probably wasn't up to my usual Parisian standards. It included several mediocre croissants from the bakeries between my hotel and the office (which, of course, are still better than any croissant you can buy in the US), a few trips to passable lunch spots near the office that cater to business people (at one of which they microwaved the pesto before our eyes before spooning it on the pasta), a two-hour "business lunch" (preceded by a five-minute meeting) at the Cafe Guitry with a partner of ours (tarte pissaladiere and marmite de poisons, both decent), a so-so Indian restaurant near the office, a nice, modern lunch place on the rue Montorgeuil, and a sushi place near the hotel that would go out of business in San Francisco in a matter of weeks. But in the end I think what I like the most about being in Paris - or any other foreign city where I've lived - is the feeling of actually living there, and doing the ordinary things that people who live there do. And this time, commuting to the office each morning, going to a movie, and lying in the grass of the Buttes Chaumont, I had more of that feeling than I have since 1994.
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