Sometimes you receive emails from your Mother when you live abroad. Sometimes these emails include pictures of baby polar bears, anecdotes from your godmother, or simple messages like “call me”. Sometimes they read “so and so from church mentioned her granddaughter just moved to Paris and doesn’t know anyone. Would you mind…”. And so you end up at a wine bar across the table from a total stranger. Luckily, this has happened less often to me than to many expats I know, and the couple of times I have been set up on blind-friend-dates, by my Mother or otherwise, things have turned out for the better.
So Friday night, for the second time, I had dinner with the granddaughter of the nice lady from my parent’s church. We’d discovered, thanks to that black hole of time wasting, Facebook, that we were both pretty into food. This was a pleasant surprise, as the first time we’d met, I’d given a rendezvous at a pretty accessible (price and foodwise) wine bar a couple streets over, Le Siffleur des Ballons. Upon the discovery that new friend was more of an epicurean, we agreed on trying out the new Paul Bert establishment that everyone is instagramming. I called on Wednesday, and after a 30-second, terribly pleasant interaction, we had a reservation for Friday night.
I was seated a big ‘ole table d’hôte. The median age was roughly 60, until a family ( I repeat, a FAMILY) sat down at the end of the same table. I like the kind of parents who take their teenage children to a wine bar where multiple types of offal are served. Two couples sat on either side of me–the second couple looking particularly perturbed by the seating arrangements. I heard them speaking Italian, quietly, though surely unaware that I could eavesdrop, about their irritation with having to sit next to me. The man kept fiddling with my wine bucket. DON’T TOUCH MY WINE. But things got better when new friend arrived.
We quickly got down to business. Realizing that we would both eat anything, and that the prix-fixe was 3 dishes + dessert, we ordered 6 different things. There were scallops with radish and citrus, lotte with crispy ham (white & fishy), octopus with cabbage. For heavier options, lamb belly in broth (heavenly, possibly the best of the night), veal sweetbreads (another favorite), and raw foie gras with topinambour purée (sunchoke, or jerusalem artichoke to some). Everything was pretty darn good, but the latter three I would most definitely eat again. Everything was pretty light, or reasonably portioned–I suppose as one would expect in a wine bar, so we definitely did not feel on the urge of explosion at the end of the savory dishes.
Dessert was particularly wonderful–a tuile stuffed with lemon cream and a yoghurt semifreddo was refreshing, sour and dreamy. The bitter chocolate with pumpkin was tasty, though maybe not as memorable as the off-menu pumpkin dessert a friend had at Septime last year.
Basically, I like the place. And it’s nice to have dinner company who will literally try anything. A woman after my own heart. The only thing that turned me off was the sommelier. I’m not actually sure she was a sommelier. Normally when ordering wine from someone who is supposed to be the restaurant’s expert, I state that I like white–something dry and fruity, with a little bite. I give a reference, like riesling or quincy, and 9 times out of 10, the magically suggest something I don’t know, and usually I like it. The woman at Le 6 flipped through the menu, which she obviously wasn’t familiar with, and said ‘oh, well if you like riesling, we have a riesling…”. I ended up with Brin de Chèvre, a Touraine which was just fine, but I might as well have picked it blind.
After our long, and particularly pleasant dinner, we stopped by a friend’s housewarming around the corner. The world of expats is a forever tiny one. I met this girl through Couchsurfing years ago, but we already had one or two friends in common. She works with a girl who grew up on the island across the river from me in Maine. Basically, we’re all separated by one or two degrees. But to make the situation more ridiculous, the evening’s host got talking to my dinner partner. Turns out new friend occupies the same apartment in the 17th where the host had lived for several years with an ex. Petit monde, indeed.
Also, would somebody please make a light fixture like this for me ? Thank you kindly!
Le 6 Paul Bert
6, Rue Paul Bert
75012
01 43 79 14 32