Aux Lyonnais

This was spectacular. Well worth the extra effort to find a brasserie that focused on its French clientele rather than the tourist crowd. I identified it when reading a SMH review that mentioned the trend of high-end chefs opening more accessible and reasonably priced bistros and referred to the bistros of Alain Ducasse in Paris. There are two - Benoit and Aux Lyonnais. We chose Aux Lyonnais and found ourselves confronted with a French only menu specialising in the cuisine of Lyon (and a helpful waitress as some of the specific food items stretched my French vocab) and surrounded by Parisians. (I note that Benoit had a write up in the Eurostar magazine, but still think it would be worth a shot next time)

The atmosphere and the venue were superb. Once again, Le Gourmand was confronted by the menu. I jealously suggested that he try the charcuterie plate (Bruce dictated that I could not) but he dismissed this as too pedestrian (seeing it arrive at someone else's table, I assure you, it was not) and, despite his wariness of our fungal friends, ordered the morel omelette for entree. I am not a huge omelette fan but from the taste I had, it was superb and Le Gourmand was exceptionally pleased with his choice. Meanwhile I consumed les ravioles de Romans - an excellent plate of subtle, delicate cheese filled raviolini in a subtle parsley sauce. Parsley was to be a theme of my meal.

The greater struggle was with mains. Le Gourmand quickly realised that there was very little on the menu that met with his exacting tastes and he would need to be brave. He rose to the occasion and ordered the Boudin Noir - something I would never advise him to do outside of a French restaurant. Again I was jealous, the warnings about liver in pregnancy had left me wary of any offal (and I was not inclined to whip out the Blackberry to check if blood sausage was OK) and there seemed to be one reason or another why the other selections were problematic. Blindly I chose the écrevisses en persillade, a little wary of two parsley dishes in quick succession and expecting a smallish meal of crayfish meat, but not wanting to complain as Le Gourmand was manning up.

What followed was the best food of the trip. Le Gourmand adored the superbly executed
boudin noir rissolé, pommes fruits rôties - the apple accompaniment perfectly balanced the rich blood sausage. I was surprised when my écrevisses arrived in a large shallow casserole, piping hot from the kitchen, accompanied by a finger bowl. The finger bowl was my nod and wink that I should get my hands dirty and what followed was a forty-five minute marathon of extracting as much meat as possible from the vast quantity of halved crustaceans dripping in butter, garlic and parsley before me. My pregnant nose had immediately identified garlic permeating the restaurant when we arrived and I was thrilled that this was its source. I adore food that you engage with while you eat it and dissecting my meal was not only gastronomically satisfying but seemingly an athletic event.

Finally I was finished and the empty carcasses were swept away. Le Gourmand had watched my attack fascinated after he finished his meal. We were both satisfied but realised that we each had an important decision to make. Le dessert! I had been carefully observing the table of four beside us and there was quite a range to choose from. I was not disappointed by my outstanding chocolate moelleux with raspberry sauce. Le Gourmand was in raptures over his macaronade à la rhubarbe avec glace aux amandes.

We were sated!
http://www.auxlyonnais.com/

Le Christine

Before I commence telling you about this delightful restaurant, let me acquaint you with a brief gastronomic history of Le Gourmand. Despite his moniker, given to him by a French waiter on our first visit to Paris, his deep love of food has limitations. When I first met him these limitations included fish, seafood, mushrooms, pork, anything that looked too much like the original animal (this category includes quail, spatchcock but thankfully not chicken) and, of course, offal. Anyone who knows us, knows the exasperation that this causes me, reared as a child on pate and oysters. Some of our more food obsessed friends share in this exasperation - one evening Le Gourmand went out for a French meal unsupervised and I received delighted messages from two of his dining companions informing me that he had eaten an oyster! The magnitude of this was reinforced the following afternoon when I was chatting to a friend from another state who brought it up as "the big news". Other progress has been made - my largest successes relate to mushrooms and pork but slow ground has been made on seafood.

This became relevant when we opened the menus at the delightfully decorated Le Christine (the signature colour, orange, was liberally splashed around). They were in French and English (I made the disappointing realisation later in the night that we had been seated in the English speaking area and most of the French diners were seated in a different part of the restaurant) and it was immediately clear that there was little in the way of first course that would be suitable for the palate of Le Gourmand. Of course the pregnancy restrictions on liver, raw fish, undercooked meat, salad meant that my menu choices were no walk in the park either, but I had at least been expecting trouble. Le Gourmand rose to the challenge and instead of selecting the safe but vanilla Salade de légumes croquants, tapenade et copeaux de parmesan, he ordered
Salade de homard et gésiers confits, coulis de vin doux. Lobster and gizzards! Do you think I'll be able to eat it? Not wanting to be brutally truthful and tarnish this golden moment (but not really looking forward to a vomitous aftermath), I smiled bravely and said I thought the gizzards would be a very small component of the dish and he would enjoy the lobster as it was a sweet, not too fishy, meat. I had opted for the slightly less flamboyant Anchois de Collioure et poivrons rôtis à l’huile d’olive.

Bravo Le Gourmand! His dish was extremely tasty and gave my anchovies and marinated red peppers a run for their money. The gizzard were in fact a large player in the dish but they were surprisingly mild. I was a little jealous. The evening had started in fine style.

We disagreed over who had the better main. My veal chop (Côte de veau épaisse, crème d’estragon, gnocchis de pommes de terre grand-mère) was beautifully sauced but the gnocchi was pan fried and a little disappointing - possibly an inevitable result after our six months in Italy. His veal stew in white sauce was also tasty (Joue de veau comme une blanquette légère, petits légumes) but I thought that the sauce lacked the punch of my veal chop. We debated these finer points with the Englishman dining alone and sitting beside us.

We were evenly placed after two courses. I opted for a safe but superb Crème brûlée aux framboise and tried not to feel too jealous when Le Gourmand ordered Soufflé au Grand Marnier - a soufflé with a shot of Grand Marnier on the side. This shot posed more trouble than originally contemplated when it transpired that this was the only flavouring in the dish and Le Gourmand poured the shot over the souffle without piercing the surface, resulting in the alcohol pouring off the top of the souffle, onto the plate below. I tried not to watch as Le Gourmand determined that the only solution to this problem, once he had pierced the surface, was to take the underlying plate and pour the liquid into the souffle for the second time. Amusing in hindsight, at the time - less amusing.

Having commenced the meal at 9pm it was quite late when we emerged onto the streets of St Germaine, well satisfied by a feast of delectable morsels.

Polidor

We had agreed that we would each carry small backpacks as we were only in Paris for one night and I underestimated how much shopping I could do in one afternoon. When the train pulled into Gare du Nord we were ready to run like Amazing racers, stopping only to grab the very hand Paris map with indexed street names from the same newsagency we had bought it last time before jumping on the metro to head to our first destination.

Restaurant Polidor - our attempt to find the authentic local bistro (trying to ignore its presence in our Lonely Planet city guide) in the admittedly touristy Latin Quarter. It was, thankfully, a little off the tourist strip so we did feel that we were surrounded by Parisien(ne)s.

Despite his obssession with french foods, Le Gourmand has not yet mastered the language, but he was in luck - most menu items were translated into English. Usually this makes me suspicious, but also amused, as the translations are often terse - our Crème de lentilles blondes au foie gras was translated as Lentil Soup. It was fantastically smooth and creamy, with a depth presumably assisted by the foie gras. We agreed that the French really knew how to cook.

Knowing that we would be presented with more adventurous options our next two destinations, I selected the old standby Boeuf Bourguignon for main, which was rustic and tasty. Le Gourmand was braver and ordered a tomato based Boeuf Mironton, but was a little disappointed by the Mediterranean overtones of the dish. I found them quite refreshing, so we shared our meals. Le Gourmand was also a little disappointed by his Tarte aux Pommes but he was quite naive if he expected me to share more than a taste of my Tarte au Citron, which was predictably excellent. Bruce indicated no criticism of the meal.

Stomachs filled we headed to our hotel to check in and embark on an afternoon of sight-seeing/shopping.

http://www.polidor.com/

La Belle Paris

Going to France when you're pregnant and love to eat French food can be a somewhat cruel opportunity. The red wine, brie and charcuterie are suddenly off limits. Even if there was a point to eating steak bien cuit, would any self respecting french chef deign to prepare it in such a way? However this was likely to be our last opportunity for a decadent few days in our favourite country (gastronomically speaking) so I booked our favourite hotel and the Eurostar tickets as a present for Le Gourmand with barely a second thought. I could still eat quiche and pain au chocolat after all.
Le Gourmand was delighted when he received the gift in April. However he advised me with some seriousness that as the trip would be brief, that we would need to plan our meals with precision. I tended to agree. We both remembered a merely OK meal in a touristy restaurant on our last trip and a morning spent aimlessly hunting for crepes on our last trip to Paris. Spontaneity, which had served us so well on previous occasions, had to be sacrificed when time would allow for only one dinner and two lunches. Research was done and reservations were made. On the Eurostar early Tuesday morning we discussed the plan of attack - early lunch and late dinner so that three courses could be consumed at each sitting. Concern was raised and noted that my stomach, a stalwart in the past, was reacting suspiciously to pregnancy and did not seem to be able to consume as much as it had in my gluttonous past. I determined to soldier on!

Le Commencement

Is there anyone else with a childhood recollection of complaining about never going overseas and the response being something along the lines of "Don't you remember that we took you to Disneyland when you were 6 weeks old?" The wheel has turned and with no small amount of satisfaction Le Gourmand (my husband) and I realised that we would be able to tell our bub-to-be, Bruce, that we had taken him/her to Paris, New York and London, albeit in utero. However much more important work was done on this trip. Bruce was introduced to two days of french food and probably made the unpleasant realisation that his mother is a fan of garlic and butter in vast quantities. More importantly, Le Gourmand, often thought to be a picky eater, ate lobster, gizzards and blood sausage with relish, declaring that he would anything cooked by the French. I decided that this was the opening I needed and, within a week of returning to Australia, rushed out to buy Mastering the Art of French Cooking volumes 1 and 2, hopeful that this would widen Le Gourmand's palate to seafood and sweetbreads in the twinkling of an eye.
Acknowledgement must be given to the Julie and Julia phenomenon but it is only fair to note that Volume 1 has been the cornerstone of my mother's French cooking library since I was not even a twinkling in my father's eye. Consequently I have already been treated to the delights of its Coquilles St Jacques, coq au vin, cassoulet and boeuf bourguignon so the pudding has been proven, so to speak.