France has wonderful tourism resources-sidewalk cafes, food styles to discuss, a myriad of wine producing regions, area cheese from unpasteurised milks and historic sites to please any eye.
But rarely will I find a cup of French coffee deemed pleasant. There is a solid failure because of what I think is a no barista culture-anyone brews but few skills exist from the green bean upwards. The fancy espresso machines are everywhere. Read more →
There are no great wine lists, just those which are a good read. The outcome for a restaurant is to receive an order and not host a bible reading session, so the simpler the list, the better your customer will feel. You see after several pages the wine list morphs into a book and people who are eating, dining or just hanging out don’t require volumes of information about wines. Most diners never get past the first one or two pages anyway, they turn off and hungry people become distracted by what their waiter or sommelier has to offer.
So you get my drift, big belting lists are out of fashion in this mobile world. The only saving grace for a longer offering is a digital list; the customer can scroll through the pages in seconds or use the search key, which also hides the hundreds of wines cleverly sitting in the data base. This acts as a concealed cellar resulting in a clean, simple read! Excellent… and nobody knows how many wines there are!
By Peter-Scudamore-Smith, Master of Wine
Published in blog.klaremont.com, June 2015
While Uncorked and Cultivated Tours of France are in full swing there is no way to not be effected by the food, vista and people of Paris. That’s where my tour begins!
This time around the Marais, a very cosmopolitan and easy part of the big city in the 3rd arr.
After all this country of 64 million endures more tourists than any other, about 83 million, and most come from Europe!
For a huge city I find the locals very accommodating, increasingly English-speaking and appreciative that they may not gain a table in their local brasserie too often while tourists descend, and have to wait until winter.
However I struggle with aspects of the food scene; and certainly with the cuisines. My informant this year was Christian Holthausen, writing his insider’s guide to the best wine spots in the city on a luxury website.
You can easily enjoy yourself but two words Christian uses describes a good bit of the eating experience; timeless and stagnant. Where is the new which an Australian inhabitant like me expects and receives weekly? It’s here and difficult to locate unless assisted.
And that is not very easy when the Paris Office of Tourisme et des Congres publishes a booklet clearly deficient in what exists in its Paris Gourmand Good Food Guide. It should be 50 mm thick, bulging like Sydney, to be credible. Not so.
A better read was South Australian Jane Paech’s clever little book: Delicious Days in Paris which gives more than a food experience, moreso an easy find travellers’ interest and must sees that go beyond the obvious. It’s terrific and hard to put down; in my case to read and use the more interesting parts of the Marais.
Like the understated Bob’s Kitchen in rue 74 Rue des Gravilliers, 75003; +33 9 52 55 11 66 ; quite bohemian but delicious, hearty (read nutritious) and warming; such as veggie soup which is a plate of vegetables bereft of liquid, but correctly cooked so the carrots and beans are not soft (the French habit is to overcook regularly).
The understated Bob’s Kitchen-sole sign
And then to be served an amazing short black which was correctly made (uses artisan roaster Lomi), not the usual short long black without any texture and flavour (read low quality imported coffee beans).
The barista was Brisbane-born lady – Natalie who has a French husband and a new baby; but importantly is plugged in to the international and Asia-Pacific skills that come with serving modern coffee drinkers.
Life is fun in this city, it just has to be lived and given the direction you choose; using guidance or exploration time.
And by the way, I discovered that a good Parisian short black might come my way if I used the Italian word “ristretto”, not petite, and I am going to give it a go.
It might mitigate the ugly compounds of lesser standard green beans too; probably from Vietnam instead of the delicious Brazilians now abundantly available.
What a day-pintxo hunting with Ane Ibarzabal of San Sebastian Food, and finding six different bars to eat and drink. One interesting Basque discovery really.
You see we are in the old Basque town of San Sebastian (called Donastia in Basque), and it takes a little deciphering of what is being said, and what is actually going on. Thank goodness there is a week to settle in also.
And while we were walking around I discovered this town was razed to the ground in a fire in a three way fight between the Portuguese, Spanish and French in 1813. See the plaque. One older building survived. Read more →
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