Meg Zimbeck » 75002

Photos: Frenchie Bar à Vins

admin — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 21:09:55 +0000

Exterior table at Frenchie wine bar

Panzanella at Frenchie wine bar

Jambon with toasted almonds at Frenchie wine bar

Burrata at Frenchie wine bar

Tete de cochon with pickled mustard seeds, poppies and girolles

Smoked trout with pickled veg at Frenchie wine bar

Cheese course at Frenchie wine bar

Brebis with truffled honey at Frenchie wine bar

Panna cotta with red fruits at Frenchie wine bar

Chocolate dessert at Frenchie wine bar

Interior at Frenchie wine bar

Off menu

Off menu 2

For practical information and a collection of trusted reviews, please see our page for Frenchie Bar à Vins at Paris by Mouth

Review: Rice & Fish

Meg — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:49:43 +0000

“You have to go,” said my very pregnant friend. “I’ve been twice in one week.”

“For sushi?” I replied, with a skeptical eye directed down at her belly.

I’d been hearing a lot about Rice & Fish in recent months, but it wasn’t until my pal admitted to putting her fetus in danger that I decided to make the trip. Anything that could cause an expectant mother to throw caution to the wind must be awfully delicious.

I arrived at this Sentier spot and immediately liked the space. Bright colors on the wall and a long window seat looking out at the neighborhood scene. On the menu: a long list of interesting maki, including lots of vegetarian options. I guess the pregnant friend isn’t so reckless after all…

I started with Le Krunchy, a roll that normally combines avocado, secret sauce, and tempura shrimp. They substituted scallops on this particular day, much to my delight. The first roll looked enticing, tasted exciting, and was even fun to say.

More spectacular was the Sumo roll – an unlikely combination of tempura pumpkin, pumpkin seeds, violet potato, miso and fennel. It packed such a technicolor punch that Futo maki which followed (tofu, avodado, radish, cucumber) seemed wan by comparison. Next time – and there will be a next time – I’ll be sure to begin with the delicate flavors and finish with over-the-top tastes like the b4 (tempura fish with piment d’espelette) or la Chenille (marinated eel and avacado shaped in the form of a caterpiller).

In a nutshell: Hit Rice & Fish when you need to take a break from French food. The bright and clean flavors will hit the reset button on your over-bistro’d palate. Your wallet, too, will feel the relief – a full meal will run you less than €20.

Rice & Fish
22, rue Greneta, 2nd arrondissement
01 73 70 46 09
Lunch Monday to Saturday from 12-6pm
Dinner Thursday to Saturday from 7:30-11pm

If you like the sound of Rice & Fish but want less CAL and more JPN:
Kaiseki
7 rue André Lefebvre, 15th arrondissement
01 45 54 48 60

Reprinted with permission from the Girls’ Guide to Paris

Pierre Jancou: pulling up the Racines

Meg — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 14:02:30 +0000

Pierre Jancou, the photogenic owner of Racines, sent me a sad email this morning:

Finally Racines will be sold next friday and I will go to the Drôme region next to my family and have new adventures.

However shocking it might seem, this isn’t the first time that Jancou has built and sold a thriving enterprise at the height of its popularity. He offloaded his previous project, la Crèmerie, just as the mainstream press were climbing on board. The right owner and offer came along, he told me, just as he was beginning to tire of his Saint-Germain clientele. Too many of them were overlooking his hand-selected vins naturels and only wanted to drink Bordeaux.

Three months after cashing the Crèmerie check, Jancou was back with Racines. For this next venture, he opted for the bustling neighborhood just south of Grands Boulevards. It was more populaire, he explained, and had the advantage of being within walking distance from most media HQs. After years of catering to left-bank customers, Jancou adopted a bold (some might say bullying) take-it-or-leave it approach with Racines. Every bottle and ingredient was hand-selected and special. The butter was Bordier. The veggies, Passard. If there was head cheese, it came from the world’s best prize-winning producer, and you’d be a fool – a FOOL ! – not to eat it.

As for the wine, Racines stocked 100% vins naturels. These wines, when they are good, can be transformative. They can also taste like feet. But returning a ripe and funky wine was never really an option at Racines. It wasn’t the wine that was off – it was the inability of your mainstream palate to appreciate the terroir. Jancou cultivated his small-batch producers with the same love and attention that they directed to their grapes. They were his friends, his investment, the subject of his self-published poetry. Who were you to have a contrary opinion?

I say this as someone who supplicated from the very first moment. I was humble and beseeching and more than a little star-struck. My dining companions were the same. And in exchange for being open, for being glad to be there, we were treated with generosity and love. It was that kind of place – arrive empty, leave full.

Nevertheless, I’ve received plenty of reports about rough treatment at the hands of Jancou. These well-meaning victims all had one mistake in common: they thought they were eating at a restaurant. Racines was never a restaurant. It may have been classified as such at the editorial desk, but in reality it was a school. You had to reserve, arrive on time, and treat your teacher with respect. If you behaved as a mere customer and were not properly hot for teacher, then teacher, by all accounts, could be a dick. Rightly so.

Whatever dick/Jancou does next, I’m sure there will be a line of students clamoring to enroll. And I’ll be there, apple in hand, right among them.

In memory of Racines:

Review: Frenchie

Meg — Thu, 21 May 2009 11:00:47 +0000

Not long ago, I sat down with some friends to try a new restaurant called Frenchie. Of the two entrées on offer, I chose a simple-sounding truite fumée, asperges (smoked trout, asparagus) over the too-simple-sounding salade tomates cerises. I mean, who serves cherry tomatoes in May?*

I must’ve looked puzzled when my starter arrived, because Clotilde leaned over and whispered something into my ear. “Wild asparagus,” she said, nodding to the thin shafts of bright green that were layered among their domesticated green and purple cousins.

I’d never actually seen the mythical foodstuff, but had read about it long ago it in Stalking The Wild Asparagus. Euell Gibbons, author of ‘the forager’s bible’ used to boast about finding this and other edible trash growing in abandoned lots and highway ditches. Call me a princess, but I was perfectly happy to stalk from the safety of a cushiony banquette.

And so the taste: it was clean…and bright…and intensely green. Like a non-nasty version of wheat grass. And when cut into little pieces and speared along with bites of house-smoked trout and the more earthy “tame” asparagus, it provided crunch and just a little bit of “huh?” It was new (to me), but happily more than merely novel.

Cut to this morning, and Cédric comes home from the market with “a present.” Flowers, I guessed, or maybe (even better) a hunk of salty Alpine cheese? I nearly squeeled when I unwrapped the brown paper wrapper and saw this:

Euell Gibbons was right – it’s possible to forage for delicious food even in urbanized environments – in this case, the 3x weekly market on Jaurès in the 19th arrondissement. Looks like I’ll be celebrating Ascension Day (one of four French national holidays in the month of May) by trying to transform this earthly delight into something heavenly.

* For the record, that salad was one of the best things I’ve ever eaten (off someone else’s plate). It was a rip on the tomato bread salad panzanella, with heirloom tomatoes, cherries, and baby basil leaves swimming in a white balsamic-spiked tomato water.