2013 - End of the Line

As the hours tick down to Jan. 1, it's time to put a wrap on 2013.  I had a bad feeling about '13' last year at this time and I was right.  Was 2013 a shitty year or what?  Anyway, as commissioner, owner, president, and CEO of this here  restaurant blog, it is my duty to provide my readers with something I am sure they are waiting for regarding 2013 - closure.  So without further adieu, some highlights and lowlights, from my own personal, egocentric, and biased perspective.  I promise to keep this short and sweet and keep my fingers crossed for good things in 2014.

• Bones - despite all the hype, I liked this new entry into the Paris bar/tapas/bistrot scene anyway.  Co. was less than impressed, but I'm looking forward to a return trip.

• Alain Milliat - way over there near the Eiffel Tower, this venue has a lot of potential.  Small but innovative dishes.

• 6 Paul Bert - Paul Bert has expanded into more gastronomic country.  This may have been my  favorite new venue of the year.

• For tapas, Mary Celeste rose to the top of the list.  Innovative food and drinks, lively place.  Braisenville didn't reach those heights, but there's something intriguing about braised tapas.

• L'Apibo - enjoyable late summer dinner, bears watching.

• The grilled fish in Lisbon.  I want more.

•  Les Caves du Roy (31 Rue Simart, 75018 Paris) - finally I find a place that sells bitters for my martinis.  And where else in Paris can you find Aviation, Citadelle, and 6 Ravens gins (for the martinis)?  And speaking of the Ravens - the ones from Baltimore, that is - thanks for bringing the Lombardi trophy back to my original starting point Baltimore (Super Bowl 2013).

• The Splendid Table - with nothing else to listen to on the radio on Sunday mornings, this show really fills a void (via TuneIn's WNYC feed on my tablet).  Lynne Rossetto Kasper's laugh and other vocal mannerisms are nerve wrenching, but boy does she know food, or does she know food?  http://www.splendidtable.org/

• My new Fang laptop and Nexus 7 tablet.

• Old favorite: Les Magnolias. . . keep on truckin'.

• Le Gaigne - RIP.  Why, why, why?  Please come back, as you promise online.

• La Gazzetta - au revoir chef Petter Nilsson, who returns to Sweden.  Bienvenue to  Luigi Nastri, who has big shoes to fill

• Mansouri - I remember when this was a very good couscous restaurant.  Not any more.

• Mama Shelter - interesting place, lively bar, blah food.

• Septime - such a great restaurant, such a nightmare to reserve.

Au Revoir 2013, less than 7 hours to go.  And don't come back.

Alain Milliat - It's In the Juice

It's a juice bar, it's a tea shop, it's an elegant restaurant, it's a boutique, it's a human being.  A person could go crazy, hypnotized by the shadow of the Eiffel Tower in the upwardly mobile 7th and coming across the  corner establishment on rue de Grenelle, Alain Milliat.  Yes, it is all these things, including a Telerama recommended stop for Saturday brunch with the 'mamies et papys.'

Four of us met up for dinner (on reservation, of course) a couple of rainy (aren't they all?) Friday evenings ago in our handsome attire, not really knowing what to expect.  What we found was a place that looked like this, and those are indeed Alain Milliat juices lining the walls (actually, I 'found' the photos as well, online):

 

As Co. and I awaited our dinner companions, we were chatted up, and chatted up, and chatted up, by the server who apparently was really lonely until we arrived.  Part of the chatting involved convincing Co. that she simply must try an Alain Milliat mandarine juice.  I would have joined her, but with so much alcohol in the world, who has time for juice, except on top of whatever I'm eating for dinner.  When I asked Co. earlier today for her assessment of said juice, she said, "It was good," then she said, "It was high quality," and then she said, "It was excellent."  The moral of this story, I guess, is that the AM juices really grow on you.  Fortunately, our dinner companions arrived just in the nick of time.  After some confusion about the 'menu degustation' vs. the ala carte selections, Co. and I opted for the menu and our companions ended up with half the selections we took, only twice as big, so I guess it evens out, except on the bill which turned out to be twice as expensive for us.  As my elegantly-scarved cohort later moralized, "It all evens out in the end."

The food was very good, which is all you really want to know anyway, am I right or am I right?  Well, in my humble opinion, you will probably not be disappointed, and may, depending on your whims, well be quite delighted.  First, the offerings:

And now, what some of the offerings looked like, decoded:

This colorful entree was the marinated lotte and it was terrific, so good that it's worth looking at a second time, with different lighting:

 

This all-natural mushroom dish was a creative preparation, although rather skimpy on the mushrooms, especially relative to the non-menu degustation plate.

  This delicate salmon filet was light and vaporized.

 

For my money, this canette and yams dish was the pinnacle.

 

A humble, yet satisfying, bonus cheese dish for the menu degustation, with a well-appointed confecture - bread, cheese, confecture, wine - could anything so simple be so French?

 More evidence that the young, creative neo-bistrot chefs of Paris (in this case, the Brit Jon Irwin) forego the traditional cake and tarte dessert offerings for more oddball glace, fromage, praline, etc. concoctions, and this one, with its - do I remember this correctly? - cucumber/cumin ice cream was very, very nice.

As mentioned, you get more dishes, but less quantity, with the menu degustation (65€), so if there are a couple things that really, really tempt you on the blackboard, go ala carte (34€).  One of our companions was quite impressed by the cauliflower risotto, which is not pictured here, mainly because I didn't want to embarrass her by leaning over her plate with my tablet camera.  We ripped through a couple bottles of a very fine Morellino di scansano, one of several reasonably priced reds on the wine menu (34€).  

ALAIN MILLIAT

159 rue de Grenelle

75007 Paris

tel: 01 45 55 63 86

Website: http://www.alain-milliat.com/en/the-restaurant