L’Entêtée has been on my mind ever since John Talbott pronounced it “the new Spring” and advised “run don’t walk.” Seeing as that was ten months ago, I’m clocking in at a crawl.
Nonetheless, I finally made it there to try the €20 lunch menu. I was psyched about everything I ordered, and on that […]

I didn’t fully realize the complications of foraging for food in a tourist area before I actually moved into one. I’ve never lived in a tourist trap before. One by one I have written off all the overpriced and less than mediocre restaurants on my block bordering the 6th and 7th arrondissements. I can’t even […]

After a few nights out on the town in Paris, you’ll soon start to realize that nothing really seems to get a pawty stawted like a yummy Ti’ Punch. Ti Punch (which is short for “petit punch” and is pronounced “Tee Pownsh”) is a delicious rum-based cocktail which comes from the French Caribbean, but […]

Fusion restaurants have settled somewhat uncomfortably in Paris, neither taking the city by storm nor being soundly rejected. And while many chefs end up resorting to styles and trends first discovered elsewhere (see San Francisco and London), certain more adventurous corners of the city are quietly pushing and changing the traditional culinary rules of France […]

I was terrified, during my first months in Paris, of waiters. In this Time Before Friends, waiters were the principle audience for my stabs at the French language. They were also, I quickly learned, quite attentive to the unfinished contents of my plate. Any left-over mound might generate wild arm-waving and a stream of undiscernable […]

I’m just back from a mythical place in Paris: La Coupole. Located at Boulevard du Montparnasse, this brasserie was created in 1927 and remained one of the hottest places to be seen at until the 60’s. People like Josephine Baker, Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre and a large number of other artists and celebrities of […]

As mentioned before, I can’t help giggling over the name of this new much-ado restaurant. I do realize that a cul de poule is something used in cooking - what anglophones refer to in sterile terms as a double-boiler. Nevertheless, the name still translates as “chicken butt”, and any review that does not include at […]

Le Trou Normand, the Normand Hole, is a strong alcohol served with a small scoop of sorbet which is typically offered before the meat course during a large French dinner. The purpose is to clean the palate and stimulate the appetite- to give you a feeling of emptiness so that you can go back and […]

The Word came down on August 12: “L’Adresse de la Rentrée,” said le roi François on his Simon Says! blog. Such a statement from the city’s top gullet can mean only one thing - a mad rush of food critics to the table. Caroline Mignot and John Talbott followed quickly on Simon’s heels, and […]

Not long ago, this conversation took place in my apartment:
French boy: I’ve ordered something online for us.
American girl: What’s that?
FB: A cul de poule!
AG: …Come again?
FB: Chicken butt!
AG: … Is that, […]