The Gastronaut

Evening out tonight with my Turkish distributor and his wife. As you know, I have visited him several times and he is a good friend as well as a customer, so a nice soirée is in prospect. I select the venue: Le Petit Zinc in Rue St. Benoit, just off Boulevard St. Germain in the Left Bank. Not far from Vagenende where we went on Monday.

Thursday evening is late shopping night in Paris, and you know the ladies have to submit to retail therapy, so we arrange a late booking at 21:30. Petit Zinc’s ambience is fantastic as usual: a large oval dining room on three levels, colourfully illuminated by Art-Nouveau lampshades. We are seated right in the middle of the oval, with a grand view of our fellow diners.

The menu arrives with the regulation apéritif: after some hesitation, I select a so-called Salade Folle as a starter – this seems enticing but turns out to be a mistake! I receive a mâche and chicorée salad with four shrimps and a slice of warm foie gras. A folly it certainly is – the ingredients were individually good, but the mixture of the three left much to be desired! Avoid!

My guests choose instead the plateau dégustation de huitres - a selection of four different types of oysters, from the various regions of “ostreiculture” in France. They report that a difference can indeed be tasted, but oysters are not much to my liking, so I decline the offer to try.

As a second, we all have an excellent salmon tartare – very good with fresh slices of baguette, and certainly a recipe I must find in time for the Christmas dinner. A good bottle of Chablis 2001 goes down very well with things fishy.

Dessert: I love those French classics, so a tarte tatin is my choice – the classic upside-down pie, but with a variation, as this is made with pears instead of apples.

After the coffee we set out back to the hotel, past one in the morning!! Le Petit Zinc is highly recommended for an evening when you’re out to impress, who knows, maybe to escort a good friend…

Exhibition day much as yesterday: slow start, but livening up in the afternoon. More customers turned up, my bubbly Woman in Portugal, a few new contacts. Back in the hotel at 19:00, quick wash and brush-up and out at 20:00 for dinner!

Tonight’s guest is my gastronome Belgian distributor. After some perusal of the Red Book, we decide to try a new spot to us, but well-known in Parisian gastronomic lore: Fermette Marbeuf 1900, 5, r. Marbeuf, 75008 Paris, tel: 01 53 23 08 00 Just off the Avenue Georges V, near the Pont de l’Alma.

Good impression right from the start: a beautiful Art Nouveau décor, with a dining room shaped like a conservatory, with colourful tiles and stained glass walls. We have a Kir Royale to get us going as we peruse the menu. I decide on the Foie Gras de Canard layered with cèpes, accompanied by a glass of Sauternes, followed by a Magret de Canard aux épices, with a side of puréed turnips. The foie gras is a melt-in-the-mouth experience and the duck is just parfait. A good bottle of Bordeaux 2000 (sorry, forgot which cru!).

And the desserts! I had profiteroles as I have never tasted before, with vanilla ice cream instead of whipped cream in the choux pastry and a very dark chocolate sauce. My partners chose Crèpes Suzette (served by the waiter with appropriate flourish) and a crispy Tarte au Pommes with a ball of apple sorbet on top.

Warmly recommended! Prices to match the high standards of cuisine!

Aah! A busy show day together with my Portuguese and English agents. These two fifty-something ladies are talkative, bubbly characters and also have a business relation together. They have a whale of a time reminiscing of assorted incidents on a recent trip to Portugal. A lively ambience is called for, so I select Le Grand Café in Boulevard de Capucines.

The ambience is the usual 1900’s Art Nouveau style, our table is on the verandah overlooking the Boulevard – just the spot for people-watching! And people-watch I must, as my two companions are late! They appear after 45 minutes, claiming to have mislaid addresses, delayed taxis, etc…..methinks they have just gone shopping! Anyway, after a quick apéritif (A Kir Royale for me), we get down to the nitty-gritty: I choose to go for the seafood tonight, and order a plate of langoustines and crevettes grises. These are served as usual on the platter of ice, with a side of brown bread and mayonnaise. A nutcracker, steel toothpick and an L-shaped fork device to get at the innards of the langoustines. I spend a happy hour cracking them open and getting at the succulent meat within. The tiny little crevettes grises are also excellent, but require rather more effort in peeling them open. My partners instead choose escargots and sole meunière, and foie gras and a magret de canard. A good Pouilly Fumé washes everything down.

Dessert: I decline the superb Moelleux au Chocolat , and plump for the Parisian classic – the Crème Brulée. The shiny sugar crust gives way with a satisfying crack, the creamy, eggy interior is simply délicieux!!

First day of the exhibition. It’s rather slow to get going, but then we had a steady flow of visitors, mostly our existing customers and distributors. Competitors also came along to talk shop. The Parmesan was attacked and red wine flowed. Travel back to Paris on the RER jam-packed with exhibitors and visitors, but I manage to win a scramble for a seat.

An so on to dinner tonight – I select an old favourite of mine that I used to frequent regularly but then dropped as once they failed to honour a reservation because I had arrived a mere 10 minutes late! But for good food, I am willing to forgive and give them a second chance, so here we are: Restaurant Vagenende, 142 Boulevard St. Germain, 75006 Paris. Tel. 01 43 26 68 18. In the heart of the Quartier Latin. Beautiful 1900s mirror décor.

We start with an unusual apéritif: a glass of Crémant d’Alsace, perfumed with an essence of violets. Sweetish, but a lovely aroma! Accompanied by an amuse-gueule of croûtons with olive paste. As entrée, I have Feuilleté de Chèvre Chaud, a wonderful creamy goat’s cheese, served on crisp puff pastry on a bed of frisée salad and a good spoonful of acacia honey! My partner chooses a Tartare de Saumon fouttée à la crème, I do recall I had this dish ages ago and it still looks delicious.

Our seconds arrive: Carrè d’agneau rôti au thym, with a side of gratin dauphinois. The lamb chops are tender and juicy, but maybe a little too fatty – it’s the wrong season! My partner instead opts for a tender melt-in-the-mouth fillet with a two-pepper sauce. A bottle of Médoc Château Carcanieux 1997 accompanies our meal.

Dessert – a high point for Vagenende: the crème brulée vanille bourbon here is an unctuous delicacy, but I leave that for my partner, whilst I have a croustillant chocolat crème anglaise - a cylinder of mousse au chocolat placed on a chocolate biscuit with a light vanilla and chocolate custard. A must for chocaholics like me!

OK, Vagenende, all is forgiven! I’m a loyal customer again!

Long lie in this morning. We take advantage of being bambini-free, and I arise at 10:30. I avoid the overly expensive hotel breakfast (a mere EUR 20!), go to the local café and partake of a croissant, jus d’orange and a café au lait. Just what we need to start the day in France and to prepare to build the exhibition stand where we will spend the rest of the week.

We hop in the car and drive through quiet Sunday morning streets up to the Périphérique and on to the A1 northwards. Just before CDG airport are the giant Villepinte exhibition halls. As usual on the day before exhibitions, the place is a hive of activity, with workmen hammering, sawing and driving fork lift trucks at top speed. We unload our exhibition essentials (Parmesan, red wine, espresso, a couple of brochures….) and locate our stand. Our stand builders are there, but…..the stand is not according to the agreed plan! Frantic phone calls to Italy follow and we determine that the workmen’s boss had given them the wrong drawings!! More phone calls to our stand designer, we agree on a new plan that can be made with the materials to hand. The final result is decent enough, but we wasted much time and then had to hang around whilst the builders finished the job. We get back to the hotel at about 20:45, totally knackered!

No desire to go miles out to eat, so we go to the nearby Chez Léon, a chain of Belgian mussel restaurants. The ladies have a panful of mussels each, but I can’t stand the things, so I make do with a steak frites and a large Affligem. Collapse into bed afterwards.

Long drive over to Paris – we manage to do 1.100 odd km. in 11 hours. Rain and storm in Italy and much of France, but the weather cleared as we approached the Ville Lumière.

We check in our hotel. The Holiday Inn in the Place de la République is a large establishment, housed in a Napoleon III era building, with a large central courtyard. The room is not large, but comfortable, a good place to spend a week in.

However, the hotel has no private parking! I have to drive around for an hour before I find a garage that has a free space! With this, we don’t go out to eat until 9:30, so I choose the nearby Chez Jenny, in the Boulevard du Temple. This is a brasserie alsacienne, with lots of choucroute varieties, groaning with sausage, bacon, jarret de porc and so on. But we are tired and decide on simpler fare: I choose a Foie Gras de Canard avec marmelade d’oignons, followed by a Steak Tartare avec frites. My partners also have the Tartare, but choose Escargots and Frisée salad as starters. A good bottle of Gewürztraminer Riquewihr 2000 with a lovely fruity bouquet refreshes our taste buds.