I love Chinese cooking, which is why I often despair at the confused, dumbed down versions of China's food served in Paris. The main problems that explain the wilting mediocrity of Chinese cooking in Paris are an instinctive French aversion to spicy food and also the fact that few Parisians know enough about the country's diverse regional kitchens to demand anything more authentic than the safe and confused menus that prevail in neighborhood restaurants all over the city. Many of them are run by Chinese owners who immigrated to France from the former countries of Indochina--Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, and so they offer the curious mix of southeast Asian and Chinese dishes that has come to be the prevailing "Asian" cookery found in Paris. What this means is a mix of Nems (Vietnamese deep-fried Spring rolls), dim sum, timid soups and miscellaneous sautees with sauce--beef with oyster sauce, etc.

This unfortunate state of affairs is why I was very curious when a friend from Hong Kong recently recommended the Bistrot de Pekin in the 8th as serving some of the most authentic Chinese food in town. The location just steps off the Champs Elysees in a neighborhood of offices and hotels wasn't encouraging, but we decided to give in a try on a rainy Sunday night in the hopes of discovering a Chinese place we could really love. Though it's one of the hoariest cliches in the book, it was immediately encouraging to arrive at this friendly, attractive place with tall-backed Chinese chairs at tables lined with bamboo matting and peach walls and find that it was mostly full of Chinese patrons.

I came along with the list of dishes to try that had been jotted down by my friend, and after a fair amount of discussion with the waitress to make sure we'd get these and not some of the dumbed down dishes purveyed to the French clientele, we sipped an anonymous but decent red wine by the carafe (6.50 Euros for a half liter) and waited hopefully. The meal got off to a very promising start with fat noodles in a wonderfully fiery peanut and sesame sauce, a Szechuan dish that I used to eat often when I lived in New York. Next, a really excellentsoupe Pekinoise, thick, cartilege rich broth that was wonderfully tangy with vinegar and filled with black mushrooms, fresh slivered bamboo shoots, and shirred egg. The raviolis grillee were excellent, too--obviously homemade and seasoned with garlic, ginger and Chinese herbs.

When the main courses arrived, it was apparent we'd grievously over-ordered--portions here are generous, but I loved the tetes de lion, giant pork meat balls with chopped water chestnuts adding some texture to the soft, nicely seasoned pork, a fiery marmite de boeuf (casserole of beef and Chinese cabbage in chili oil rich broth) and delicious bok choy sauteed with garlic. Inevitably, I saw all sorts of wonderful looking dishes being delivered to neighboring tables, so I look forward to eating my way through the long menu here during the months to come, and also to stopping by for one of the very good value lunch menus. Eureka! Real Szechuan cooking in Paris.

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The 10th arrondissement is one of my favorite parts of Paris, especially the area in and around the rue du Faubourg Saint Denis, which has the brilliant antic human variety that's always made me love living in a big city. Here is urban life at its most wonderfully variegated--one block devoted entirely to African barbers and beauty shops, another lined by Turkish cafes, here a Serbian-Bosnian-Croatian epicerie, there a restaurant teasingly called El Papi Chullo.

A sure sign that one of the last authentically populaire districts of central Paris is beginning to evolve, however, is the very popular Le Napoleon, a corner cafe that smart and very amiable Polish-born Frenchman Rafael Grusziewicz remodeled and relaunched after ten years of working in various different Costes brothers restaurants and a stint in New York that included waiting at La Goulue. "The neighborhood is starting to stir," says Grusziewicz, "and for me, it's just perfect right now. You have a great mix of young and old, gay and straight, rich and poor, people from all over the world, and it's feels friendly, tolerant and creative. This is the vibe I had in mind when I bought what was a faded old corner cafe and turned it into a neighborhood hangout."

Open daily from 8am to 2am, it's become a real local institution and is especially busy at noon, when it slings one of the best hamburgers in Paris, a big fat juicy baby with a half decent bun. To be sure, it'd be better with a slice of real sharp cheddar and a bit of real bacon, but the burger itself is very, very good, and comes with good frites and a side of very tasty coleslaw if you want it. Otherwise, the menu is a happy and reasonably priced top of the charts of local comfort food, including roasted goat cheese and salad, terrific cheese and charcuterie boards, a tofu burger, club sandwiches, steak tartare, tarte tatin, tiramisu, and fromage blanc bio. They also serve brunch on the weekends, and food until midnight. "I wanted to do a happy, honest, reasonably priced place with good quality, nothing fancy, nothing gastro, but good, and a place where everyone would feel welcome," says Grusziewicz. To which I'd reply Mission Accomplished, if the phrase didn't have such horrendously tragic resonances, so how's about "Bull's Eye, and well done," instead.

Bistrot de Pekin, 38 rue de Ponthieu, 8th, Tel. 91-42-56-50-86. Metro: Franklin D. Roosevelt. Open daily. Avg 30 Euros.

Le Napoleon, 73 rue du Faubourg Saint Denis, 10th, Tel. 01-47-70-21-36. Metro: Chateau d'Eau. Open daily. Avg 20 Euros.

This morning I received the following message from my friend and blogger extraordinaire David Lebovitz:

Last night, "I ate at Repaire de Cartouche and had astoundingly poor service. It was like they were trying to be juvenile and it wasn't just that they were rude; they were purposely being nasty. I never post on Chowhound but I did a search and this came up, which was pretty much my experience. And it pretty much was almost the same thing that happened to us. (Except when we were there, a French guy yelled at the waiter that he was contacting Michelin, and stormed out.)The waiter wouldn't even let us order our wine until we ordered our food, and stormed away when we said we needed a minute to look over the wine list."

I've had many similar messages lately, and I've had a lot of similar service experiences in Paris restaurants recently, too. Sometimes I think the poor service is a specific reaction to serving a table of Anglophones, i.e., these idiot tourists don't deserve anything better (reading both Le Figaro and the new Le Fooding guide today, I came across repeated nasty references to tourists, as though they're some sort of ghastly subspecies not deserving of proper service and hospitality). And other times, I think the bad service comes from poor casting, i.e., someone with a chip on their shoulder about being in a serving job takes it out on those they're serving. 

One way or another, aggressively bad service is inexcusable, since even if the chef is hugely talented and the food memorably delicious, a meal is obviously ruined by jagged and/or unpleasant service.

Since HUNGRY FOR PARIS was published, I've had several complaints about the service at Le Repaire de Cartouche and also at Mon Vieil Ami, and so I'm putting both restaurants on a watch list. I've also had complaints about, and experienced, very snippy and pretentious service at La Pizzetta, where the waiter was so knowingly rude that I'd never dream of going back, and La Bigarrade and Jacques Decoret in Vichy. Service at two of my favorite recent restaurants could be better, too--Jadis and Frenchie, where the waiters are often bored and disengaged.

So what do you do when you've had really poor service in a Paris restaurant? You wait until the end of the meal and then you ask to speak to the host, hostess or owner and politely but firmly tell them that you've had a very disappointing experience.  

And when you have particularly bad service experience in a Paris restaurant, please share it here so that I can put out a service alert. Thanks, Alec

Grilled cepe at L'Avant ComptoirSo “Jamin” is back, sort of. Or actually it’s not. Instead, restaurateur Alain Pras has chosen to revive the name of the restaurant that propelled Joel Robuchon to international renown when he won his third Michelin star in 1984 and which went dormant when a short-lived Caribbean restaurant (La Table de Babette) occupied the space for a few years, but relaunch it in the ilk of the Guy Savoy bistros where he worked for many years (La Butte Chaillot, etc.).

  Though the new Jamin occupies the same space at the same address in the 16th arrondissement as Robuchon’s place, this maneuver struck me as a rather cynical and manipulative before I went off to dine here the other night. It’s just such as obvious attempt to glean some of the lingering magic of a restaurant brand name that still elicits a glimmer of recognition everywhere from Tokyo to Topeka.

  Arriving, the only recognizable feature of the original restaurant is the charming oeil de boeuf in the façade. Inside, the formerly rather elegant dining room has been recast as a rather dimly lit modern bistro with bare wooden tables and contemporary art on murky chocolate brown walls. It’s a very eighties look, and the menu brought back this decade in the most déjà vu of ways, too.

  A perfect example is the lightly seared red tuna start rolled in tandoori spices. Since I couldn’t dissuade the English banker husband of the old friend whom I’d met for dinner from ordering it—I alluded to the fact that red tuna is almost extinct, but he facetiously reasoned that whatever he’d be eating that night had already been fished, I had a chance to taste it, and it was impeccably done, but just so wrong. A pair of vaguely better starters were Amanda’s mesclun salad garnished with tempura shrimp in a honey-soy vinaigrette—another Guy Savoy bistro classic, and my soft-boiled egg with piperade and Basque ham.

  To be sure, chef David Legrand, 27, is a very able cook, and overall, we had a good dinner—main courses of sea bass with Thai rice and a curried coconut sauce, guineau hen with chestnut risotto, and rack of lamb with pommes dauphinois were all well made and tasty, but aside from a truly superb Paris Brest for dessert, there was nothing about this meal that I’ll likely remember in a month’s time, and nothing about this restaurant that would make it worth traveling across town for.

   In stark contrast to “Jamin,” I can’t get to brilliant bistro chef Yves Camdeborde’s new L’Avant Comptoir often enough. Camdeborde opened this new Basque-Bearnais hors d’oeuvres bar next to this perpetually booked Le Relais du Comptoir a couple of weeks ago, and it’s been packed ever since. Why? It offers the best fast, on-the-hoof eats on the Left Bank—think sublime ham croquettes, grilled cepes mushroom caps with garlic chips and parsley, shots of seafood bouillon with shellfish, incredible charcuterie, great wines by the glass, and an unfailingly fun crowd. L’Avant Comptoir is an ideal place for a quick lunch, light dinner or snack and very happily, it’s open daily.

Jamin, 32 rue de Longchamp, 16th,Tel. 01-45-53-00-07. Metro: Iena. Mon-Friday noon-2.30pm, 7-10.30pm. Avg 50 Euros.

L’Avant Comptoir, 9 carrefour de l’Odéon, 6th, Tel. 08-26-10-10-87. Metro: Odeon. No reservations. Open daily.

L'Espadon, the two-star restaurant at the Hotel RitzAfter morning of tedious errands and weekend traffic on Saturday, Bruno and I were hungry and in the mood for a treat, so we entertained a variety of different possibilities for lunch--a steak tartare and a glass of Morgon vieille vignes at the cafe Le Nemrod in the rue Saint Placide, maybe a bowl of Pho with Nems (deep-fried Spring rolls) at Noodle No. 1 in the rue Saint Anne in the 2nd, perhaps a pizza...but nothing really hit the spot until we happened to get stuck parking in the garage under the tragic Marche Saint Germain in Saint Germain des Pres (I say tragic, because this soulless shopping mall a la americaine could and should have been renovated into one of the greatest food markets in Paris; as it is, they're just a couple of food shops in one corner of the place, but they hardly compensate for the color, animation and good times available at a really great city market like the Mercat Santa Catarina in Barcelona). On the way into the market, we passed L'Huitrerie Regis, and I suggested oysters.

Five minutes later, we were happily settled in this vest pocket dining room with white-washed walls, a small serving bar, and seven tables set with white table cloths and pretty blue serving plates drinking an excellent Sancerre and nibbling a saucer of saucisson sec while waiting for the amiable oyster shucker to prepare our feast, two dozen Speciales de Claire Garnier No. 3 from the Marennes d'Oleron on France's Atlantic coast. Served with good bread and Echire butter, these sublime bivalves had a sublime taste of the sea and lightly roasted hazelnuts. I wondered if a dozen apiece might be a bit too gourmand, but we scarfed them down in a haze of pleasure--the elegant older man with the beautiful camel's hair coat at the table next to us felt compelled to tell us that it had been a longtime since he'd watching other people eat as much as he had while observing us, punctuated only by sips of that excellent Sancerre, the ideal recipe for a perfect Saturday lunch.

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People often ask me to name my favorite hotel in Paris, which I'm at a loss to do, because I have several favorites hotels--some, like the Hotel Particulier in Montmartre, are perfect for Spring; others, like the Bristol, are lovely during the summer; and some, the Hotel Ritz, for example, are aces all year long. Everytime I step through the revolving door at the Ritz and the faint amber perfume of the place, its signature scent, which is broadcast throughout the property through the ventilation system, registers, my shoulders unknot and I throw my TO DO List in a waste basket. 

Recently, I've been lucky enough to be invited to the Ritz on several different occasions, both of them wonderful. On a dreary rainy day, I was delighted to hear my friend Victoria on the phone when I decided to answer without letting the machine pick up the call first. A talented painter, she lives in a remote Scottish castle, where she spends her days sipping Scotch and dabbing at canvases while wearing a paint-encrusted beret, an old British Admiral's jacket over two cashmere sweaters and goose-down-filled trousers she found during a trip to Seattle. She was on her way to the south of France, but had time for lunch and was inviting me to the Ritz because she'd read about the 70 Euro lunch menu in the airplane magazine on the way to Paris.

True to form, she looked like an autumnal still-life when I met her at L'Espadon--two trimmed peacock feathers in her hair, a fox stole over a sort of fishnet jerkin over an irridescent green silk camisole and a sturdy tartan skirt with white knee socks and sturdy brogues. The waiters just couldn't get over her, and the rest of the room was clearly intrigued, too, so it must have been a real letdown to all concerned when I showed up wearing a navy blazer, gray flannel trousers and a blue-and-white stripped shirt.

"This lovely dining room makes me want to have an affair," she said while we sipped Champagne. "I want someone to send me a garbage pail of blood-red roses, to threaten to hang himself if I won't see him." I suspect there may have been a likely candidate or two in the room for such an adventure, but myself, I was hungry and also curious about what talented two-star chef Michel Roth would be offering for the relatively reasonable price of 70 Euros.

Victoria raved about her gorgeous vegetable terrine with tiny baby squid, and I loved my starter of a giant ravioli stuffed with artichokes and arugula and garnished with baby clams and fine shavings of Parmesan Reggiano cheese. Next, saddle of rabbit with thyme and vegetables for Victoria, who pronounced it
succulent and delicious," a snowy filet of monkfish with black olives, zucchini and pickled lemon for me. Desserts were stunningly good, too--a crispy praline with pungent passionfruit for Victoria, and a  “Tatin” style roasted apple with luscious caramel ice cream for me. We drank by the glass from the excellent selection of open bottles, and service was absolutely charming throughout the meal, which is why I'd highly recommend this lunch menu to anyone who wants a special-occasion meal in Paris at an affordable price.

Today, I went back to the Ritz for Sunday brunch, and after we'd eyeballed the vast selection of possibilities on their lavish buffet, we were seated at a nice table for two by the window overlooking the interior courtyard. As we let a little rose Champagne put us in the mood, a woman with a theatrically plummy voice at neighboring table said "Mais ma cherie, the markets in Samarkand are the best in the world. Ex-traor-di-naire, vraiment ex-traor-di-naire. Glancing over my shoulder to get a glimpse of this worldly shopper, I saw a brunette with an emerald ring the size of a large grape sitting at a corner table with none other than Bernadette Chirac, in her signature shaded glasses, and Jacques Chirac himself. 

On the first of a shamefully large number of runs to the buffet--first plate: sushi; second: smoked salmon, giant capers, cream of lettuce soup with burrata, and shrimps with a raspberry vinaigrette; third: eggs benedict; fourth: roast stuffed breast of veal with potato puree with cepes and cherry tomatoes filled with spinach; and finally, a single crepe filled with salted caramel butter for dessert--I noticed that the former president of the Republic was drinking an excellent Pomerol, and assumed the conversation was mostly political, since the words "Iran," "Obama," and "Sarkozy" occasionally popped out their conversation.

Meanwhile, the pianist played what Bruno described as "perfect Sunday sad music, including the theme from "Love Story" and "Send in the Clowns." Service was outstanding, the crowd intriguing and the food abundant and quite good, so Sunday brunch at the Ritz is just the ticket if you happen to have 105 Euros you're looking to get rid off. Reservations essential.

L'Huitrerie Regis, 3 Rue Montfaucon, 6th, Tél : 01.44.41.10.07. Métro: Mabillon ou Saint-Germain. Closed Mon. and mid-July to end of Sept. Avg 40 Euros.

L’Espadon, Hotel Ritz, 15 Place Vendome, 1st, Tel. 01-43-16-30-80. Metro: Opera or Tuileries

Staring out at the fog shrouding the runways in Zurich airport, I just realized that I’d been daydreaming about the dinner that I had last night at La Cave Beavau for the last twenty minutes. Why? It was a meal that nourished me in all senses of the word, and it also touched the pithe of what I most love about not only Paris, but also French food.

And to think I’d probably walked by this place in the rue des Saussies just across the street from Chez Sarko, or the Elysees Palace, dozens of times during the twenty years I’ve lived in Paris without giving it a second thought. On the other hand, Stephane Delleré, one of the greatest bistro keepers in the city, has only been the owner for a few months. Delleré, whom I admire to no end, previously ran Le Gavroche, which he still owns, and Le Duc de Richelieu near the Gare de Lyon, which he’s sold, and originally from La Sarthe, he’s worked in almost every type of restaurant job you can imagine, which is one major reason why his places are always so heart-warmingly good. The other, of course, is that he insists on serving only the very best of everything—his beef comes from La Bourcherie Premiere, he buys his wines from flock of independent vigneron friends, and everything else aside from the cheese is homemade. As crucial as Delleré experience and commitment to quality maybe, however, the real reason his restaurants are so remarkable is that he has a real vocation for making other people happy.

 It helps, too, that La Cave Beavau has the delicious atmosphere created by an almost untouched 1950s Parisian bistro interior, including the wonderful violin-shaped swirls on the ceiling that made me think of a set for Cocteau’s “Orphee,” a bank of old-fashion under-counter refrigerators behind the long bar in the entry, and various other vintage bits and pieces, including cash registers and telephones from several different long ago decades.  Of course no one designed this look, however, and of course this is why it’s so wonderful, guilessly sincere and haphazardly authentic.

Bruno and I met two friends at the bar and we sipped a terrific white wine from La Touraine and, thanks to Delleré, ate more hors d’oeuvres than we should have before sitting down to dinner. But I couldn’t stop myself, and neither could Bruno or Ann or Maggie. So Stephane kept slicing more delicious Serrano ham and refilling a small plate of bulots (sea snails) poached in a good court bouillon everytime we emptied same.

Finally we sat at a cosy booth table in the backroom and ordered a round of profoundly Gallic and profoundly delicious starters—oeufs mayonnaise (hard-boiled eggs in ivory-colored homemade
mayonnaise); jambon persille, that Burgundian classic of shredded ham in parslied aspic; and two superb terrines—chicken liver and duck, both of which were homemade, which explained their perfect coarse texture. Next, an impeccable steak tartare with homemade frites, a pave de rumsteak with pepper cream sauce, an andouillette AAAAA and a daily special of sautéed scallops with fresh vegetables, all excellent. And finally, baba au rhum and Saint Marcellin cheese, which we all shared. Delleré has also put together a superb wine list, including many excellent Beaujolais—Saint Amour, Julienas, Chenas, etc., along with remarkable bottles of Crozes Hermitage and Cornas. La Cave Beauvau is a truly precious address for anyone who really loves authentic, moderately priced old-fashioned bistros.

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Though not easy to get to, the northern edges of the 17^th arrondissement continue to be the setting for a variety of the city’s best new contemporary bistros (Hier et Aujourd'hui, L'Entredgeu), and the latest candidate is the very good new La Fourchette du Printemps, a simple storefront place just across the train cut of the defunct circular railway known as La Petite Ceinture.

It’s a very simple, sincere and reasonably priced place with white walls, oak tables, aluminum hanging lamps a la IKEA, and comfortable scarlet-upholstered chairs, and I stopped in to sample one of the excellent good-value lunch menus (18 Euros to 30 Euros) prepared by two amiable young men who trained at a suite of star-studded tables before going out on their own. We started with a complimentary hors d’oeuvre of delicious creamy parsnip soup, and then sampled an excellent old-fashioned potage Dubarry (cream of cauliflower soup) that had been made with an excellent, full-flavored bouillon and a delicious terrine with a rich lobe of foie gras and a delicate wrapping of fine ribbons of poached leek. Next, a perfectly cooked cod steak with a sauté of autumn vegetables for my friend, and a carefully cooked supreme de volaille (chicken breast) on a bed of very good risotto for me. We finished with simple but very good desserts—meringue with orange slices and a deconstructed tarte Tatin that was less successful; instead of baked apple, cinammon-flavored crumbs and cream in a dreaded verrine (stout glass), I’d have preferred the real McCoy. Still, this very pleasant restaurant offers very good food at very reasonable prices, and I’ll definitely go back to sample the Waterzoi de la Mer on the dinner menu.

La Cave Beauvau, 4, Rue des Saussaies, 8^th, Tél: 01-42-65-24-90.  Metro: Miromesnil or Champs-Élysées – Clemenceau. Open Monday-Saturday, 7am-8pm, and Wednesday, Friday and Saturday for dinner. Average 35 Euros.

 La Fourchette du Printemps, 30 rue du Printemps, 17^th, Tel. 01-42-27-26-97. Metro: Wagram. Closed Saturday lunch and Sunday. Lunch menus 18 – 30 Euros, Dinner 42 Euros.

It was quite a scene at La Table 28 last night. This plain storefront space that previously housed talented Chicago born chef Daniel Rose's Spring, which will reopen on the rue Bailleul in March 2010 if all goes according to plan, was playing to a full house that was composed almost entirely of food writers and restaurant critics. Word had evidently gotten around very quickly that Rose had reincarnated the space as an intimate rotisserie restaurant, so an officious French lady food critic held court here, and a jet-lagged New York blogger was to be found at the table d'hotes across the way. Oh, and me? I was here to eat, and later write about it, of course, but also to have a good time. 

Rose himself was manning the new gas-fired rotisserie in the small open kitchen, and I have to say I really admired the way that he not only sent out excellent food all night long but adopted a cordial if thoroughly Zen attitude towards all of the sharp pencils in the room. They serve a single menu here nightly, and we began with a superb salad of gem lettuce garnished with pomegranate seeds and thin slices of delicious raw noir de Bigorre bacon and perfectly dosed with a cider-vinegar vinaigrette, a brilliant mix of textures and varying tones of sweet-and-sour acidity. Next, the main event, half of a beautifully roasted Coucou de Rennes chicken garnished with roasted carrots, turnips, parsnips and apples and a side of potatoes cooked with goose fat. This was happy, delicious, generously served comfort food at its very best, and the firm, almost alabaster-like flesh of the chicken was fine but full of flavor.

Finally, a baked pear cake with a wonderful garnish of creme fraiche, apple puree, lime zest and chocolate shards. 

A fine bottle of biodynamique Moulin a Vent vieille vignes at 23 Euros was just the ticket with this meal, and La Table 28, still a work in progress, is a place where I could very easily become a regular. Speaking briefly with Rose after dinner, though, he advised that reservations are essential, because he can only get so many of these chickens a day. He also mentioned that he'd liked to do suckling pig on the rotisserie, and maybe duck, and that he's toying with the idea of serving an all shellfish menu during the summer; rotisseried lobster just a ten minute walk from my front door? Now I really have something to look forward to next summer.

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Get ready to wince--the latest dispiriting French take on American eating in Paris is called HAND, as in Have A Nice Day. Oh help! During the twenty plus years I've lived in Paris, the city's popular idea of American food hasn't evolved one wit. It's still burgers, and burgers, and burgers, and Caesar salads, and brownies, and bagels, and Tex-Mex, and enough already! This stereotypical fat-fest is not only indigestible but just so totally wrong, as anyone who has eaten around America recently can tell you. From truly wonderful and very original little restaurants like Aldea in New York City to the terrific new wave of oyster houses in the South End of Boston, to say nothing of the gastro Renaissance of New Orleans and the endlessly appetizing food scenes of Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, Miami and a dozen other major U.S. cities, America has never eaten so well.

So why the stodge fest in this great-looking little place with cobalt blue walls, industrial lighting, and the scuffed up wooden floors that are meant to recall, um, er, Soho? I went for Saturday lunch with one of many French friends who claim to love American food. She wanted a Caesar salad, a dish I could never imagine ordering in a restaurant, and what came to the table was something that might have been created by a drunk at a motel salad bar--chopped iceberg lettuce, oddly uniform chunks of lukewarm chicken breast, and a hair-pomade consistency dressing that had no taste at all.

Since I'm defenseless when it comes to onion rings, I had to have some with my bacon cheeseburger. If the burger was respectable enough, the accompanying "fries" were greasy, unpeeled potato quarters, likely baked, and an increasingly common cheat in busy profit-conscious French kitchen where real fries demand too much time and effort. To be sure, the "bacon" had nothing to do with real American bacon either and the bun was too large and too dense. But the beef was good, and if this burger didn't clock in at 13.50 Euros, or almost twenty bucks at current exchange rates, I might be tempted to return from time to time. Oh, and the onion rings? Just plain awful, as in in deep-fried. oil-impregnated little O's with the alarming consistency of a flabby arm. Or actually they reminded me of a deranged experiment a friend and I attempted a longtime ago with a box of Mrs. Paul's Onion rings while on a Spring break trip to North Carolina. College students with empty pockets, we avoided restaurants and spent most of a week living on sandwiches. Then one hot afternoon on the way to the beach, we stopped at a convenience store to buy beer and the onion rings called to me from deep inside of a frozen food case. The problem, of course, was that we had no where to cook them...but wait! Maybe we could leave them on a piece of aluminum foil on the hood of the car while we were swimming and the sun would cook them! The soggy, greasy muck that we found when we returned three hours later immediately went into a litter bin, and I swore off a career as a physicist.

La Table 28, 28 rue de la Tour d'Auvergne, 9th, Tel. 06-42-87-79-64. Mo Cadet. Avg 35 Euros

HAND, 39 rue de Richelieu, 1st, Tel. 01-40-15-03-27. Mo Pyramides or Palais Royale. Avg 20 Euros.

Tearing myself away from my new SEB Acti-Fry, an ungainly but otherwise remarkable new machine that makes enough frites for four with a tablespoon of oil and also does a terrific risotto on which more later, I met my friend Robin for lunch in the Marais. An American who grew up in Paris and now lives in New York, she knows and loves her food and wine, and also appreciates a bargain, so I booked at Le Carre des Vosges, a quiet restaurant that's in the Marais and which has been on my go-to list for ages.

Tucked away behind the magnificent Place des Vosges, it's a good looking restaurant in a beautiful 17th century mansion on one of my favorite streets in the Marais. Stepping through the door, I knew we'd eat well. Why? The welcome was cordial but professional, the place was packed with local boutique owners, and it smelled delicious. We opted for the 29 Euro three-course lunch menu, an excellent value, and it was exceptionally good. I started off with one of the best risottos I've ever eaten in Paris, perfectly al dente and topped with tiny pan-fried squid, and Robin had a delicious galette of roasted pork shank meat mixed with lentils and foie gras. "This is terrific," she said, "and this restaurant is exactly the kind of place we'd kill for in New York. The ingredients are first-rate and there's so much technique in the cooking, but it's reasonably priced, low key and quiet." Next, cod with a crust of buttery crumbs and fresh herbs for me and a daube de sanglier (braised wild boar) for Robin. Neither of us could resist the tarte Tatin for dessert, and we were wise to sucuumb, because it was beautifully made with soft tart caramelized apples and a flakey buttery crust. We were dawdling over coffee when the chef, young Marc Ouvray, emerged, and during a friendly chat, he told us that he'd previously cooked with Eric Briffard, now chef at Le V at the Four Seasons George V and one of the most exigent classically trained chefs working in Paris today.

Though the wine list and a la carte menu are more expensive (we drank a very good Corsican red from Ajaccio for 29 Euros), I can't wait to go back for dinner.

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Sunday lunch in Paris is always a challenge because so few really good places are open. I'm not a big fan of brunch in restaurants--I can do a much better one at home and don't have to change out of my home gear uniform of an over-sized T shirt and sweat pants to eat it, and most of the cities brasseries, the weakest link in the Parisian food chain, are at their worst at Sunday noon. The main reason is that the Sunday lunch crowd usually orders the cheap prix fixe menu, but service is likely to be slow and the kitchen sloppy, since no one really wants to be working in the middle of the day.

So I gave it some thought when Frances, a new friend from California, suggested we meet for lunch. Knowing that she loves old-fashioned Paris, I booked at La Fontaine de Mars, the 1908 vintage bistro that was selected for a very public private dinner by President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle when they were here recently. I hadn't been to this old-timer for a while, but knew the atmosphere would make Frances happy--red-and-white checked table cloths and a pretty setting overlooking a fountain on the rue Saint Dominique and also that owners Jacques and Christiane Boudon are consummate pros. 

Suffice it to say, we had a very, very good meal, and that this place has vaulted to the top of my Sunday lunch list. The elegant Frances didn't want a starter, but I couldn't resist the oeufs au Madiran "facon meurette," which are as good a reason as I can imagine to get out of bed on a Sunday before noon---two perfectly poached eggs in a sauce of reduced Madiran wine with onions and lardons (bacon chunks). A charming Dutch woman at the table next to us had the foie gras de maison mi-cuit and probably because I couldn't take my eyes off it, very kindly offered me a taste on a toast point, and it was excellent.

Frances ordered the steak bearnaise with homemade frites because "the beef in France has so much more flavor that it does in the U.S.," and I had free-range chicken in a cream sauce that was generously loaded with morilles. My chicken was juicy, tender and wonderfully infused with the taste of the morilles, and after Frances put a serious dent in her beautiful pile of golden frites, I finished them off. Her bearnaise was homemade, too, a sad rarity in Paris these days, with a lovely bite of tarragon preserved in vinegar. 

Finishing up over first-rate mousse au chocolat and baba au rhum, I concluded that the presidential minders had made an excellent choice for the first family, whom, I gather really like their food. Putting politics to one side, I'm all for a president who loves the superb Mexican cooking at Rick Bayless's Frontera Grill in Chicago as much as I do.

I'm also heartened by the fact that Michelle Obama is taking such an interest in healthy eating, and word is that my batterie de cuisine shares something in common with that in the White House, since the kitchen there is apparently equipped with a SEB Acti-Fry, too (The Obama girls love fries). As I mentioned, this brilliant new appliance, the fruit of ten years of research by the French SEB appliance company, makes a whole load of fries with any oil you care to use--olive, duck fat, etc., and it does so via an ingenious system that uses hot air from a small electric fan to crisp the fries. By avoiding the traditional deep-fry method, these fries have a fat content of 3% instead of the 20% you find a Mickey D's, and the most miraculous difference between SEB fries and traditional ones is that they actually taste like potatoes. I cut tiny Rattes du Toquet potatoes in half the other night, tossed them with sea salt and herbes de Provence and cooked them with tablespoon of Greek Kalamata oil, and the results were terrific. The other advantage to this machine is that it doesn't leave your house smelling like a MacDonald's for a day or two.

Le Carre des Vosges, 15 rue Saint Gilles, 3rd, Mo Chemin Vert. Lunch menus 22 Euros (2 courses), 29 Euros (3 courses), Avg a la carte 50 Euros.

La Fontaine de Mars, 129 rue Saint Dominique, 7th, Mo Ecole Militaire or Pont-de-l'Alma. Avg 40 Euros.