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.

Occupying an ancient Saint Germain des Pres space that most recently housed chef Jacques Cagna’s seafood bistro, William Ledeuil’s new KGB, or Kitchen Galerie Bis, is more than just an annex to his wildly popular Ze Kitchen Galerie a few doors down. For starters, the prices are lower and the service is brisker, but most importantly, he offers a different declension of the Asian influenced contemporary French bistro cooking that has made him one of the most influential chefs in Paris. Here the menu begins with hors d’oeuvres, served as two, four or six snap shots of his vivid, graphic and absolutely delicious cuisine. I loved his crispy panko-coated shrimp-and chicken croquette with piquillo ketchup, shot of white bean soup with galangal, Wagyu beef tartare with carrot-ginger jus, and mushroom-stuffed macaroni in a chlorophyll bright broth. Next, a Cubist style presentation—Ledeuil’s cooking is intentionally graphic, of capeletti, little pasta caps that look like fiddle head ferns, with a fried quail’s egg, fine slices of Mimolette cheese, green-olive tapenade and an Asian pesto sauce, then a white china casserole of slow-braised pork ribs and griddled potatoes in a hoisin-shoyu marinade.

The grand finale: apple cappuccino with ginger ice cream and a gelee of mostarda di Cremona, the best dessert I’ve eaten all year, and a perfect example of Ledeuil’s imagination. “The mating of different culinary traditions is a very ancient story,” Ledeuil told me after dinner. “Olive oil was once exotic anywhere in France outside of Provence, but today it’s an essential part of the modern French pantry. I see my cooking as part of this same tradition—I exhilirate French dishes with Asian herbs and seasonings.” True, but the main reason Ledeuil’s food is so good is that his finely honed culinary technique doesn’t “fuse” these foreign ingredients into French bistro cooking, it sublimates them. 

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114 Faubourg is a glamorous new duplex restaurant that occupies most of the ground floor of the new twenty-six room annex of the Hotel Le Bistrol in Paris, and it not only offers a chance to sample the superb cooking of Eric Frechon, head chef at the hotel’s very expensive three-star Le Bistrol restaurant, at relatively more moderate prices, it shrewdly offers a new take on the Parisian brasserie for the 21^st century.

   With a décor seemingly inspired by the painting of Chinese and Japanese screens—giant dahlias and tiny butterflies on a scarlet background, the centerpiece of this wonderfully well-lit (both dining rooms are  bathed in low flattering golden light) restaurant is a grand curving staircase that connects the ground floor dining to the open kitchen and basement dining room below.

Banquette seating lines a whole wall in the main dining room, which seems to say that 114 Faubourg is clearly gunning for other beau monde classics like the Plaza Athenee’s Relais Plaza restaurant.

   The reason that 114 Faubourg will trump the competition and is a welcome new addition to the Paris dining scene for being open seven days a week 365 days a year, is that it’s serving up some very good contemporary French food from a menu that offers a puckish snapshot of what stylish Parisians like to eat these days. I loved an hors d’oeuvres of hard-boiled eggs with fresh mayonnaise and shredded crab and thought the spaghetti with octopus bolognaise was not only delicious but smart—it’s very low-cal comfort food. Honey lacquered pork knuckle from the restaurant’s huge rotisserie came on a bed of gently pungent turnip sauerkraut, and the mille feuille with salted caramel sauce is the type of dessert that makes it easy to say the hell with your waistline. Service is smart, polished and multi-lingual, and they pour a great selection of wines by the glass as part of a surprisingly cosmopolitan—foreign wine still barely gets a look in in Paris—list.  The only fly in the ointment is a big one, however—this place is shudderingly expensive. 

KGB, 25 rue des Grand Augustins, 6^th, Tel. 01-46-33-00-85. Metro: Odeon. Avg 50 Euros.

114 Faubourg, Hotel Le Bristol, 114 rue du Faubourg Saint Honore, 8^th, Tel. 01-53-43-43-00. Metro: Miromesnil. Average 100 Euros (gulp)

If terrific little bistros like Jadis, Frenchie and Yam'Tcha have recently provided delicious evidence of the fact the Paris restaurant scene is livelier and more diverse and inventive than it has been for several years, the real proof of how well you eat in the city these days is sometimes found at under the radar places that don't receive quite as much media attention.

These were my thoughts as I sipped an excellent Sauvignon Blanc from the Languedoc while waiting for friends at Au Coin des Gourmets, the wonderful Indochinese restaurant on the rue Dante in the 5th arrondissement that's one of my favorite casual restaurants. This week I had two excellent meals at restaurants that haven't caused a media furor, and so are available to anyone who wants to reserve at the last minute instead of calling weeks ahead of time.

To be honest, I wasn't expecting much from Le Jardin d'Ampere, the restaurant in the Hotel d'Ampere in the 17th arrondissement. It's a pleasant place, but has a decidedly corporate following, and I was having dinner there because that's where an old friend from Boston in town on business was staying. She only had one night free and was ghastly jet-lagged and so asked if we could eat in. Little did I know that I was just about to have a truly memorable meal. We started with beautifully made duck foie gras which came with a delicious black cherry chutney, a great idea for tempering the liver's richness, and sublime langoustine ravioli with curcuma and an intriguing emulsion of toasted bread crumbs. Next grilled veal sweetbreads with wild mushrooms in carrot jus for me, and John Dory cooked with lemongrass and served with a delicious sate (peanut) jus and gnocchi with black olives for Laurie. We split a wonderful and dramatic lemon dessert, and finally I was curious about the chef and asked the waiter, who told me that young Laurent Tessier previously cooked at La Maison Blanche. Tessier also offers two very good value 24 Euro and 28 Euro lunch menus, and the courtyard garden next to the sleek contemporary dining room must be a lovely place to dine in good weather.

A few days later, I had a superb tasting menu at Le Cafe Moderne, a terrific restaurant with a somewhat difficult location behind the old Bourse, or French stock exchange, in the 2nd arrondissement. Busy at noon with a executive lunch crowd, it's much quieter in the evening, which is when I like to go. Frederic Hubig-Schall, one of the best and hardest working young restaurant owners in Paris, is the host and sommelier. Hubig-Schall knows and loves his wine, and generously serves some really excellent bottles from little known vineyards--we drank a terrific all Syrah red from vineyards adjacent to those that produce Condrieu, one of my favorite white wines, for very fair prices. His chef is Jean-Luc le Francois, a solid talent whom I first discovered when he was cooking at L'Astor. The other night we were six and made our way through an outstanding tasting menu, with each dish a wonderful miniature that intrigued with the architecture of its tastes and textures. Foie gras with tiny flecks of fruits confit was wonderful, as was beef with pepper and a celery millefeuille, but the stand-out was sea bass with a gently sweet and wonderfully earthy sauce of chestnuts and grilled cepes mushrooms, an autumnal dish par excellence. With its low lighting, friendly service, and great wines, Le Cafe Moderne is an excellent choice for a casual but memorable meal.

Cafe Moderne, 40 rue Notre Dame des Victoires, 2nd, Tel. 01-53-40-85-10. Metro: Bourse. Open Monday-Saturday. Saturday dinner only. Avg 50 Euros. 

Le Jardin d'Ampere, 102 Avenue de Villiers, 17th, Tel. 01-44-29-16-54. Metro: Ternes. Open daily. Average 60 Euros a la carte.

Paris falls narcissistically in love with Japan every couple of generations for obvious reasons. Parisians love the importance that the Japanese attach to the aesthetics of daily life, their love of ritual, and their extremely good manners. Sometimes these recurring crushes focus on art, like the Japanese screens and ceramics that inspired many Impressionist painters, but this time round, its Japanese food that's the object of Parisian affections. Seriously good Japanese restaurants are opening all over the city, and many of the city's best young bistro chefs freely avail themselves of the Japanese pantry (wasabi, yuzu, miso, soy, etc.) and cooking techniques like tempura and steaming.

When I first moved to the city in 1986, there was a good sushi bar in the rue des Ciseaux in the 6th, and a couple of Japanese places in and around the rue Saint Anne, plus a scattering of mediocre and possibly dangerous sushi-and-tempura joints in the Latin Quarter. Now almost every Paris neighborhood has at least one serious Japanese restaurant and sushi has become a common takeout item. The Parisian love of Japanese good is galloping this Fall, too, with a bunch of new openings. My favorite, however, is Shu, which opened a year ago in a tiny backstreet in Saint Germain and has quickly developed an almost cult-like following for the exquisite tasting menus of very talented and charming young chef Osamu Ukai.

A week after I last managed to get through the door--anyone but a dwarf will be bent over almost double getting through the miniature front door that leads down to this cosy and very pretty basement restaurant, I'm still thinking about how delicious the food was an yearning for more. Our meal began with a tiny ball of chopped squid with spinach and mushrooms—a sublime expression of all these ingredients, then some of the best sashimi I’ve ever had (sea bream with lychees); flash-grilled tuna and eggplant in sesame sauce; veal tongue marinated in miso with broccoli; sea bass carmelized in Balsamic vinegar; and finally a wonderful assortment of kushiage, or breaded, deep-fried bites of quail’s egg, chicken, eggplant, shitake mushroom with shrimp, and crab and patty pan squash on bamboo skewers. Japanese desserts usually leave me cold--I find them too sweet, but Ukai's green-tea cheese cake was bliss. The wine list here is extremely well thought out--we drank a white Menetou Salon with our meal, and it flattered every dish, and they also have a great choice of sakes.

Shu, 8 rue Suger, 6^th, Tel. 01-46-34-25-88, Metro: Saint-Michel or Odéon. Avg 50 Euros.

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Several recent events have made me aware of how lamentably little Paris does to promote itself as the world capital of gastronomy. Attending the first Gastronomare festival in Marseille last weekend, I was impressed by the organization and carefully considered intentions of this event, which seeks to promote a great knowledge and understanding of the culinary culture of the Mediterranean world.

   Of particular interest was a colloqium on the state of traditional urban food markets in various Mediterranean destinations, including Turkey, Turin, Provence and Barcelona. Suffice it to say that all of these very different places are undertaking major efforts to protect, promote and modernize their urban food markets. If only the same were true in Paris! To be sure, Paris has several fine food markets, both in covered halls and open-air, but I have no sense that the city prizes its markets as vital components of economically prosperous, socially diverse city neighborhoods. Through the years, Paris has allowed several famous covered markets to die—Les Halles, bien sur, but also La Place du Marche Saint Honore, or sadly wither, the Marche du Saint Germain des Pres. Many other markets are decidedly senile, the Marche de l’Europe in the 8^th being a melancholy example of one that’s just fading away. Market streets die out, too—the rue du Buci in the 6^th is the saddest example, and the explanation for this situation is the ongoing gentrification of central Paris with the implicit complicity of City Hall. Many of the covered markets that have died out were later reclaimed and redeveloped as expensive retail or office space, and it’s shocking that none of the possible redesign projects for Les Halles include a food market—if only a party of municipal notables would visit Barcelona’s brilliant Santa Caterina or Barceloneta markets to see how a market can play a staring role in animating a city neighborhood.

   The other serious problem in Paris is that it’s lost its agricultural hinterland. With the exception of a few farmer producers like Joel Thiebault, agriculture in the Ile de France has almost completely died out, with the result that much of what’s sold in Parisian markets is purchased wholesale at Rungis and then resold at a mark-up the more picturesque settings of Parisian markets. I can’t help thinking, however, that if New York was able to renew its market culture almost from scratch through the city’s green-market program (these markets sell seasonal produce grown almost within the radius of a two-hour drive from Manhattan in any direction), Paris could too. It’s simply a question of supply and demand. So let's be demanding.

With the recent opening of the TGV Est high-speed train line serving eastern France, Nancy, one of the most charming small cities in France, is a very easy hour and a half train ride from Paris and an ideal Indian summer long weekend. The cooler weather is also the ideal appetite sharpener for discovering some of the city's specialities, and there's no better place to do so than the wonderful Les Pissenlits (The Dandelions), a truly excellent and very popular brasserie that gladdens the heart with its brisk, friendly service and obvious commitment to serving good quality regional food.

With lunchtime looming on an overcast Monday in Paris, I'm kicking myself for not asking if I could doggy-bag the rest of the first course I had at dinner here on Friday night--a lavish serving of succulent ham smoked in hay to give it a faintly herbaceous perfume. It came to the table with a superb tomato salad dressed in a creamy shallot vinaigrette and homemade celeri remoulade, and with a basket of good bread and a nice bottle of LaRoppe Pinot Noir, I was in heaven. It had been ages, in fact, since I'd eaten such good ham, and it brought back fond memories of a superb traiteur that once existed across the street from an office I once worked in in the now completely gentrified rue du Cambon in Paris. Served with a small ceramic ramekin of creamy, garlicky mayonnaise, this ham was a triumph of simplicity and it was so generously served, I could easily have made a meal of it. Bruno loved his pissenlit (dandelion) salad with chunky lardons, too. Main courses were outstanding, too. I opted for the bouche de la reine, best-known in the English-speaking world as that old ladies-bridge-game-luncheon stand-by chicken a la king. The real McCoy came in a flakey, buttery tasting pastry cylinder that brimmed with fresh mushrooms, shredded chicken and slices of feather-light chicken quenelles and a side of freshly made noodles. Unctuous and delicately flavored with good bouillon, it's the type of dish I could eat every other day. Bruno's baeckoffe, an Alsatian stew of potatoes, beef, lamb and onions simmered in white wine, was delicious, too, and the slice of mirabelle (tiny yellow plums) tart we shared was clearly homemade and truly excellent. 

What made our meal at Les Pissenlits particularly joyous is that it offered such happy proof that good simple regional food still abounds in France. And this is why lunch at Nancy's magnificent L'Excelsior brasserie the following day was such a disgrace. This land-marked brasserie with its beautiful interior of elegant plasterwork moldings inspired by ferns is one of the great art nouveau interiors in France. I hadn't been in a longtime and was keen to savor this special spot despite the fact that it's now part of the Brasseries Flo chain. I avoid Brasseries Flo in Paris like the plague--they're overpriced and shamelessly mediocre--but decided to make an exception for L'Excelsior. Just maybe, I hoped, this one in the provinces would hold to a higher standard that such sorry Parisian addresses as Chez Julien, Flo or La Coupole, all part of the chain and all serving industrial catering at eye-popping prices. Alas, our lunch was dreadful. A serving of quiche Lorraine was soggy and without flavor, and every single oyster I ate was laiteuse, or milky. Next, I foolishly ordered scallops with wild mushrooms in a jus de veau. The scallops were the size of large cookies, which immediately made me suspicious--it's a well-known fact that factory fishing boats manufacture scallops by punching them out of fish fillets, and then the mushrooms were soggy and likely frozen and the jus de veau tasted like pureed cat food. For 30 Euros, Bruno's lobster salad was highway robbery--a stingy half of a rather sad-looking lobster served on a bed of overcooked haricots verts with a few ribbons of mango. Even the wine, supposedly a Gustave Lorenz Riesling, tasted sharp and green and quite unlike this very respectable maker's normal vintages.

Since Flo is an expanding international group--they now have restaurants in Beijing, Lisbonne, and Barcelona, and have tragically laid their hands on the once wonderful Aux Armes de Bruxelles in Brussels, I think it's very important that they receive the bluntest possible feedback on their product, which I find heart-breakingly sans ame and an affront to real French cooking.

Les Pissenlits, 25bis rue des Ponts, Nancy, Tel. 03-83-37-43-97, Avg 30 Euros

L'Excelsior, 50 rue Henri Poincare, Nancy, Tel. 03-83-35-24-57, Avg 30 Euros

Reading a pocket restaurant review in the New Yorker the other day, I was struck by the main motor of the writer's little critique, which is that anyone who lives in a big city, any big city, needs a dozen or so restaurants that you can decide to go to at the last minute without a reservation for a good and reasonably priced meal. Such places are becoming scarcer and scarcer, which is why I really like Le Tourbillon, a very sweet modern bistro in the deep Latin Quarter.

Young chef Cedric Tessier trained with Michel Rostang and Alain Dutournier before setting out on his own, but the influences of these maestros are minor in a brief menu that's generous--24 Euros for three courses!--well-conceived and self-effacingly creative. Before you dash off to pick up the phone, though, please understand what this place is all about. It's a simple, low-to-the-ground, first-time-at-bat young chef's table in a former cafe in a quiet corner of the 5th arrondissement. Tessier's charming wife Rebecca waits table and is a master-class eve's dropper (when my friend Judy and I were talking about how we mutually loathe truffle oil, one of the biggest fakes of contemporary cooking, it curiously vanished from an otherwise excellent starter salad of crunchy vegetables and Parmesan shavings).

Judy loved this salad, and both of us enjoyed my mushroom (mousserons, cepes, chaterelles) omelette, a wonderfully retro starter that was perfectly cooked--bronzed exterior, creamy center redolent of the mushrooms, a dish neither of us had seen on a Paris restaurant menu (all cafes serve them) in ages. Next, turbans of sole on a bed of leeks and lemon for Madame, and one of the best risottos I've ever eaten in France for me. Though Tessier didn't use arborio rice, the dish was impeccably seasoned, garnished with runner beans, zucchini chunks and slices of Iberian ham, and it was generously served and absolutely delicious. A lovely mesclun salad with a shallot vinaigrette and two slices of nicely ripened brie and peaches poached in lemon verbena concluded this pleasant, low-key meal, which we enjoyed with a bottle of their excellent Beaujolais vieille vignes at 25 Euros.

Le Tourbillon, 45 rue Claude-Bernard, 5th, Tel. 01-47-07-86-32. Metro: Monge or Censier-Daubenton.

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What I've been mulling about: French service, which is often disappointing. Consider a very expensive meal that I had a Jacques Decoret in Vichy in August. I was so looking forward to sampling this talented chef's cooking again and also eager to see his new digs--when I went for the first time some five year's ago, he was in a store-front space near the train station. Now he occupies a grand Napoleon III villa that overlooks the genteel park in the heart of this faded but oddly appealing old spa town. Unfortunately, Decoret, previously one of France's wittiest and boldest chefs, has gone Michelin. Consider the following script--when I chatted with the young sommelier about drinking a white Saint Pourcain to start, and then a half bottle of Irancy (it was a very warm night), he told me that Irancy tastes like a white wine and that this was a terrible idea. Next, our first courses arrived before our wine had been opened and served, a real pet peeve, and then every subsequent course was proceeded by a stiffy, fussy sing-song recitation that was a real insult to this previously daring cook's talent. Suspecting the worst, I asked the charmless young waitress if she'd been to a French hotel school, and got a disdainful, bien sur.

Bien sur, indeed. And a few days later, at the lovely Auberge du Paradis in the Beaujolais, the rather arch maitre d'hotel informed us that the tasting menu always lasted three hours. THREE HOURS. Now why was this necessary on a very hot night in an airless and mostly empty dining room. Clearly, the chef was imposing his will in defiance of the preference of any client. We'd driven five hours to get to this meal, and while keen, were tired. So why was it necessary to inflict a 25 minute interval between each course?

In both instances, and others--the meal I carped about a year ago at La Grenouillere (it's still posted in DINER'S JOURNAL)--the real problem in that contemporary French service still often fails due to a misconstrued mission. To wit, the client is NOT there to bow down at the altar of a chef, rather the chef and his staff are there to offer the client as much pleasure as they can. 

Too often hidebound and driven by antiquated rites and routines, the service in most French restaurants desperately needs to be revised and modernized.

Just before I went away on vacation, I had an excellent going-away dinner with my friend Judy at Corneil, a pleasant, friendly and unassuming little modern bistro about a ten minute walk from where I live in the 9^th arrondissement, a part of Paris that still doesn’t show up often on most visitors gastronomic radar despite its very central location.

  The reality, however, is that this a great part of town in which to prospect for good, reasonably priced restaurants because my worldly, affluent neighbors know and love good food and also appreciate a good buy.I found out about Corneil, in fact, from my cobbler, whom I overheard recommending it to a customer. “La viande est extra, et c’est pas cher. Il faut prendre la cote de boeuf pour deux—quel Bonheur!” (The meat’s great and it isn’t expensive. You have to have the cote de boeuf for two—what a treat!) But first I had an excellent cold roast tomato soup and Judy a fine slab of homemade terrine de campagne, which was chunky, flavorful and served with a salt-glazed crock of cornichons as it should be. Next, the rib eye, a massive piece of perfectly cooked meat that came to the table sliced on a wooden carving board with sides of green salad and sautéed potatoes. Though succulent and flavorful, we couldn’t eat more than half of it (Judy later reported making a delicious steak sandwich the following day). We finished our bottle of house cotes du Rhone, an excellent buy at 20 Euros, over homemade plum tart, and I’m eagerly looking forward to going back and trying the rest of the menu, which includes rabbit in mustard sauce and cod with a sauce vierge.

Since summer came late to Paris this year, we’re all still a bit greedy for greenry with autumn looming, so a gorgeous weekend was the perfect excuse to decide on a lazy day in the Yonne, the northernmost part of Burgundy and only an hour-and-a-half from the capital by car. I once had a friend who had a beautiful country house here, an old stone mill house on an islet in the middle of the mill run, and during many happy weekends chez elle, I got to know this charming region well.

Though the cathedral in Sens is interesting and Joigny is a lively market town on the Yonne river with several excellent antique shop, the area doesn’t have a wealth of must-see sights, which from my point of view makes it the ideal day out. I would suggest, however, that anyone visiting the area make their way to Irancy to taste the wonderful red wines made there—the best are made by Colliot and have a surprising amount of body for a light red wine. I also love the light cherry and plum notes of Irancy, which is perfect summer drinking.

Friends had told me they’d had a fine meal at Les Bons Enfants, a new restaurant Saint-Julien-du-Sault, one of the prettiest villages in the region, and so off we went for lunch. Arriving, it was heartening to see how much renovation work was going on in this delightful but previous quiet place, and indeed Les Bons Enfants is located in a set of half-timbered houses that have been restored with real art and good taste. It’s a two in one restaurant—there’s a gastronomic restaurant and a bistro, and we chose the bistro and a table under an umbrella in the interior courtyard. What followed was an excellent 28 Euro prix-fixe lunch that began with delicious cold pea soup, followed by roast cod with fork-mashed potatoes, a nice selection of local cheeses, including a locally made goat cheese and some Epoisse, and flakey cooked-to-order tarte fine aux pommes. The meal was so good and the service so charming that I’m already looking forward to sampling the gastronomic restaurant sometime soon, especially since the menu was so appealing.

Corneil, 19 rue Condorcet, 9^th, Tel. 01-49-95-92-25. Avg 40 Euros.

Les Bons Enfants, 4 place de la Mairie, 4 place de la Mairie, Saint-Julien-du-Sault Tel. 03-86-91-17-38. Avg 35 Euros (bistro), 70 Euros (gastronomic restaurant).