Day 8 – Il n’est rien de plus serious que le plaisir

There is nothing more serious than pleasure.

Before anything, it’s the first of the month: “Rabbit!”

Today we decided to have breakfast downstairs at our hotel. We have still been unable to get the Nescafé in our room to work, so having coffee/tea was a relief :-) They had a really nice spread, with croissants, pain au chocolat, fresh blueberry or lemon breads, baguettes, cheese/meats, yogurts, fresh fruit, fresh squeezed juice, etc.

We had slept in, with the idea that we would catch a taxi to Le Tour d’Argent just before our reservation, and then do a bit of walking (waddling?) after. Our taxi driver told us that Notre Dame is slated to be opened in December, and the Pope will come to re-consecrate it for Christmas! (How’s that for a little inside tidbit.)

We still wound up at the door 15 minutes early, but took some photos of the outside of the restaurant, plus of the cute little cafe that a restaurant had set up on the bridge across from Le Tour (Notre Dame/cranes in the background).

The Tour has been reconfigured since I was last there. I suppose every 20 years a restaurant should be allowed to change (ha ha). We sat in a lovely bar in the front waiting for the restaurant to seat us. I was happy? relieved? to see that a guy who had come in with a shirt and (black) jeans was made to put on a jacket. (No tie though – it was lunch, after all.)

We were given an “amuse bouche” in the bar of cold hibiscus-based tea, plus wee balls of a flash-frozen ?yogurt? enrobed celeriac “bomb.” (NOTE: I will be receiving a list of the exact menu of both the food and the wine, so this will be edited after I receive it.)

I bit into it first, and immediately said “you’re not going to be happy,” because Leann is not a huge celery lover. It was okay though :-) She said that her grandmother had had glasses with very similar etching on them. I mentioned perhaps it was time to get them out and serve hibiscus tea in them :-)

We headed upstairs to the restaurant after an exceedingly short wait, and were seated at a table at the window. We marveled at the Seine below and the various barges and boats doing their business (and the cranes at Notre Dame, too). The first amuse bouche were cheese and peanut bombs, which (of course) I could not eat.

The garçon looked concerned when I reminded them that I had (twice) listed my fish and peanut allergy, which they had confirmed via email. They headed back to the maitre d’, who looked at our table, looked at a book, looked mad at himself…and sent the sommelier to give me more champagne. They could not easily give me a different amuse bouche, but after the next amuse bouche course (during which Leann received two “small bites” that did contain fish), the two fish-related “main” courses from the Chef’s Tasting Menu were replaced.

My amuse bouche (shown at the right) was an onion-chutney “taco-ish” thing (Leann had that too – her favorite), a torched corn one, and a carrot-citron one, with a spicy quinoa “pie” on the wee brick. Leann had some sort of fish stuffed in a green olive where I had the corn, and a “fish pie” where I had the quinoa one. As I mentioned above, I will be replacing this seriously lacking description once I receive the menu from the Tour :-)

We had blanc de blancs champagne with these wee courses, and then I told the sommelier that I would have the wine course with the pairings, but that Leann would just have tastes of mine. (My sweet lightweight daughter LOL.) Once again, I will receive specifics on the wine choices in an email.

When I was at the Tour in my 20s with my then-boyfriend, the sommelier came to the table with a leather bound, hand written book containing all the wines in their cellar. I wrote a story a long, long time ago (when I was in my 40s and came back to Paris) about this experience, and how the Texan sitting next to us grabbed the wine book from the sommelier, who looked a bit apoplectic (“This book has not left our gloved hands for 200 years!”), asking whether they didn’t have any “California wine in there.”

Now, each table receives their own wine cellar list and can choose from it, either by the glass to pair with a course, or by the bottle. Every wine is in it – even the stratospherically-priced ones that have been in the cellar since the 1800s. I did tell the sommelier that I had passed the sommelier ranking, but that he should choose the wine pairings for the courses. I watched what he chose for me versus what he chose for another table, and “as promised” by my teachers, I received a different pairing than the “usual one.”

The next course was a cold soup that was very green and refreshing. I remember white truffle oil. It was paired with a white wine, and I’m just embarrassed to say that once they told me we would be receiving that email, I didn’t write anything down. I do remember that it had a honeyed nose, but on the tongue it had more of a gravel taste. Very interesting. Worked fantastically with the soup. I had Leann take a taste before having a bite, then after having a bite, to see how the flavors changed.

Our next course would have been a fish course; instead, we received the most amazing “egg bomb.” No, really. Amazing. It was a huge egg, that cut open to the perfectly runny yolk. I’m a bit unclear what sort of egg it was, but I tend to think duck or goose. Around the outside were garlic flowers, tiny Parmesan squares that exploded in your mouth when you got one, baby “rocket” (arugula), and zucchini and yellow squash shaved so thin you could see through them. The “sauce” was also (I think) zucchini-based, but we had no idea what the “green enrobing” over the egg was. Leann commented that in watching “The Bear,” she really now understood that every single morsel was placed exactly with tweezers. I told her the story of getting the chef’s table in the kitchen at Meadowood for Herbert’s 40th, and how the chef would examine not only each plate going out (“Yes, Chef!”), but also any plate that came back in with even a morsel of food left on it (“No, Chef!”)

The wine was a dry reisling. Yes, yes, I’m seriously embarrassed not to have written it all down as I usually do in my tasting book. <sigh> I did take a “potty break” at this moment, and Leann was quite impressed that a garçon came running to fold my napkin. :-)

The following course on the Tasting Menu was another fish course, but we were really lucky to instead receive their foie gras. The waiter explained that this was The Three Emperors’ foie gras. (I’ve linked the story.) We received a seriously healthy portion (I think that the two tables next to us were jealous). It came with a gorgeous warm brioche, a port-reduction, and then a black truffle-related gelee and “the yellow one” (which we liked best). What a treat – !!! Now you’re going to ask me if it was served with a Sauternes, and I will tell you – nope. Something better. And nope – I can’t tell you what it was.

Next, of course, was the thing that The Tour is known for (well, except for the Three Emperors’ foie gras) – their pressed duck. Each diner receives the number of their duck on a special card. (These cards were specially-embossed for the Olympics.) Ours was #1187845 (the numbers started in 1890). The mini salad that accompanied the duck was just out of this world. I can’t wait to find out the ingredients :-) The only way I can explain it is as if it had a base of nopalitos, with that fresh/citrus-type flavor when you bit into the thickish “leaf.” I do know that the crunchy “curl” was mango. Let’s say for the tenth time how much I’d like to have that menu/wine email right this second . . .

Well let me take your mind off it . . . Speaking of the Olympics (I did – a sentence or three ago), just like Claude Terrail had had Notre Dame lit after the end of World War II because his windows were sad without it, The Tour had had a special dining experience both in the restaurant and on the roof for the Opening Ceremony.

The maitre d’ told us that the Moulin Rouge dancers had performed directly across the water from the restaurant, and then came to be with the guests. Perhaps this was the doing of Andre, Claude’s son, who now runs the restaurant? (Andre did come table to table – he was fine, but the maitre d’, who had worked for Claude, mentioned that Claude actually made each table feel like he knew them personally. I will 100% agree with this – that is how it was when we ate there in our 20s.)

After the duck, we opted to have the cheese course. An *enormous* wheel of Comte was waiting patiently in the corner for someone to desire it. :-) It was brought to our table, and the woman in the picture to the right exercised her biceps to cut us 5 large shavings. We were getting pretty stuffed by this time, so Leann and I took the three smallest, then (ahem) I ?hid? the remaining 2 in the case for my sunglasses ;-)

Yes, yes I did. And yes, we visited the Tour d’Argent boulangerie, and obtained a baguette so that we could have a “picnic” dinner with the Comte, which I am eating now for dinner!

The cheese was followed by a “palate cleanser” made up of a crisp lime and basil “top” (a bit like what you’d break through for a crème brûlée), covering a zingy lime sorbet. Very delicious!

And then, the “actual” dessert, a raspberry deliciousness that I, once again, cannot tell you exactly what it was made up of, but tweezers were definitely involved and how, how delicious it was! The dessert was accompanied by four perfect, small truffles, each of which was an enormous explosion of chocolate goodness, “plus.” Leann and I had two different ones – my guess is hers had peanut butter in one, and then some sort of nut in the other. I do remember that one of mine was dark chocolate and raspberry, another was dark chocolate with some crunchy bits and gold on top, another was dark and darker chocolate, and another was (from memory) chocolate and strawberry.

At the end, Leann had a pot of tea, and I stymied the maitre d’ with my request for an espresso with a lemon peel twist. I gave the order to our waitress, who obviously thought she had mis-heard me. I explained it once again, making clear what I wanted. When she relayed it to the maitre d’, I saw him pick up his phone, out of the corner of my eye. Ah, Google! In French, it is an “espresso Romano,” and both he, and the waitress, said that between lunch and dinner, they would need to try it. It was pretty funny. (The maitre d’ actually brought it to our table to discuss it. That is when he told us about working for Claude Terrail.)

Sadly, all good things must end (and we couldn’t find a place for Herbert’s marble that I had in my pocket), and so we were escorted back down in the lift and bid “A bientot” (“See you soon”, versus Au Revoir – “Good bye”). We wish we had taken a photo of the lovely “doorman,” who looked like a gendarme with his silver “Tour” epaulettes, kepi, and long coat. He offered to call us a taxi, but we explained that we would be walking the Seine and visiting the bouquinistes. He said to come back when we needed that taxi. ;-)

We visited a number of the bouquinistes along the Seine, though many, many were closed. As I believe I mentioned before, the Mayor had tried to have them shut down during the Olympics – and (as we were told at Angelina) had also “surrounded” a number of the businesses with barriers. Leann and I commented ruefully that it was exceptionally difficult to get to some of the small businesses along the Seine for that reason. We’re not quite sure what Mme La Maire was thinking, but the Olympics certainly has not been great for *them*!

We really wanted to be sure to patronize the artists and sellers that were open, so we each purchased some etchings, etc. for gifts. We then went to the boulangerie of the Tour d’Argent to get a baguette (to have with our purloined Comte cheese tonight), plus a croissant for me and a pain chocolat for Leann for the morning…and that’s all she wrote!