The Boca Sola: Fauchon and Liza

Where I am, capitulation jokes are too easy. So, instead, I'll merely state that I waved the white flag to eating consistently French food. Not because it's not delicious or innovative or awe-inspiring or a tribute to what man can do with food. It's just too damn much. Small plates are consistently just too much for an American stomach to digest. I'm a hearty eater, but take one recent night. A friend and I went to L'AOC, a charming restaurant in the 5th arrondissement on Rue des Fossés-Saint-Bernard. We both took the menu, which was nearly all meat, which is fine. But examine:

I don't remember what this was called, but it was pork ribs, served a bit cold. Note that while it appears to be white meat, there are large sections of deliciously salted, congealed fat on these ribs. There is no way to eat this entire dish and still have hope to attack the two subsequent dishes.

The second dish was beef tongue, two large pieces with a rich (had to have been composed of red wine) red sauce. That was an undertaking.

To conclude, I had a cherry-mousse-ish dessert. It was entirely unnecessary and to say I was speechless upon receiving it seems sort of crass when I did eat a cow's tongue for dinner.

Anyway, the first way I corrected for it was accidentally finding a vegan place in my neighborhood, Le Potager du Marais, fortuitously albeit accidentally. I hadn't deliberately had a vegetable in days (despite eating oil-soaked mini green salads) and here I had a carrot/yogurt smoothie and a (ok, fried) quinoa burger with a califlower (chou fleur) gratin and a green salad with nothing but vegetables!

More deliberately, yesterday I sought out Fauchon, a place I had only heard described as a "high-end delicatessen." If I had only read its website more carefully, I would have realized that to start, it was a "référence du luxe alimentaire et de l'épicerie fine."

That essentially means they take beautiful food items and put them together for you so you can lustily soak them in visually, liberate them from their carefully arrayed display, and eat them while overlooking the beautiful and sophisticated Place de la Madeleine, which itself envelops the massive yet delicately-mosaic-ed L'Eglise de la Madeleine.

I had a ficelle with raisins and a shrimp/mango salad with mint leaves and a mango vinaigrette (in American terms; I think French vinaigrette has to have mustard). And I had gold plastic silverware!

Interior of l'Eglise de la Madeleine, where I saw a Vivaldi concert later that evening.

That night, after the concert, I went to Liza on 14 rue de la Banque just near La Bourse. It was in one of my books and former-French-protectorate food seemed as germane as French. I arrived around 9:30. Ah, the beauty of French dining times. Liza serves "la cuisine libanaise contemporaine" so while being homey and familiar, there was sufficient innovation where I didn't feel entirely unoriginal ordering some of my favorites.

So romantic.

In place of my ubiquitous Ricard (which they don't carry), I had arak, a Lebanese anisette.

I started with fattouche, sucrine (bib lettuce), persil (parsley), menthe (mint), radis (radish), tomates cerise (cherry tomatoes), cébettes (green onions), concombre (cucumber), croûtons au sumac (pita croutons with sumac). My only critique of the evening is that it could have had more pita. I love that that's what troubles me now.

Here's the rest of the ensemble: a glass of red wine; halloumi (or in French-Lebanese, halloum: fromage (de vache) poêlé (seared cow's milk cheese) et confiture de tomate (tomato jam); and in the thin boat-like dish above the arak, kébbé héloué, which is kébbé de boeuf sucrée-salée, sauce au miel et basilic (beef kibbeh with a honey/basil sauce). It was a remarkable combination.

For dessert, I tried the kataef, which in Greek is something entirely different. The apricots and almonds and the apricot sorbet were delicious, but the rest... perhaps an almond-studded cream in a thin dessert-y pancake...wasn't nearly as remarkable as its predecessors, all balancing a fine line between sweet and savory. How did I get so lucky.