August 18, 2016 -- True tea lovers know about Mariage Frères, the Parisian tea
company founded in 1854. I’m only an
occasional tea drinker, and Tom’s tea consumption is pretty much limited to the
iced variety. But we both were smitten,
years ago, when we entered the old Mariage Frères shop at 13 rue des Grands
Augustins in the 6th arrondissement.
I believe that shop has since been “renovated,” but back when we went
there to buy tea for our German friends in the summer of 2004, it still
retained much of the old, elaborate dark woodwork, paneling, and bins, as well
as the old-fashioned decoratively barred cashier’s window, as if the shop were
a quaint, old bank.
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| The Eiffel Tower last night. |
To reach the Prince Igor (number T940) tea that our friends
wanted, the shopkeeper had to climb up a few steps on a wooden ladder, because the
bins reached up toward the ceiling.
That shop charmed me as much as any sight I’ve ever seen in
Paris. To enter that place was to go
back in time, a hundred years or more.
Now, of course, Mariage Frères shops are scattered
throughout Paris, and there are now shops in London, Berlin, and Tokyo.
Yesteday, I discovered a new Mariage Frères on Rue Cler,
just a short 20 minute walk from our apartment.
I walked on rue Cler twice yesterday. The weather has been very warm, so I went out
in the morning for a walk without Tom. I
did go to the rue Cler (a pedestrianized market street), but there was so much
construction/road work at the intersection of the avenue de la Motte Picquet
that I didn’t see the new shop.
In the calmer evening, when the construction equipment was
stashed away for the night, Tom and I noticed the Mariage Frères with
delight. It does not open until the 21st,
but the lights were on inside, and a young couple was being shown the wares,
privately, by a shopkeeper. We peered
into the big windows. The center window
featured a display of special Brazilian iced teas, in honor of the
Olympics. While the rue Cler shop will
never have the charm of that old place on the rue des Grands Augustins, it is attractive.
Our dinner table was reserved at Le Florimond, just across
the avenue de la Motte Picquet from rue Cler.
We were ready for a good French dinner, having dined at the Bermuda
Onion the previous night. The Bermuda
Onion has good burgers, a great view of the Seine at Beaugrenelle, sleek décor,
and air conditioning; but the profiteroles that Tom had there were so terrible
that they were inedible. Back to French
food from a real French restaurant for us.
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| Lobster ravioli with lobster sauce at Le Florimond. |
I read about Le Florimond last year in Le Figaro, the mildly
conservative French daily newspaper. Le
Florimond is not in lafourchette.com, and the restaurant’s web site does not
offer online reservations. One must
telephone for a reservation; how quaint!
The restaurant had been closed for a couple weeks of
vacation, but yesterday was the first day it was open again. I called in the late afternoon and had no
trouble reserving.
But we were stunned at how many people were already dining
when we arrived at 7:30PM. Then the
place filled up completely. And they
were all English speakers! Last year,
too, I had been surprised at how many English speakers filled the place. I chalked it up to the little hotels all over
that part of the 7th arrondissement; the hotels must be calling the
restaurant to reserve tables for their guests, I had surmised.
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| Veal filet with vegetables at Le Florimond, |
But last night we learned from the couple of Californians
seated next to us that Rick Steves evidently recommended Le Florimond. That explains that!
The restaurant was noisy, and it became hot as the evening
went on. The experienced server was
still on vacation, leaving the dining room to two young guys who were clearly
overwhelmed. Amazing, isn’t it, how a
seasoned professional can make the difficult look easy?
So the service was frenzied and scattered, and the ambiance
was hot and noisy. But the food, oh my
goodness, the food was wonderful.
We were given a mis-en-bouche
of a cool purée of cauliflower and grapefruit (no kidding!), which was mild and
refreshing.
Then Tom’s starter course was an excellent little plate of
lobster ravioli in a lobster sauce. Mine was crêpes with a layer of blood
sausage in between. Yum!
Tom’s main course was beautiful as well as delicious – veal filet
in a rich, dark sauce with fresh veggies, including peas that I consumed. Tom has something against peas, but these
were fine peas.
I had the rabbit main course, which was served with a
braised cabbage. That did not make for a
colorful dish, but it was supremely tasty.
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| Apricot and almond tart at Le Florimond. |
I could not resist ordering the apricot and almond tart for
dessert. The apricots just melted in my
mouth – they were so good! Tom had an
astounding assorted dessert plate. The
picture tells the story.
Oddly, we did not feel over-fed when we finally were able to
get our check and pay up for the evening.
The walk home was lovely, including a shining view of the Eiffel Tower
at the other end of the Champ de Mars.
The evening air was just beginning to cool at 9:30. We’ve had three days of warm weather, but not
hot (well, not hot for south Floridians), and the evenings have been cool
enough (low 70s down to the mid 60s). Today,
finally, some rain showers are expected, followed by several days with highs in
the 70s.
We will experience a few more very warm days – maybe even
one truly hot day! – before our stay is over, but that’s not bad.
This is the week when Paris begins to come alive again,
after all the vacations begin to end. Some
shops may not open until the first week of September, but many places are
re-opening this week, in the aftermath of the Feast of the Assumption, which
was Monday, the 15th.
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| Magnificent dessert plate at Le Florimond. |
La Poste had been closed on Monday, so it was Tuesday that
we made our annual trek there to put just exactly the right amount of postage
on our vote-by-mail ballots, and mail them off to the Supervisor of Elections
in Lee County, Florida, in time for them to be counted in the August 30
primary.
Back in the first several years that we summered in Paris,
this trip to La Poste was a real pain.
The line for waiting was always long, and the post office was hot and
stuffy. We had to wait our turn to be
served by a junior bureaucrat working behind a counter at an ugly, bank-teller
type of window. Of course, we had to
speak French at the window. I suppose
some of the clerks might have spoken English, but you couldn’t count on it.
Then La Poste remodeled.
I think almost every branch in Paris has been modernized by now. These days, when we enter La Poste, we go
directly to the machines that automatically walk us through the process of
ordering and paying for just the right amount of postage for each
envelope. Then it spits out printed
peel-and-stick postage, just the way the metro machines spit out metro
tickets. All of the interaction with the
machine is in French, but this is written French, and it is very predictable –
much easier than dealing verbally with an unpredictable, overworked, underpaid,
junior bureaucrat. Even when treated
with the utmost kindness and courtesy, these junior bureaucrats could be quite
grouchy.
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| New Mariage Freres shop on the rue Cler in the 7th arrondissement, just off the avenue de la Motte Picquet. |
Now we breeze in and out of La Poste, and insert our ballot
envelopes in the “Etranger” slot of
the yellow mailbox outside. When we do
have a more complicated transaction to conduct at La Poste, we do wait in line
for service from a real person behind an open desk, and that person generally
is in a helpful and good mood. I guess
the old system did have to go. Change is
good.
Florida voters who want my recommendations for the August 30
ballot are free to send me a private message on Facebook. I have received some requests by email
already. Otherwise, I’m keeping politics
out of this journal – for now.
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