Rage on, Parisians! No more towers!

On Monday evening, we walked along hot and shady Avenue Emile Zola and talked about dining at Le Pario, a wonderful, creative French-Brazilian restaurant established by the young chef Eduardo Jacinto.  We've dined there for the past three or four summers; Eduardo's dinners have always been memorable.  After running an errand at Darty, we continued through the air conditioned Beaugrenelle mall to the end that opens onto a street right around the corner from Le Pario.

Korean restaurant on the site of the former Oh Duo! and
Le Pario restaurants on Avenue Emile Zola.

But when we turned the corner, there was no Le Pario, there was only a Korean restaurant.  Tom thought Le Pario must be a block or two farther west, so I followed him for a short distance.  Then I stopped and said, no, that was the right place back there.  We turned back, found the former site of Oh Duo! and Le Pario, and confirmed that it is now a Korean restaurant.  Our hearts sank with disappointment.

Eduardo had put so much of himself into that place!  We even remember passing by, seeing him on his hands and knees, preparing the floor for new tile.  Le Pario was a labor of love for him.

What happened?  A little while later, as we waited to be served at Le Tipaza, I took out the smart phone and did a search for news about Eduardo.  I found an article in Portuguese from a publication in Brazil.  I could read the Portuguese well enough to discern that Eduardo -- along with wife and child -- had returned to Florianopolis, a city on the island of Santa Catarina in the south of Brazil.  He's opened a bistro there.  The name of the bistro?  Le Pario.  After 13 years in France, Eduardo Jacinto (36 years old) is now back in his native Brazil.  What a time to move back there!  I guess he decided that the island of Santa Catarina might be a better place to raise a child, perhaps with family nearby.  If you're ever in Florianopolis, do dine at Le Pario.

We've seen a couple restaurants come and go at a place on rue Mademoiselle, too.  The current business to occupy the space, Bacco, appears to be a winner.  We've been dining there for a few years now.  Like Le Pario, it is air conditioned, so I made a reservation via LaFourchette.com (30% discount!) and we dined there last night.  

Spring roll and fried shrimp appetizer.

We started by sharing a spring roll and fried shrimp appetizer, and continued with main courses of lamb and veal.  The finishing touch was a luscious, dark, rich moelleux au chocolat (lava cake). What a satisfying dinner!

Brochette of lamb so tender it fell apart, veal that was juicy and good, and
unbeatable roasted veggies, all resting in a bit of creamy mustard sauce.

On the way home, we noticed a flyer posted in several places.  Its purpose is to protest against the construction of more residential and office towers.  The flyer encourages Parisians to sign a petition against the towers because they are "always constructed higher but do not resolve the housing crisis; they are a return to the brutal urbanism of the Pompidou era; there are already 100 towers disfiguring Paris without any value added; and towers are being constructed in the 12th, 13th, 15th, and 17th arrondissements."

Moelleux au chocolat at Bacco, on rue Mademoiselle.

The website for the cause, http://stopauxtoursaparis.fr/ , adds some more reasons to oppose new towers:  because Paris doesn't need to be one of the most dense cities in the world; Parisians need new spaces to breathe; because Paris needs more variety in available public spaces; because there are not enough green spaces in Paris -- only 2.05 square meters per habitant now.  And the list goes on.

Sanibelians are right there with you, Parisians!  We banned high rises when our city was born (mid 1970s, when your first high rises were young) and we, the voters, assured that a rogue city council could not lift the ban (mid 1990s).  We did this by putting the high-rise ban in the city charter.  Voters must approve any change in the city charter, and voters will not approve high rises.  Rage on, Parisians!  Solidarity!

Warm day, cool night

View from the Pont de Bir Hakeim

August 23, 2017 – On a perfect summer day for walking along a quiet stretch of the Seine, we started from rue Linois and made our way along the cobblestones of the left bank up to the Pont de Bir Hakiem.  Along the way, we admired attractive houseboats and then noticed a large metal thing on display.  

To satisfy my curiosity, I read the lengthy explanation on the sign posted under the thing, which turns out to be the nose of a former ocean liner named the France.  Here’s a translation:

The Nose of the France is at the Port de Grenelle

Today, of this fabulous ship that was totally dismantled in India in 2006 in the workshops of Alang, there remains only this piece that has braved the waves of all the oceans. 

The former FRANCE in numbers:

Launch: 1962

Nose of The France

Length: 315 meters

Width: 33.7 meters

Draw:  10 meters

Passengers: 2,032

Crew:  1100

Number of bridges:  12

Average displacement when loaded:  57,600 tons

Speed:  30 knots

Power:  160,000 ch

The France that became the Norway, is no more, but a new liner is being built.  A team consisting of enthusiasts, counting among them thousands of professionals in the conception and exploitation of cruise ships, mobilized to take on this ambitious project and offer to France a new emblematic liner, with a human scale, modern, ecological, luxurious, really innovative, and of a different design.

In the milieu of all the contemporary liners who, for the most part, resemble it, this new FRANCE will be a perfect illustration of “the French exception.”

See www.lenouveaufrance.com.

We climbed up to the street level to take the Bir Hakeim bridge to its mid-point, where we turned left onto the Île des Cygnes.  As often is the case, a team of Japanese wedding photographers was there in the middle of the bridge, photographing a Japanese bride.

The sun was almost hot, so we were grateful for the many old and new trees along the island.  When we turned behind the Statue of Liberty to take the Pont de Grenelle to the rue Linois, the sun blazed in our faces. 

So we ducked into the Magnetic building of the Beaugrenelle Mall for a block of air conditioned walking.  The mall is still popular; it shows no sign of declining. 

Sweetbread ravioli with mushrooms in pecorino cream sauce at Bacco

We rode the escalator in the impressive, modern atrium, up one level to follow the mall to its other end.  We then exited at the east end and found our way across the busy Place Charles Michels to the shady avenue Emile Zola.  Tom entered the bakery near the Place Alfred Dreyfus to buy a baguette.  There he continued a conversation he’d been having with the baker – about the different French and English words that mean sour, tart, and acidic.

There is something satisfying about having a conversation with a French baker about how to describe how something tastes.

Vitello tonato -- fine slices of veal wrapped around minced tuna in mayonnaise
with veal juice, vinaigrette emulsion with capers, and eggplant caviar.

In the evening, we took another long walk – down to the noisy rue de la Convention, southeast to the rue Brancion, northeast to the peaceful Place d’Alleray, and northwest on the rue des Favorites to that imposing square in front of the town hall of the 15^th.   It was a short walk from there to our restaurant destination, Bacco, on the rue Mademoiselle.  Somehow, we arrived exactly on time, at 8PM. 

At Bacco, we were remembered and greeted warmly, even though the restaurant was already filling up with locals and several tourists.  I think this was the first night the restaurant was open, following its vacation closure.

Seared red tuna with lobster bisque, springroll with sweet-and-sour sauce,
with a salicornia tempura.

The kitchen at Bacco is partly visible through a window into the bar area of the restaurant.  I watched four tall men working away diligently back there.  A special amount of time and effort was spent carefully and artfully arranging the food on plates on the counter under the window.

As beautiful as they were, our starter courses were each somewhat bland.  But the main courses were both beautiful and tasty.  Tom’s risotto with prawns was especially nicely spicey.  My red tuna was cooked perfectly – mi cuit.

Spicey risotto with prawns.

I was glad that I’d reserved our table well in advance, because this restaurant was practically completely full when we were served our first courses.  The manager thought we were waiting too long for our dinner, so she gave us a free glass of wine and a new bottle of water.

Days are growing shorter.  Daylight was gone when we walked up a brightly lit rue du Commerce toward home.  

The world is his oyster

There’s a ship, and it sails the ocean blue, on an “Earth and Ocean” mission.  For the moment, it is between expeditions, resting in Paris for four months – much as we rest in Paris for three months, between busy seasons on Sanibel Island.

This three-mast schooner named La Boudeuse arrived at the port du Gros-Caillou, in the middle of the Berges de la Seine project on the Left Bank, in at the beginning of September.  In mid-January, it will participate in various demonstrations and, most importantly, in the great climate conference, COP21, that will take place at the end of the year.

La Boudeuse, on the Berges de la Seine

Its previous expedition was a world tour of three years from 2004 to 2007.  It was inspired by historical 1766 to 1769 expedition of a frigate also named La Boudeuse.  On that trip, Louis-Antoine de Bougainville took “learned men” with him to sail for science’s sake instead of sailing just for financial gain or exploitation.  One of the botanists, Philibert Commerçon, found a lovely flowering bush on this expedition and named it for Bougainville; the bougainvillea (see my journal entry for September 20, 2012, for the juicy story about Commerçon) is well known and loved by those of us who live in the subtropics or tropics of the Americas.

Today’s schooner named La Boudeuse was built in Holland in 1916.  It has been a field operation of the French project called Grenelle de la Mer since 2009; that project’s goal is to work toward “improving environmental issues associated with the sea.”  What about its name?  A "boudeuse" is a slow growing oyster.

The schooner’s captain is the writer Patrice Franceschi, and its crew includes 26 people.  It is 46 meters long, and has an 8,000-liter fuel tank.  Its water tank is only 2,000 liters, but it has a desalinator that can process 400 liters per hour.

Even more fascinating than the ship, however, is the list of books by Patrice. He’s been around!
[Sources: la-boudeuse.org and Wikipedia.com]

Emblem near the bow of La Boudeuse.

La Boudeuse was one of the dazzling sights we saw on a three-and-a-half-hour walk yesterday, the first day of the European Heritage Days weekend in Paris.  This year, I examined the Heritage Days program and found nothing that interested me as much as ambling aimlessly does.  We ambled, and in the second half of our walk, we experienced Heritage Days a little bit because we saw long lines of people waiting to see landmarks such as the Assemblée Nationale and a drum corps in old-fashioned uniforms performing in the street in front of the École Militaire.

In the evening, we walked to the center of the Grenelle neighborhood at dinnertime.  The church was just then disgorging its people; that’s a sight we often see as we walk to dinner at about 7:20PM.  The rue du Commerce was still alive with activity; in the afternoon, it had looked like a street in Manhattan – brimming with pedestrians and shoppers.

We turned left in front of the church and walked a short distance up the rue Madamoiselle to Bacco, our favorite new restaurant for this summer.  This was our third visit to Bacco, and already the hostess recognized us and greeted us warmly.  We were seated at the usual front corner table.  They know our name at Bacco.

We began the repast with a cute mis en bouche of a round pastry filled with puréed peas (photo above).  That may sound strange, but it wasn’t.  It was a bite of pure comfort food.

Then we shared the bavette starter course:  a cold beef salad with Asian marinade and herbs (photo below).  This is a stunningly delicious dish; Tom says he could eat it five times a week.

The special of the day was a lamb shank (photo below), which I ordered, and Tom ordered the risotto rouge, which I’d had before.  It is a spicy, rich risotto with three large prawns on top.  

We finished by sharing the delisiozo dessert – a small scoop of ice cream; a rich, dense, Valrhona chocolate and vanilla cake-like confection; and a little crunchy tangle of spun praline cream.

The dinner was not inexpensive; but it was memorable and wonderful.  The décor is nice, and lighting is done well.  Reception and service are gracious and warm. 

Bacco was a fine way to end such a beautiful day in Paris.

Les Invalides on a brilliant day.