Shop, walk, eat

Friday evening, we dined with Sanibel friends Jane and Marcel once again.  This time, we had a drink in the apartment and then ventured simply around the corner to Le Café du Commerce, where I'd made a reservation by phone.  Le Café du Commerce is not reservable online.

We paused for refreshments at Le Murmure Fracassant
(The Shattering Whisper) on Friday.  It is a brasserie on the Avenue Félix Faure.
Notice the crows in the overhead display cases!

But it is always open, 7 days a week, even on holidays, all the way through the entire summer.  Le Café du Commerce is big, and it is spread out on three levels, with a central atrium open to a glass ceiling that opens and closes according to the weather.  Before the space became a restaurant, it was a fabric store -- hence the need for a glass ceiling that allowed for lots of light.

The servers are appropriately attired in black and white, and they are quite professional.  The restaurant has a fairly extensive menu, which includes many of the French classics that we have come to expect.

Sardine appetizer at Le Café
du Commerce

After a delicious dinner, we walked our friends back up to their hotel on the Rue de l'Avre.  That's a hotel which we recommended to them.  In fact, we've recommended it to many friends over the years, yet we have never stayed there because we have the apartment.  The Hotel de l'Avre has kept up with the times and now has air conditioning.  The location is very convenient, yet the street where it lives is quiet.  We recommend asking for a room facing the courtyard garden.

Earlier in the day, Tom and I found the Rougier et Plé art supply store that is located in our area, on Rue Lecourbe.  While not quite as big as the Saint Germain location, the Rue Lecourbe store is impressive enough.  It occupies a graceful building that was once a workshop or fabric store.  Tall, arched windows line the upper floor's façade on the street side.  Toward the back was an old glass ceiling with metal framed glass panels, some of which could be opened at an angle.

I've been wanting to do some sketching, so I bought two small sketch books, three art pencils, an eraser, and a small pencil sharpener.  So far, I've sketched an image of the sunflower from the center of the Provençale tablecloth on our dining table.  I hope to sketch some more today.

Interesting note about my main sketchbook:  its 67-lb. paper is made in France, but the sketchbooks (spiral bound, with hard black covers) are assembled in China!

A women's hat shop on Rue des Entrepreneurs.

Yesterday was one of those Saturdays when Rue du Commerce is pedestrian-only.  So far, this is just one Saturday per month, as an experiment.  But people of the 15th arrondissement clearly like it.  By mid-afternoon, swarms of locals were walking and shopping on the street.  Pedestrians rule here, unlike back home in Lee County, Florida, which is the most dangerous place for pedestrians in the entire USA, according to one of my dearest friends who is an expert on the subject.

I needed to replace my handbag, which had a broken zipper.  (Zippers are great deterrents to pickpockets.)  So I joined all the other shoppers yesterday.

The first shop I entered, Le Bagadie, sells nothing but handbags and wallets.  The saleswoman was particularly helpful.  First she showed me several Longchamp bags, but as she learned about my preferences, she came closer and closer to finding a bag with the features that I wanted.  Finally, she showed me a Lancaster Paris bag which seemed to be perfect.  But, I explained, I just started looking, and needed to look around some more.  I did say that I thought I'd probably return for that bag later.  It was an expense, and I needed to shop to be sure I had the right thing.

And so I looked in every shop on the Rue du Commerce, Rue des Entrepreneurs, and the entire Beaugrenelle shopping mall that carried handbags.  This took hours, and miles on my feet.  After the Beaugrenelle mall, I returned to Rue du Commerce to check out a few last places.  Then I went back to Le Bagadie and bought that taupe Lancaster Paris bag.

I explained to the saleswoman that I found myself comparing every bag that I saw to that particular Lancaster Paris bag, and all those other bags came up short.  Lancaster is a French leather goods company, headquartered in the 9th arrondissement.  The company was founded in the 1990s in the heart of Paris.  Not coincidentally, France has numerous technical school programs in leatherworking.

Interior of Bernard du Qunzieme.  Notice the many pepper mills
lined up, on display, in the middle.  The Chef recommends a
particular kind of pepper for each dish -- even dessert!

Later, at home, I listened to Tom talk about his day (going over reviewers' comments about proposed new readings in the next Norton Sampler) and transferred the contents of my old, broken-zippered bag to the new French handbag.

Eventually, we decided to dine at Bernard du Quinzieme on Rue des Entrepreneurs.  The walk to the restaurant is pleasant -- down Rue du Commerce to Place du Commerce with its beautiful park named Square Yvette Chauviré, and over to Place Violet and Rue des Entrepreneurs.

On Rue du Commerce, we paused in the doorway of Le Bagadie so I could show the saleswoman the new handbag in use, and how well it coordinated with my dress for the evening.  She smiled said she loved the dress, and that the handbag went well with it.  She is an excellent saleswoman!

Golden bream with julienned veggies at Bernard du Quinzieme.

Dinner was very nice -- rabbit terrine and golden bream with julienned veggies for me, and ham with melon and veal chop with veggies and scalloped potatoes for Tom.  Desserts were a rhubarb concoction resembling profiteroles without the chocolate sauce for me, and a nougat for Tom.  This was great value:  three delicious courses (with properly sized portions) for 27 euros per person.

Even though we've dined at Bernard du Quinzieme only a couple of times, the place has fond memories for us:  it used to be the location of Le Tire Bouchon, a fine bistrot that was run by Isabelle and Laurent Houry.  Nobody makes a tarte fine aux pommes or a pomme purée as well as Chef Laurent does.  He makes so many things so very well!  And you'll never meet a sweeter, nicer person than Isabelle.  We miss having them in the neighborhood!

Here are some more photos:

Veal chop and veggies (above) at Bernard du Quinzieme, along with scalloped
potatoes served on the side (below).

Two kinds of pepper, one for each main course, at
Bernard du Quinzieme.

Desserts at Bernard du Quinzieme:  rhubarb and cream stuffed pastries with pepper ice cream (above),
Nougat with pepper, below.

Starter courses at Bernard du Quinzieme:
ham with melon, above, and rabbit terrine with gherkins, below.

The former town hall for the village of Grenelle was terribly neglected for years,
but now is is properly restored, maintained, and used for community programs.
It sits at one end of the lovely Place du Commerce.

Around the hugging bears statue in Square Saint Lambert are new community
gardens, with apples, ripe tomatoes, peppers, and much more (above and below).
We passed these on our way to Rougier et Plé on Rue Lecourbe.

Here there be dragons

Bon Marché -- the famous Parisian department store -- surely it will have a nice stationery section, we thought.  Maybe we should continue our search for bookplates there?

So we hopped on the nearest metro and exited at Sevres-Babylone, right across from the Bon Marché entrance.

One of several glass ceilings at Le Bon Marché department store.

After a circuit through the entire store, we finally determined that the bookstore/stationery section was on the second floor in the main building.  The entire section was well organized, pleasant, and attractive.  But the stationery part had more interesting items than what we've seen in independent stationery stores so far.

The cover of Tom's book, Back to the Lake, has always featured the dragonfly in each edition.  Here's the latest cover, for the book coming out this year.  Ideally, we'd like to have bookplates that have a dragonfly image.

Weird display in Bon Marché.

Bon Marché had two small note cards with envelopes with just such an image, as well as small notepads made of high quality paper (hand-made in Belgium) with dragonflies at the top.  Put some glue on the back, and these will be perfect bookplates.  So we bought the last two notecards and two notepads.  The search was really over at that point.

But we got into a conversation with the cashier at Bon Marché, and I explained what we were trying to do.  She was interested in Tom's book, and so she wanted to help with the hunt.  She suggested we also look at Rougier et Plé, an art supply store.  I looked up Rougier et Plé on my phone and found that the flagship store was not too far away, on the boulevard Saint Germain.  For the fun of it, we walked over there after we left the Grand Magasin, small shopping bag in hand.

Monument in Square Boucicaut by sculptor Paul Moreau-Vauthier representing Marguerite Boucicaut and Baroness Clara de Hirsch.  Marguerite and her husband established Le Bon Marché.  Clara and Marguerite were both known for their philanthropic work to help working women and girls.

I selected a series of small, medieval streets as a way of going to the boulevard.  Rue du Dragon has always been one of my favorites.  At last we were on the boulevard, and were soon shocked to see that The Mondrian, one of our longtime favorite brasseries, was gone.  I searched this morning and found that The Mondrian announced its closing in August 2018.  I'm sorry we missed the closing night party.

The vacant brasserie front now looks as though it was burned in a fire sometime during the cold winter, but that fire must have happened after The Mondrian closed.

The Mondrian brasserie used to occupy this corner of Rue de Seine and the Boulevard Saint Germain.

My guess is that the inexpensive hotel that The Mondrian was in will also close to make way for a major renovation.  That location, on the corner of the Rue de Seine and the Boulevard Saint Germain, is ripe for a luxury boutique hotel.  That the very plain Welcome Hotel has lasted as long as it has in that prime spot is amazing.  On va voir . . . .

We continued up the boulevard, noting some positive changes along the way.  Finally we reached Rougier et Plé, on the northern side of the boulevard between the Odéon and Cluny metro stations.  This fine art supply store has other branches, including one not far from us on Rue Lecourbe, but this store on Boulevard Saint Germain is the main store, I believe.  It is an older building, and the store occupies three levels.  We enjoyed looking around there, and selected some self-adhesive labels with silver borders that could be used as bookplates, or as stick-on nametags at a party.  

Now we have options.

Flowers and palm trees in Square Boucicaut.

We walked back to the Carrefour de l'Odéon to have refreshments at Les Editeurs -- for the second time this summer.  I think this handsome brasserie has become our new favorite brasserie in this neighborhood now that The Mondrian is gone.   We ordered a planche de charcuterie, which was really a late lunch.

While at Les Editeurs we witnessed some interesting interaction between a tow truck driver who was towing away two motorcycles from the Carrefour de l'Odéon.  The owner of one of the motorcycles, an expensive semi-covered BMW model,  was attempting to talk the driver out of towing his vehicle.  The owner was an elderly man who was in good shape.  With is longish gray hair swept back from his well-structured face, he had the look of an intellectual.  I wish we could have heard the discussion between him and the driver.  It went on for some time, while the driver awaited authorization to proceed.

Flowers and a kiosque in Square Boucicaut.

After we'd paid our check, we went out and immediately flagged down a taxi in front of Les Editeurs.  We were able to relax and enjoy the view of the boulevards on the way home, where we relaxed more, until dinnertime.

We ventured out in the evening for another walk down the Avenue Félix Faure and Rue de la Convention to the Rue Saint Charles and the rue Sebastian Mercier, where we had a fine dinner at L'Ardoise du XV (the Blackboard of the Fifteenth).  We've probably dined there about eight times in the past few years, and each time the quality of the cuisine has been dependably fine.  Tom ordered the golden bream and I had duck breast, and we shared a small financier cake with orange sauce for dessert.

Here are some more photos from the day:

Beautiful doorway on the Rue de la Chaise.

Rue Bernard Palissy, a charming little old street named after a
painter, glassmaker, and enamel artisan of the 16th century.

The Dragon café on the Rue du Dragon.

Creative Art Deco style sign with dragon image above a Picard frozen foods storefont on Rue du Dragon.

Florist shop on Rue Bernard Palissy.

Golden bream, above, and duck with figs and puréed potatoes, below, at L'Ardoise du XV

Financier cake with orange sauce.