My mother is visiting us from California, and as she's a big time foodie, this always means we get a chance to eat at some great Paris restaurants. Normally, with the baby and the making reservations and the booking a babysitter, we just never get it together to go to the hot tables in town. But thanks to my mom, we were able to go to one of the hottest last night: Vivant Table in the 10th.
How hot was this restaurant? Well, first of all, it's one of those Paris restaurants that is only open Monday through Friday - I don't know how this is a viable business option in Paris, but many of the most interesting restos are able to close both weekend days and be just fine. Next, the only reservation we could get was Tuesday night at 7PM. This is EXTREMELY early for a Parisian to be dining, since as I may have mentioned most weeknight dinners happen at 8:30 sharp, and weekends can go even later. It's not Spain, but still, 7PM is a time most people are either still in the office, or just picking the kids up, or maybe sitting down at a cafe for an apero - but not having a four course meal.
Next, nearly everyone else in this small bistro was busy taking expert photographs of their food, with flash. They were all food bloggers! And though I am technically blogging about food now, I was too embarrassed to whip out my iPhone and photograph my meal. Which I probably shouldn't be, but seriously, the guy behind me was making spots appear in my side vision as he tried to capture his pork chop on film.
So instead, I will try to describe what we had WITHOUT expert photos, which I know is a liability, but go with me on this.
The restaurant is an informal, fun bistro with a serious chef at the helm, my favorite type of Paris restaurant. For dinner, it was 55 Euros for a four course tasting menu, plus an additional 39 Euros for wine pairings. As you might expect, the wines were all of the natural, biologique school - just like at our favorite restaurant in town, Le Verre Vole - but this place REALLY pushed the edges of what is palatable in a bio wine, which Matt loved and I was not so sure about.
Here is what we had:
The amuse-bouche was a reduction d'orteille, or nettle soup, paired with a nice, yeasty champagne from near Epernay. This was tasty and light, very bright green and nicely flavored, and the champagne paired perfectly. All in all, a great opener.
My first course was snails with a poached egg in a garlic broth - This was decent but not unbelievable. I thought the snails were a little tough and the egg was slightly overcooked - the yolk didn't run into the broth but was somewhat set, though not hard boiled or anything. The flavors were very good but the texture was a little off.
This was paired with the strangest wine of the night, a natural viognier d'Ardeche (I asked the woman to write all the wines down but she told me she didn't have time, so bear with me) that tasted seriously Bret-ed, ie corrupted with bretomyacin yeasts so it had a kind of sour flavor and cloudy appearance. Matt LOVED this wine, as it resembled similar sour Belgian beers like gueuze that he also loves. I hate gueuze, usually - I didn't hate this wine, but I didn't really love it. It did taste better when paired with the snails, but still wasn't a rousing favorite for me.
Matt's first course was ravioli stuffed with chrysanthemum-leaf pesto, paired with a sauvignon from I don't remember where - but both were delicious, though the ravioli were slightly undercooked.
Mid-course for both of us was seared scallops with lardo - the sweet crisp scallops paired well with the pork fat. And again, a really interesting-slash-strange wine pairing, this time an Italian wine from the Veneto that was a white, but vinified as a red for three weeks, with the stems and skins of the grapes left in the vat and then strained out, giving the wine a light orange color I'd never seen before. Really an interesting flavor as well, though still with a bit of the bio-Bret sourness that isn't my favorite (though again, Matt LOVED it).
Our mains were definitely the outstanding part of the menu - Matt had a "Carre de Jambon Iberico", which was basically a gorgeous pork chop with a beautiful sear that just rendered a thick layer of fat so that it melted in your mouth. I had the Chevreuil, or Venison in a red wine sauce with marinated cauliflower, which was also delicious, rich and perfectly cooked. Mine was served witha Bordeaux - "the only Bordeaux we have in the restaurant" the waitress said - which was lovely, and Matt had a Beaujolais with the pork, also great.
For dessert, I had a peanut tart with whipped cream and kiwi/grapefruit garnish - It was good, and remarkable in that the French rarely use peanuts in their desserts, but didn't blow me away. Matt had shaved Gruyere with honey and hazelnuts, which I think I liked more than he did. Though neither dessert was amazing, they were both good, and paired with a sweet wine that was also good but somewhat forgettable - but then, I'm neither a sweet wine aficionado nor was I particularly sober at that point, on the fifth and final glass of our wine pairings, so what do I know?
Total cost for all with the wine pairing: 214 euros - Definitely on the higher end of what we do, but for Paris a relative bargain for this kind of attention to detail. We would go back, and I would definitely go for lunch, which is cheaper and possibly easier to book (we'll see). As you can tell though from this review, the wine choices were at least as interesting as the food, so if you're feeling adventurous I highly recommend doing the wine pairings - even if I didn't love every choice, it will probably be quite a while before I have an orange Venetian wine again.
The waitstaff is clearly very accustomed to foreigners - and indeed, when we were there, there were at least as many foreign tables and French-speaking ones, though a nice mix of Japanese, English, and Italian, not only American tourists. Our waitress translated the menu for us, which was helpful with some of the harder terms - for instance, I learned the French word for nettles! And there is a separate wine list if you don't go with the wine pairings, so you do not have to go down the sour wine road if you don't want to.
VIVANT TABLE
43 rue des Petits Ecuries
75010 Paris
Télephone: 01 42 46 43 55
Metro: Bonne Nouvelle
Reserve 2-3 weeks in advance
Open for lunch and dinner, Monday - Friday only
No comments:
Post a Comment