LETTERS FROM PARIS #24 -..and I'm glad I did.

I promised myself I would not spend time going on and on about restaurants in Paris. Some of my readers complain when I do my personal “reviews.” I am going to break my promise. What I write here will not be in the popular and well-read style of the New York Time Travel section, where the exhaustive and often fulsomely flattering column is followed by “where to eat” and: where to stay.”

It was a Michelin three star explosion of hospitality.I had written earlier that we couldn’ t find Chez L’Ami Jean (I got the name wrong.) We found it and I cannot begin to help you understand why finding it turned out to be a sublime experience.

We began with a bottle of chilled Macon white, the lowest price on the menu at 26 Euro, but extremely good and honey-yellow in colour. It was followed with a “Salade Printemps” a warm spring salad which predictably was full of vegetables. Presented in a modest plate it was redolent with spring: peas, carrots, lima beans, scallions, tomatoes, and an abundance of clever herbs. We enjoyed it thoroughly but only as a prelude. It was what we had come for: the rice pudding. Presented in a large bowl was a snowy-white mixture of rice and I think heavy cream, and sweetening, and flavour even my sophiosticated palate could nlot determine. To add to the rice was a mixture of roasted nuts and a small ramekin of crème fraiche. It is no wonder that Chez L"Ami Jean has three stars. It was packed. We were lucky, without a reservation, to get a table.

Bonus: seated next to us was a very attractive blond woman with her granddaughter. The “granny” elegant and with just enough subdued Florentine gold around her neck and on her wrists, was from New York. Her granddaughter from Boston. They did not look like “jet set,” but they were in London and took the chunnel to Paris just for lunch at this restaurant. She is a former educator heavily involved in theatre. Warm, friendly, forthcoming, and quite natural. I forgave her the conservative array of gold (at more than $1100 an ounce!)

We walked together as far as Rue Universite where she would go to a taxi stand to catch a cab back to Gare du Nord, and thence to London in time for dinner. We proceeded toward what we thought would be a stop at UNESCO, near the Ecole Militaire. We didn’t make it. Hut sun. Fine wine. Rice pudding. We headed home.


One more item: when we arrived at the RER (the Paris commuter train that shares routes with the Metro,) I turned to a young woman in a small boutique in the station and asked: “Which way to track A?” Her response was: “Bonjour” I didn’t get it. I asked again. She smiled sweetly and repeated:“bonjour.” I caught on. I smiled and said “bonjour.” She responded – “en haut” pointing to a flight of stairs. We had some time before our train, so I went back downstairs and apologized for being rude. She was disarmingly sweet; “Ce n'est pas grave.” It’s not serious. She smiled. I smiled. I had forgotten I guess, that you didn’t just hurl a question without first saying “boujour.” Going into a shop you don't simply walk to the rack of clothes and start hammering questions. You being with a polite “bonjour.”

Do you love it, or what?