L’Epi Dupin near Le Bon Marche is normally a quiet place full of neighborhood types and locals. Their course meal is a bargain. Old types sit and drink. The snobbery was at a low. When our mixed mash group of birthday celebrators reserved a month before, they probably didn’t expect the entire ambiance of the place to change, but we eat a little differently. French, Portuguese, and English were flying across the table and sarcastic criticisms of the food flung from either side as we sampled one anothers’ plates.

Our wine drenched course meal (literally… sorry Angela) was pretty damn right and brought that bit of French cuisine I hadn’t had since Tokyo. The company, orange risotto, Parmesan eggplant, pumpkin soup, and easy going staff allowed our party to go late into the night–eventually leading us to the Seine (once again) to blow out the candles on our pile of freshly bought Pierre Hermé macarons!

Starting off right: A deadly pumpkin soup was a free gift to begin our meal.

This soup was so smooth and warm. It was like a mother’s hug.

APPETIZERS

A delicious Parmesan eggplant with sweet peppers cooked au gratin with grana:

I wish I could have had another.

Cold white asparagus and a creamy sorbet of vegetables:

This beautiful arrangement was strangely served cold.

The table agreed that if this had been warm it would’ve worked. If this plate could hear it would have had it’s feelings hurt.

Celery foam surrounding a crispy salad of fennel and avocado with shrimps:

Getting foamy.

Confit of duck with honey and coriander sauce:

MAIN COURSES

Confit of veal grilled and creamy risotto with orange:

Piglet marinated with “soja lime” and potatoes:

Seared Tuna over a ratatouille in a foam:

The desert courses were awesome, some a little funny, but my hot chocolate cream and lemon thyme ice cream did not make it around the table. I destroyed it.

Gone: 3 minutes and 21 seconds.

French caramelized toast with confit of rhubarb and raspberry sorbet:

Shortbread biscuit with apricots and almond milk ice cream:

A gift from Nohra–my own mustard set:

The crew. Can you spot the lurker?

Back to the river again to light the cake: Pierre Hermé macarons!

Flavors: rose, olive oil and vanilla, passion fruit and chocolate, chocolate and yuzu, pistachio and cherry, jasmine, milk choc and coconut, and caramel.

My birthday cake by the Seine.

Special thanks to Angela for translation and being an amazing hostess.

- contact@epidupin.com

My family and I went on a flying visit to Paris again to rendez-vous with my dad (since he managed not to get his UK visa in time–visa people suck). Last year I gave him a copy of Ernest Hemingway’s memoir of 1920s Paris, A Moveable Feast, which he raved on about until I decided to read it on our trip.

Hemingway at the start of his career is a poor and struggling writer who frequently gambled on horses to fund his holidays with his first wife Hadley. Good thing he was able to borrow books for free from Sylvia Beach at the original Shakespeare & Company on rue de L’Odéon where she published James Joyce’s Ulysses. Hemingway walked everywhere, from the Luxembourg Gardens down the rue de Vaugirard (where we stayed this time) to Montparnasse where he rented a small flat near his favourite café, La Closerie des Lilas.

We didn’t manage to go there (although my parents did a few days after I left Paris and said it had become all posh), but we did go to Les Deux Magots, where he and other writerly types such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir congregated, although Hemingway preferred Les Closerie (probably because it was closer to home and most of the expats hung out there including his friends F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ezra Pound). One piece of advice about Paris’ famous cafés: just have coffee there and people watch. Don’t bother with the food as they’re overpriced and disappointing. You can always pop into a side street and find a local brasserie which should be far tastier and better value for money.

As usual, we started our day with this:

Seriously, baguettes in France just taste so much better than anywhere else. And the butter was extra creamy too.

We found a small bistrot on rue de Buci in St. Germain des Prés where we prefer to hang out. This was my two little nephews’ first time to Paris so we did some touristy things like visit the Notre Dame and climb the Eiffel Tower. It turns out my sister and I had never climbed it either. The secret is to get there first thing in the morning before it opens so that you don’t have to queue for too long.

So for lunch, we had some pretty normal fare. Bavette steak with shallot sauce:

Salad Niçoise:

Again, why do salads taste so good in France? Must be the fresh veg. I also noticed they love their boiled green beans in salad.

And escargots!

Everyone tried this including both my nephews. I’m so proud of them.

When we looked out of the window of the bistrot, we noticed this restaurant:

We didn’t go in, but us Nagoya girls were delighted.

For dinner, my mother chose Le Bistrot de Paris where Serge Gainsbourg used to hang out with Jane Birkin. It’s a cozy, old school restaurant serving very French fare and is just down the road from the Musée d’Orsay. They even had pied de cochon (pig’s trotters) and andouillete (tripe sausage) which our Frenchican waiter (who’s French but grew up on the mean streets of Detroit) said was stinky and didn’t recommend. We were a little worried that this would be a tourist trap as we were the first to arrive at 7pm quickly followed by others who spoke English. But my brother-in-law pointed out that French people dined late so all the early diners were either British, American or Japanese. He was spot on!

Watercress salad with radishes. So French:

Wonderfully soft and pink lamb with whole roasted garlic:

I did order this well done but the French love their meat rare.

Skate with capers in a butter sauce:

But the duck was a little tough. However the creamy, buttery mashed potatoes made up for it.

The desserts were heavenly. I, of course, had the baba au rum. Yeah, anything with alcohol and I’ll eat it. They left the whole bottle on the table but I didn’t need extra because our waiter stabbed the cake and drowned it in rum. Very generous.

The lemon and green apple sorbets were refreshing and we also had the best caramel ice cream I’ve ever tasted. It was like home-made caramel with just the right amount of burnt suger-ness. We lapped it up like a cat would cream.

This was a very busy bistrot and we spotted many elderly French couples dressed immaculately and consuming three full courses (and these were pretty large plates) accompanied by lots of wine. Respect.

After two days of eating French food, we finally cracked and headed to Mirama on rue St Jaques near the Sorbonne for some of this:

And this:

We’re so Asian. We can’t live without noodles or rice. Although much pricier than London (food in Paris is pretty expensive, almost double that of London, would you believe?), I have to say that was the best mapo tofu I’ve had in a long time. Spicy and very moreish. We used to be able to eat French food non-stop for a week, but these days, two days is the max. It’s all that butter and cream. We just can’t handle it.

This time we didn’t really have enough time to indulge in cakes much, but we did go to one of our favourite tea shops, Mariage Frères.

They didn’t allow pictures inside (the Parisians don’t like their shops being photographed), but the decor was lovely chinoisseries and they had a huge selection of teas from around the world which are specially blended in-house. My sister preferred their green and Chinese teas and my mother their French Earl Grey.

My favourite two were the Fall in Love (which is a limited edition black tea with hints of vanilla) and Marco Polo (a fruity black tea). Both are best drunk without milk.

And I’ll leave you with an upskirt shot of the Iron Lady in all her glory.

LE BISTROT DU PARIS
33 Rue de Lille
75007 Paris, France
T: 01 42 61 16 83

MIRAMA
17 Rue Saint-Jacques
75005 Paris, France
T: 01 43 5471 77

I’m feeling a bit deflated today. Recently I discovered that my column shares the same name with a right-wing, conspiracy theory, political blog (I’ll leave out the hyper link here, because you don’t need to waste your time with all that. Ok never mind, freedom of speech yaddi yadda, here you go).

So just to clarify this week’s post is not about one of the biggest debates in our country, the long standing argument between the born-agains, pinko-commies and everyone else in between, but the restaurant that bears the same name: Church & State.

Located in the radtastic, completely underrated section of downtown Los Angeles, Church & State reminds me of a cross between an area in San Francisco I’ve always wanted to live on a quiet Sunday, Spring night in New York City. The surrounding streets were quiet for a Friday night, however, the restaurant and the adjacent bar were full of people, music and commerce. Dimly lit, Church & State has a familiar ambiance created by the glow of tea lights and dark wood. Its patrons were good looking and fashionable, as was the wait staff, which was (shockingly) awesome.

The menu features traditional French brasserie food, with the standard, frisée salad, modified version of brandade de morue, and duck confit. I was looking forward to some more adventurous dishes, as I recently heard about the “little toasts with white bean puree topped with uni” but that wasn’t on the menu, so we went for the full-blown frog dinner instead. (Frog like berets and baguettes, not like Kermit and Disney princes).

We started with the homemade charcuterie plate, which included eight different homemade meats and pates.

The waiter kindly described them to me but I didn’t pay so much attention, only noting which was the headcheese and which was the salami. That being said, four of the eight were awesome, including the salami, and the other four were bland and tasteless, particularly the headcheese.

Next we ordered the herbed goat cheese, served with crostini and homemade lavender honey, which was really good. Not only do they serve a healthy amount of cheese and crostini, but also they didn’t mind bringing me an additional side of the lavender honey. (For me, it doesn’t get much better than cheese and honey; the only thing I like the taste of better is foie gras).

As a general rule, I try to order foie gras at every restaurant that serves it– providing it’s not too cost prohibitive– the same way as a kid, I used to order crème brulee at every restaurant I went to. You can’t know which one is best unless you try them all, right? Served with dates and toast points, the foie gras terrine is presented like Thomas Keller’s terrine at Bouchon (which is literally like a mouth orgasm served in a jar).

This precious jar of force-fed, duck-liver goodness, topped with the traditional duck fat, made me salivate. Presuming the rich flavor of the dish, I paired it with a sweet sauternes, to cut the taste of the fat. I scrapped the fat from the terrine, wiped the knife on my toast point, applied a healthy serving of the foie, topped it with salt and closed my eyes to take my first bite. HOLD YOUR BREATH…

…It was totally underwhelming. The foie was tasteless and the consistency was fairly dry and flaky, which suggests that it was served a few days past the “best served by” date or suffered the sad death of spreadable-item-hypothermia, which happens when anything that is pushed to the back of the fridge too close to the cooler. It’s a depressing fate for the decadent duck. But it happens.

Despite my lack of enthusiasm for some of the food, I was really enjoying myself and still optimistic about the forthcoming bone marrow, which I’d heard about because the bones are served cut down the middle, horizontally, as opposed to the way I’ve seen it, where the bones are served upright, cut vertically. Two hefty bones, sliced down the middle provided an easy access to the fatty, gelatinous awesomeness.

I opted for the sea salt as opposed to the oddly paired shallot-parsley pepper mix that accompanied the dish. I’m not so much of a fan of the accouterments the chef served these particular bones, I did like the flavor of the marrow itself.

Obviously we were eating on the lighter side, so we also ordered an a la carte dish of beets roasted with bacon lardon and cheese (asiago I think). The flavor was amazing, but the beats were under cooked and that overwhelmed the rest of the dish.

I soaked some of the extra, toasted and butter marrow bread, into the beet infused, bacon cheese mush which was obviously incredible. My amateur suggestions is to serve this dish as a mash, crostini-type thing, or blend it down to an artichoke dip style spread.

Another great thing about this place, is that in New York, or San Francisco even, it would be filled to the brim with annoyingly stylish people spilling over into the street waiting for tables. And while I’m sure the management would welcome the influx of business, the at-capacity – but not over – feel of this place contributed to the warm and comfortable ambiance. We were seated on time and left alone to sit and leisurely sip the remains of my cocktail well after the bill was paid.

The meal was not perfect, but it seems Church and State is working hard to do things better. Everyone appeared to be happy, the food was good enough and people seemed to enjoy being there together, sharing the atmosphere and experiences of the restaurant, one I would be happy to go to again. The polarizing politicos permeating the media might learn a thing or two from Church and State, and instead of blindly aligning with partisan agendas, start supporting those unique and reliable policies that benefit the greater good and make life a bit more comfortable even when things aren’t so great.

*Photos by Thomas Young

My mama and I have this ritual lately where we go to the Mt. View farmer’s market on Sunday mornings. The market here in the Bay Area is unreal- it’s such a vibrant celebration of vegetables and fruits, the way I have never seen in NYC.

There’s so much energy and color- even street musicians, just like Union Square. The summer harvest has just been amazing- heirloom tomatoes, cherries, squashes and I just saw the most darling tiny grapes this morning, both translucent green and deep purple. It’s all such a visceral experience- so full of life! It’s an event I look forward to all week.

Today, we picked up these darling radishes.

Fuminatto used to eat these with butter and salt- a combination she picked up from her years in France. It’s such an odd combination, isn’t it?? But it actually is quite ingenious- the spicy, crisp crunch of the radish pairs extremely well with some creamy butter and a dash of sea salt. Who knew???

This is a great snack for cocktail hour. Or do as I did and pretend you’re in the French countryside, pop open some white wine and feast on fresh vegetables for lunch. Finish it off with a nap of course!

My mom went to Paris and all I got was this lousy Edible Paper. Being a fan of everything fake and pink I had to give this a try.

Everyone across the world is probably constantly wondering: How do those French supermodels keep so beautiful and fit? What on earth are they eating? Well, here’s the answer: they eat paper. And they are probably not having a great time doing it.

After having fought a straining battle actually trying to get the package to open (this is where the models get their workout from) I laid out the silky feeling sheets in the three assorted “flavours.” According to the list of chemicals on the back of the package, these paper sheets sport the mainstream flaves Vanilla, Orange and Strawberry.

Biting into the pink paper, I immediately discover the fullness and flavour of… nothing. Just the plain texture of… paper. So no surprises there. There might be a slight hint of something fruity but it’s flat and leaves an aftertaste reminiscent of wet cardboard boxes soaked in perfume factory sewage water.

So much for the eating process.

I then start doing the next best thing you can do with edible paper: make origami.

Already filled with high expectations, I dream about serving wonderfully decadent desserts draped on paper plates or crunchy paper planes drifting out from the the kitchen and landing gracefully on the Victorian ice cream filled dinnerplates of my guests.

Which is no success either – the so-called paper is unfoldable and falls apart when trying to bend it and it feels more like cheap crackers. Or maybe church oblates – the body of Christ – would be the perfect description. Although these babies were never touched by angels in any way.

I personally prefer not touch them again any more myself.

I’ll wrap up the rest in a doggybag and send them off to Heidi Klum.

Yesterday I was at my usual Thursday happy hour and started wandering around the city with a little buzz trying to figure out where to go next. As I approached the corner of Folsom and 7th Street, I noticed a food truck in a parking lot and naturally went straight over to check it out. Jackpot! A french food truck!

Apparently the thing is run by Chez Spencer restaurant- they call it SPENCER ON THE GO!, and they started it only a few weeks ago. The menu looked ridiculous, so I let my crew head to the next bar ahead of me cause I had to give it a shot.

Menu:

Braised Sweetbread in Sherry, Lamb Stew in Puff Pastry, Frog Legs and Curry, Escargot Puff Lollypop, Lobster and Orange Salad!!! WTF this is a food truck!!!

I went for the Braised Sweetbread. Yes I was drunk but it freakin’ rocked! The sweetbreads were tender and in a super rich sauce of sherry and mushrooms!

Truck at night.

I was so happy walking back to the next bar. I’ll be back, French Food truck.

-CJ

*Open Wednesdays through Saturdays at 6pm on the corner of Folsom and 7th Street, SF. Follow the truck on Twitter.

But come on, he’s the “Chef of the Century”!!! They refused to go last year when they were visiting me in NY, where Robuchon recently opened up his namesake joint inside the Four Seasons, and the executive chef is a Japanese dude. I was sad.

But I don’t back down easily- I spent the entire last 6 months prepping them on Robuchon in Vegas. Although I didn’t make a reservation, I figured that at some point, I could veer the fam into the Robuchon direction.

We had tickets to see Cirque du Soleil’s KA at the MGM (awesome!) on the last night. This would be my last chance to get into Robuchon, which is conveniently located in the MGM also. There’s the fancy schmancy Joel Robuchon at the Mansion, and L’Atelier right next door, which is his more casual, tapas style restaurant. We walked by L’Atelier, liked what we saw, asked for a table, and were politely declined.

HELL NO.

I begged a little, told the maitre d it was my birthday (it was not). He said he had no more seats at the table or overlooking the kitchen, but he did have a little side bar he could seat us at. SWEET!!! Oh, what a little begging (and lying) can do.

Here is our gorgeous meal in its entirety. They have a tasting menu, but opted out of that and decided to just choose a variety of their “small plates”. They suggest 3-5 plates per person. As usual, we just ordered the entire menu… almost.

They were good about pacing the meal, and first brought out the cold plates, then warm seafood, then warm meats. You know they are paying attention.

Enjoy!

Crispy baguettes with cute pointy ends.

Cold, hard, creamy butter. You know how important this is to me, right?

L’AMUSE-BOUCHE
crémeux de foie gras au Porto et son émulsion au parmesan
Foie gras parfait with port wine and parmesan foam
We all licked this clean.

LES ANCHOIS: frais marinés à l’aubergine confite
Fresh anchovies marinated with sliced eggplant confit.
GORGEOUS!

Sardines on a toasted baguette with tomato spread and cauliflower

LE FOIE GRAS
frais de canard cuit au torchon
Traditionally poached cold foie gras served with toast
A bit too rich- half of this would’ve been perfect.

Jamon Iberico!

LA LANGOUSTINE
dans une papillote croustillante au basilic
Crispy langoustine fritter with basil pesto

LE SAINT-PIERRE
à la plancha, accommodé d’une fricassée acidulée de supions et d’artichauts
John Dory filet with baby calamari and artichoke

LES HUITRES
de Kussi pochées dans leur coquille au beurre salé
Poached baby Kussi oysters with French « Echiré » butter
OMFG!!!!!! AMAZING.

LE KAMPACHI
mi-cuit aux rouelles d’oignons croustillantes
Lightly seared kampachi with crispy onion rings

LE BURGER
au foie gras et aux poivrons verjutés
Beef and foie gras burgers with lightly caramelized bell peppers

LE RIS DE VEAU
clouté de laurier frais à la feuille de romaine farcie
Calf’s sweetbread with a sprig of fresh laurel and stuffed romaine lettuce

I think this was the…
LE BŒUF
en tournedos au poivre noir de Malabar
Beef tenderloin au poivre

LE PORC FERMIER
la poitrine fondante au confit d’oignon doux
Braised pork belly with confit sweet onion

Robuchon’s famous mashed potatoes. Fluffy creamy divinity.

Interior shots of the open kitchen, with all the lively bright accents.

The meal was, by Akabori standards, quite impeccable. Imaginative foods (that actually tastes good), great cocktails and wine list, beautiful presentation, and helpful service. Perfect for a fun date or a special occasion.

My father, the most critical eater, said it was in his top 2 meals of the year (the other was a sushi joint in LA). So glad we got in!!!

L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon
MGM Grand
3799 Las Vegas Blvd
Las Vegas, NV
T: 702.891.7925

If we are going to the Rainbow Room, jacket and non jeans are required since it’s a stuffy boys club-ish place. I once got rejected entrance at Gansvoort Hotel because I had sneakers on. I heard some guy got rejected at Campbell Apartment at Grand Central because he had a very stylish outfit but with very stylish sneakers on. Dress codes at restaurants and bars are such bullshit. Dress codes in general is such bullshit. As long as one wears jacket, no matter how ridiculous it looks, or fits him, it’s better than a smashingly dressed guy in silver sneakers? Ladies with boobs almost hanging out is very painful to look at, but it’s totally ok, but guys with jeans don’t get in? How about totally fried hair, or ridiculously long beard, or BO?! Life is not fair.

At the end, we were told it’s fine wearing jeans. So we went to the Pitahayas. Many guests were wearing Hawaiian shirts, casual pants with sandals. We had shoes on and even wore jacket. Ridiculous.

As I mentioned in my previous post, this place was Mexican French fusion. What does it mean? I have no idea. To me, everything was more like Mexican Asian fusion. Just like Habanero’s, they had a lot of soy related flavors.

Amuse bouche was something I don’t remember. I can’t remember anything about this, probably because I downed two martinis beforehand…

Bread was pretty good. Totally right off the oven, and Parmesan cheese roll was very tasty.

I ordered coconut shrimp with plum sauce. They were large shrimps, nicely deep fried in coconuts. Plum sauce made it very Asian.

Nate ordered duck in lettuce cup. This is some cheap Thai restaurant appetizer quality.

This is where Mexican French fusion comes in for my entree. Grilled snapper soaked in mango flavored butter. White fish doesn’t have much flavor, and this tasted like mango and butter. Very unimpressed. Of course these high quality claimed restaurants won’t give you salt and pepper, so I had to drench the fish in butter.. Creamed spinach on right, and lentil on left. I think lentil had some pepper action, which I guess made “Mexican” part of the dish.

Nate ordered three fish medley. Blackened tuna with tomato and mango relish. Seared tuna with sesame coating in yuzu sauce. Salmon in bulkogi sauce, and rice. First of all, if it’s three fish dish, use three different kinds of fish, not double tuna. Blackened tuna, because of mango relish, may be Mexican part. As you can see, seared tuna is totally Japanese mimicking. Yuzu sauce was VERY weak. They should have just poured ponzu sauce instead. Salmon was unbelievable. It was teriyaki sauce, but twice as much suger used version. At least his entree had different flavoring compared to my butter.

Conclusion. Cabo is the place for water, pool side drinking, sun bathing. Not for culinary scene, though they claim their food culture is great.

When you hear the best Japanese restaurant in Cabo is called “Nick-San”, something is not right.

Pitahayas
Corredor Turistico Km. 10
Lote D,
Cabo del Sol
Cabo San Lucas, B.C.S.
México
Tel:011 52624 145 6126
Fax:011 52624 145 8010

It was the best thing ever but strange because it was kind of a everything included community; there was no reason to leave, ever. Sanatorium.

From my room.

They made these really alcoholic chocolates in house and it was awful, I was lounging around staring at the mountains in a robe and ate around 20 in total. The bottling factory of Valser water was just down the mountain…

I only have pictures of two meals because I went by myself and I felt really conspicuous reading trashy books and taking pictures while everyone else was like drinking cocktails and listening to the jazz band.

My defense is that some sorry Italian tourist left these at the reception desk. But I guess since I read them I don’t really have an excuse.

I always forget not to eat fish in Switzerland. Salmon mousse and some kind of awful other thing that was supposed to be some kind of bastardized sushi but was helpfully masked with a strong mustard sauce.

The English menu was rather funny and sounded sort of engrish. Like essence of meat stick, fried. Anyways this just turned out to be a consommé with barley which was rather a nice version.

Huge delicious salad! Beets, sauerkraut, curry rice etc.

Fresh raviolis with spinach, hazelnuts, browned butter and ricotta. Their pastas were so good here they also had a totally sick mushroom “dumpling” that was so unhealthy, then covered with butter.

Main was normal duck with gnocchis parisiennes which is the kind with no potatoes, in this case no taste.

The best part of all the meals! The local and imported cheeses. Omg. It was ridiculous there were so many stanky delicious varieties that were from the alps. The round tube is a Swiss goats cheese that was so unexpectedly pungent. Bottom right is truffle Brie and at the top, the brown coated Camembert was Calvados flavored. The beer and nut breads were also delicious.

I knew sour cream ice cream would be delicious! Funnily enough, the German word for it is “eis” pronounced “ice.”

Breakfast was buffet style with more cheese again and brown, nutty breads and the ubiquitous and delicious birchermüesli! I love Switzerland.

Therme Vals
7132 Vals/GR
T: +41 (0)81.926.8080