Our friend Dean lives in Inwood, and likes to invite us to get together for dinner there occasionally. Unfortunately, the restaurant selections leave a lot to be desired. We’ve tried several, and each time we felt we could have eaten much better downtown, for the same or lower price.

Happily, such was not the case with Mama Sushi. Looking at the online menu, I saw much that looked appealing. Yelp reviews, which I am often skeptical of, were consistently positive for the food, the complaints centering on inefficient service. I have to say, the service we experienced was excellent, well-timed and pleasant. The decor is modern casual wiith lots of windows, and the noise level was quite tolerable.

We ordered a bottle of Verdejo for $35, which turned out to be pretty good, Dean started with steamed chicken gyoza, while Stanley and I shared pan-fried duck gyoza and baby back ribs. The gyoza were very good and the ribs plump and delicious.

For our main courses, we all chose rolls from the huge selection. I wasn’t sure an order of rolls would be sufficient as a main course, but it was a huge portion, more than enough. I had the “5 Tigre” (yellowtail, tuna, salmon, etc.). Stanley had “El Original”, which contained meats, cheese, and onion. Dean had avocado rolls. I didn’t get to try those, but the 5 Tigre and Original were scrumptious. The 3 dipping sauces were excellent. I loved the intricate combinations of flavors.

This is creative and interesting food. We will definitely return, and maybe try some of the main dishes other than rolls. Just a block from the A train at Dyckman St., it’s very easy to get to, and well worth the trip, I think.

http://www.mamasushi.com/

Click on the image below to view, and enlarge as needed:

November 16:

We headed off by car with Ana and Bertrand for our day trip to Troyes. No rain, but the usual seasonal gloom of northern France. We parked on the edge of the old city, but across the river/canal from the Cathedral. We got to the Cathedral before it closed for lunch, and Stanley related the history of the marriage of Henry V to Catherine of Valois, the merger of the French and English crowns which that marriage effected, and the resulting long wars, Joan of Arc, and all that. Also noted, based on Prof. Stephen Murray’s studies of Troyes Cathedral, that its finances were marred by conflict between the town and church authorities, exemplified by the fact that the Cathedral stands apart from most of the commercial center.

http://en.tourisme-troyes.com/discover/the-city-of-10-churches/saint-pierre-saint-paul-cathedral-13th-17th-c

Work resumed after the King gave a license on the local salt tax, but even so, only one west tower was built. We wandered into the old town, which still has many 16th C. timbered buildings leaning at challenging angles, and scouted out restaurants, since the one we had planned on was complet. Before lunch, however, we stepped into a chocolate shop, only to discover that the proprietor was the champion dessert maker of 2013, and the chocolates were quite incredible. It was Pascal Caffet, which has a number of locations but originated and is based in Troyes, and we resolved to return after lunch to buy a dessert for Sunday lunch en famille. We settled on La Mignardise for lunch, in a suitably ancient and leaning structure.

La Mignardise, Troyes

Our originally planned restaurant, Valentino, having been booked by a large group, we tried the second most interesting looking place. Note that though Valentino had a Michelin star at the time, it no longer does. La Mignardise turned out to be very good indeed.

Grilled mushrooms with bacon, pumpkin soup, rabbit terrine, guinea fowl with apple and cider sauce, sandre (with more grilled mushrooms and bacon, wish they had told me so I could have chosen a different appetizer), andouillette, pear in filo with caramel sauce. Refined service and an atmosphere of rustic elegance. With one bottle of wine, and coffees, the bill for 4 was 184 euros.

http://www.lamignardise.eu/

After lunch we did indeed return to Pacal Caffet and bought a cake for Sunday.

http://www.franchise-pascal-caffet.com/les-boutiques-liste

Also noted in passing was a rather upscale burger joint intriguingly named “Rosaparks.” It seems to be located only in Troyes, and is an organic/Halal/superhip-in-a-French-way restaurant. We then found our way to the Museum of Tools. Every hammer, wrench, trowel, level, and thingamabob you can imagine has been collected, and it might have made more sense to acquire an English audioguide, but we wandered about dumbly. Nonetheless, an interesting display. We retrieved the car and drove back to La Varenne, and Stanley and I then made our way back into Paris for dinner at:

Ober Sale

Another small and unassuming place, with one waiter doing a great job of handling the entire room. It was Saturday night and the room was filled. A number of walk-ins were turned away.

We each had a kir to start, one with Cassis, the other peche, then a bottle of Syrah d’Ardeche 2010, which was quite good. We don’t often see Ardeche wines, so it was a nice surprise (29 euros).

The menu is traditional with a twist, updated comfort food. Seared scallops (4) with fennel salad, roasted red peppers, and chorizo, pumpkin soup with goat cheese cream. Blanquette de veau, veal kidneys with mustard cream sauce, carrots. Dark chocolate mousse with coffee cream sauce, roasted figs. Total 109 euros.

http://ober-sale.e-monsite.com/

November 17:

Sunday morning market in La Varenne, and as Ana was committed to do substantial marketing at the hypermarche, we hoofed it by ourselves down to the square.

We bought two good sized pintades (Guinea hens), along with some shallots, haricot verts and parsley. Alex had indicated a preference for a large lunch rather than coming for supper later, so we set to work almost at once to prepare the pintades, garlicked mashed potatoes and haricots. I made the English-style parsley sauce, which led to confusion on the distinction between heavy cream and creme fraiche, which Ana had bought at the hypermarche. In fact, what we call heavy cream, the French call light cream! We had enough in any event. Alex and Marie showed up a bit late, but all passed in good order. Bertrand had made an early retreat to the local auction house, since they were bidding on a 19th C. vitrine. After the champion dessert from Troyes, Ana, Stanley and I joined Bertrand. It was a small turnout, and mostly dealers, we were told. Things were going at or slightly below estimates, and they got the vitrine for somewhat less than they were estimating. We returned to the house and supped later on leftovers, allowing Bertrand extra slices of the champion dessert.

November 18:

The cab arrived promptly at ten o’clock, and after saying our farewells, we got in and experienced a blissful passage to the airport and an untroubled flight back, arriving a bit early in Newark and training back to Penn Station, ending another memorable vacation.

Once again, as my travel posts have proven extremely popular, I am going back a bit to include some of our experiences that predate the beginning of this blog

After our trip to Puglia, we headed to Paris for a few days, staying with our friends Ana and Bertrand in La Varenne, an elegant suburb a few miles East of Paris, where they have a beautiful old house overlooking the Marne.

November 13:

We packed up and headed out of Puglia by seven o’clock to give us enough time to get back to Naples for a 12:45 flight to Paris via Munich. There was rain along the way, but it was sunny in Naples by the time we arrived, dropped off the car and made it to the airport. There was chaos at the automated Lufthansa check-in with a group of American tourists nesting in front of the four consoles like turkeys, but incapable of getting anything to work. We finally got to the front of the line and had a small delay until we realized we each had separate ID numbers for our tickets. Life was simple after that, and we arrived in Paris ahead of schedule and were out of the airport and into a cab in about fifteen minutes. We got to Ana and Bertrand’s by six thirty, half an hour ahead of our planned arrival. As their son Alex is now living with his girlfriend Marie, we had his room, the top floor suite, to ourselves. We had some kirs and then we were off to Paris for our dinner at Pirouette, after Ana had regaled us with the story about the children’s song of the same name:

Pirouette

Our first meal of this trip was in many ways the best. Beautiful atmosphere, excellent service, and very creative food. A real bargain at 40 euros for a 3-course dinner (with supplements on a few dishes), and a good selection.

Tranche de boeuf with vegetables and horseradish sauce. Marinated bass. Lievre, pigeon. Wonderful whipped potatoes. Outstanding riz au lait, tarte de fromage blanc with chocolate sauce. Vinsobre 2010 altitude 420 Domaine Jaume, Rhone. Total for 2 was 121 euros.

http://www.oenolis.com/pirouette/

November 14:

Gazing out the window, it seemed to me they had put a new roof on the house and had all the trim painted, which truth was soon confirmed. They waited until after Alex had decamped to properly insulate the top floor and put in all new windows. Such wise parents. From the new windows we could see that, due to the unrelenting rain, the Marne was at first level flood stage and was coursing past us at a rapid pace. Now that Ana and Bertrand are both retired, they tend to wander around the house like Ozzie and Harriet. Ana decided to join us for our morning jaunt into Paris, where we visited the Musee Carnavalet in the Marais.

Courtyard of Musee Carnavalet

We were expecting it to be small, but it turned out to be quite extensive, and filled with all sorts of furniture, art and everyday objects relating to the history of Paris. There are a number of reconstructions of Paris interiors, such as Marcel Proust’s bedroom, the Fouquet jewelry store, and the original furnishings from the Cafe de Paris. It’s very impressive, and you could spend a lot of time here. We had to rush through the French Revolution, missing much of it, as Marie Antoinette might have preferred.

http://www.carnavalet.paris.fr/

Marcel Proust’s bedroom

Fouquet’s

We then left Ana and found our way over to rue George V and our lunch at Le Cinq. Rain showers came and went, and we watched from our perch in the restaurant looking into the courtyard at the George V, now a Four Seasons.

Le Cinq

The food was superb, service flawless, the room gorgeous.

Mushrooms with foie gras and pistachio mousse. Tagliatelle with seafood. Pigeon with foie gras wrapped in spinach and bread crust. Root vegetables. This has to be the best pigeon dish I have ever had. Eel and octopus. Banana cake. “Mont blanc” (apple covered with apple sauce in a meringue shell).

I was surprised that they were being rather stingy with the mignardises.

At 110 euros, plus 70 for a bottle of 2002 Cahors, 12(!) for a bottle of water, 23 (yikes) for 2 coffees (total 325 euros for 2) this was definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I’m glad we did it, but I doubt we will repeat it.

http://www.fourseasons.com/paris/dining/restaurants/le_cinq/

After lunch we went to the Musee Jacquesmart Andre, where it seemed the last time we were there the private apartments had been undergoing renovation, so now we took them in. The special exhibition was on Victorian English paintings of women (not by women), most of whom had that wide-eyed look of people suffering from migraine.

http://musee-jacquemart-andre.com/en/home

A message came from Marcello that, due to an accident, his flight to Paris was cancelled, and he was going on directly to London, so could not join us for lunch the next day. Back to La Varenne, where we stopped on our way at the new shop of Spanish/Catalan specialty items where we managed to buy two bottles of Pedro Jimenez sherry, and where the kind proprietress gave us sample tastes of her Iberico jamon. We changed clothes and had a quick aperitif before heading back into town for dinner at:

Semilla

This was disappointing. Certainly the food was tasty, but…

Felt very touristy. It’s obviously been discovered by loud Americans and Brits. Stanley felt like he was on a trampoline due to the idiot at the next table who couldn’t sit still on the banquette, chattering away with his 3 female pals, with every other word out of their mouths being “like”. This is what we go to Europe to get away from.

Mushrooms with cauliflower (boring), rabbit terrine (delicious). Roast pork, tete de cochon croustillant. Both main dishes were just thrown on top of some lettuce. Creativity is definitely lacking.

Service was friendly and the server did speak French with us, but the kitchen seemed overwhelmed and the wait for the main course was interminable. We skipped dessert. Total for 2 with one bottle of wine, 109 euros.

November 15:

In the morning we traveled into the city and wandered about looking for passages couverts (corridors in or between buildings, with glass roofs, lined with shops and restaurants).

An elegant one near rue des Petit Champs had a shop window with a pop-up style rendering of typical New York streetscapes which featured a Kennedy Fried Chicken. How nostalgic! A less elegant passage off rue St. Denis had a glatt kosher luncheonette. How neuralgic! In time we found ourselves back on rue George V and walking up on the other side of the street to L’Instant d’Or, where Ana and Bertrand arrived at exactly the same moment to join us for lunch.

L’Instant d’Or

This is a great lunch deal at 36 euros. Wine prices are very steep, as much as at Le Cinq. A Cotes du Rhone Villages was 75, though I must say it was a very good Cotes du Rhone.

Veloute of mushrooms with chopped scallop, roasted pork loin, monkfish. Baba with pineapple.

The food was excellent. Service was attentive except, oddly, they neglected to refill our wine glasses twice. That would be excusable if they had put the wine on the table, but they did not.

This is an opportunity to have a luxurious meal at a very reasonable cost. The Michelin star is well deserved. Total for 4 with one bottle of wine, water and coffee was 240 euros.

http://www.hotel-elyseesmermoz.com/en/portfolio-item/linstant-dor/

After lunch we ducked into another passage couvert on the Champs Elysee, which, though elegant, had somewhat downscale shops reminiscent of Fifth Avenue below 42nd St., with souvenirs and such. We then hopped over to the Musee D’Orsay to see the special exhibition on male nudes. The curator here was suspiciously partial to recent works by Pierre et Giles, so much so that it all seemed a bit of a front for their latest show. The typical French logic asserted itself in the last niche, where a sign warned about appropriateness for young people. This after an unrelenting barrage of St. Sebastians and nude men in various states of decapitation, disembowelment and general sanguine horror. All because there was a video of young men cavorting in a pool. In the gathering gloom, we returned to La Varenne and again prepared for our evening meal at:
Youpi et Voila

We loved this. PhilD’s description on Chowhound was 100% accurate. Very plain atmosphere, very informal service, but attentive and cordial. The evening’s menu was all seafood.

Scallop with cauliflower puree, squid with multicolored beets, maigre (giant sea bass) with braised fennel and broccoli. Roasted pineapple strips with avocado cream and avocado ice cream. We prefer red wine, even with seafood, so the waiter suggested Pinot noir d’Alsace 2010 domaine Sylvie Spielmann, which really worked well with the delicate seafood. Total for 2 was 109 euros.

http://www.youpietvoila.com/