Galeries Lafayette

http://www.galerieslafayette.com/
Show map of 40 Boulevard Haussmann, 75009 Paris, France

Department stores are a dime a dozen all around the world.
But for me, what separates a good store from a great one is their food floor.
American department stores lack this tasty marvel.
And up until a week ago, I thought only the department stores in Asia really captured the gourmand's heart.
I should have known better, but the French too are absolutely crazy about their department store food floor as well.

The Galeries Lafayette in the Opera District of Paris is probably equivalent to the Harrod's of London, the Mitsukoshi of Tokyo, and the Bergdorf Goodman of NYC.
Highend retail stores make up the lion's share of the men's and women's clothing, shoes, and home living floors.
But when I stepped into their "Gourmand Floor", WOW, I was blown away.
First of all, the lighting was at least 5 shades brighter than all other floors. It was busy as hell and everything looked good enough for a magazine photo shoot.
People say you can spend days at the Louvre and not see everything. That's exactly the way I felt about this particular floor at the Galerie Lafayette. It was "Mecca", and I did not want to ever leave.

Below are snapshots I took while walking through the maze of gastro-delights.
Enjoy!!!

Deep Fried

When people ask me about the bugs I've eaten, I tell them it's really not that bad since they were deep fried. Then I joke and say anything deep fried is good, maybe even my shoes. Here is a link I found of things that are deep fried and served. Lots of these I heard of, like deep-fried Twinkies, but things like Coke, ravioli stuffed with snickers, and white pudding are new to me.

Deep-fried food

Shrimp at Momofuku Noodle Bar

New Dish Alert!!!

Freakin' awesome. So much flavor in these badboys.
Fried med sized shrimp from Maine, then tossed in a southeast asian sauce with fried garlic chips. Garnished with cilantro and sliced jalapenos.

This is totally worth the trip to the east village folks. Tres Delicious.

Jewel Bako

Jewel Bako - Highly Recommended
239 East 5th Street
New York, NY 10003
(212) 979-1012

What a treat it was to sit at the counter Friday night and have Chef Yoshi prepare his complete assault of nigiri sushi for R, M and myself.
We sat there for a good 3 hours and it felt like I ate and ate and ate. I was guessing 25+ nigiris but in reality, it was probably closer to 15 to 18.
I haven't been so happy at a (non Yasuda) sushi counter in a long long time.

If I had to classify Chef Yoshi's style of sushi as traditional or nouveaux, it would be tradional.
But it's really traditional with a twist. There is always a little twist to every nigiri he serves.

Now I've always heard this placed 'rocked', but never took it that seriously. Probably because someone in my office was pretty skeptical and I've actually had "Jewel Bako" sushi at the James Beard House before, and it was average at best.
But that just goes to show you the power of "just made" sushi and the special relationship you create when you are face to face with the chef.
Silly me for taking this long to visit. I'll be back for sure.

Although I don't remember every piece of nigiri that was served that night, M took random pictures that night and they are posted below.

Waiter Waiting Wins

If I can have a steady flow of tables like this, I'd change careers to be a waiter:

Mille Feuille

Another WTF moment for me was when I tried a "real" Mille Feuille at Fouquet's and Cafe de la Paix.
Mille Feuille literally means 1,000 leaves. And interestingly enough, it's also called a "Napolean" here in the States.
I have tried this pastry a handful of times trying to understand what the fuss was all about.
Whenever I dined with my mother at a fancy restaurant, she would always order it.
And funny enough, she would always say, "it's just not the same", referring to her experiences in Paris.
So with the limited tastings I've had, I have always considered this dish lacking any pleasant qualities. It always seemed to be a pathetic attempt to display 2 opposing textures. Crunchiness and Smoothness. Because quite literally, the baked portion was hard and crunchy, while the custard portion was rich and sweet.

Low and behold... Enlightenment!

So just like my butter experience, I was blown away by my very first bite at Fouquet's.
This dish is served with a knife and fork.
Again, every time I've ever had this dish, my attempts to take a bite have resulted in a sloppy mess. You can't cut through the ones here. It generally leads to the custard oozing out from the sides due to the pressure of the hard pastry not breaking away and forcing all the goodness away.

Not the case in France.

Literally, multiple thin layers of butter enriched dough make for a tender baked crisp that one can easily cut through and take out bite sized portions.
Once it hits your mouth, the smoothness of the vanilla custard (which is perfect) and the flakiness of the perfectly backed multi layered butter "leaves" make for the perfect pairing.
Now to jazz it all up, Fouquet's garnished it with a raspberry puree on the side, while Cafe de la Paix drizzled caramel on the bottom of the plate. Both equally inspiring and utterly delicious.









And below is a picture of a typical "Mille Feuille" you'll find in the States.
The picture says it all...

Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup

It snowed a whole 3 inches in D.C. today, and it was my excuse to make some American comfort food: grilled cheese & tomato soup. Though I grew up in this country, my comfort food was more like menudo, chilaquiles, and bologna/cheese, etc., so this was actually my first time having this combination.

No, I'm serious.

Actually it didn't sound like a good combo to me, but while I was eating it today, I see why it's an American favorite. The tomato soup was creamy, hearty, and actually somewhat filling. Grilled cheese is grilled cheese - you just can't go wrong with it. I added tomato to the sandwich during the "grilling" and dunked it into the soup while eating... quite good.

Tomato Soup
I used cans of Campbell's condensed tomato soup but substituted the water for milk. I added lots of pepper while cooking and used some more for garnish. Before pouring into the bowl, I grated a tad of leftover colby-jack cheese from my enchilada adventure last weekend. Everything melted nicely to make a creamy soup. I added more freshly ground pepper on top. Gorgeous red soup with a dark topping made it a nice display next to burnt yellow sandwiches.

Grilled Cheese

I always buttered both sides of the bread, but this time I only did one side, the outside. I heated the pan, and placed the two slices of bread butter-side down. I placed a slice of muenster cheese on one slice and an American cheese single on the other. 30 seconds in, I placed a thinly sliced piece of tomato on one of the slices, closed it up, pressed down for another 20 seconds, and voila, tasty grilled cheese.

Lil bit of Awesome

I've had a tremendous amount of reeeeally good chocolate recently.  But once in a while, grabbing one of your favorite candy bars off the shelf at a convenience store and simply digging in your jeans for loose change to pay is a nice feeling.

That's the taste of the stars and stripes baby! 
USA! USA!

Appetizers

The 2 most highly anticipated appetizers I wanted to order while in France were :

Foie Gras Terrine
&
Beef Tartare

These are basically what I normally order when I'm out and about here in the states.
My Go To's if you will.
And boy oh boy were they delicious.

But I'm happy to report that the Foie Gras I've had here in the states is respectable, if not equal to the texture and flavor of what was served in Paris.
Kudos to the guys at Hudson Valley Foie Gras...
And the Steak Tartare, although very delicious, is also attainable here in NYC.
I've had comparable experiences at Porterhouse Steakhouse and Gotham Bar and Grill (to name a few).

Croissants

What's a visit to France without waking up to a freshly baked croissant right?

Right!

I was only in Paris for 3 days, but no joke, I had 12 croissants during my trip.
These things are like fluffy buttery crack.

When I arrived in Paris, the first thing I wanted to do was to get my paws on a croissant.
In hindsight, the first croissant I had was the least impressive out of the 12, but when I took that first initial bite, I thought I had bitten into a piece of heaven.
So one has to ask... is there such thing as a bad croissant in France?
It was way fluffier and tastier than all the other croissants I've ever had.
Is it the butter? The baking technique? Or simply the LOVE?
Why can't I get that here in NY? I just don't know but they just do it so much better over there for some reason.

Notice the multiple layers at the edge. Notice the beautiful dark golden color. Notice the obvious flakiness of the outer shell and the oh so soft and fluffy center core so when you bite into it, the layers just some how meld together by the pressure from your teeth.

The pictures here are from a Boulangerie near the Arc de Triomphe. These Pain de Chocolate (Chocolate Croissants) were an eye opener for me. Never had I thought I'd feel this passionate about a non-meat product...
I was completely dumbfounded and quite possibly have fallen in love with Paris for this very simple reason.
You had me at "Pain". You had me at "Pain"

Da Buttah

Ohhhhh, the Butter!

I flew out to Paris with the wife this past weekend and can't say enough about the trip.
The food, the sights.
The food, the atmosphere.
Did I mention the food...?!

And if I had to sum up Paris in one word... it would be Butter. Or "Beurre" for you Frenchies out there.

Butter is definitely the backbone to all things great in France... and what a backbone it is.
It's just so damn good. I thought I knew what good butter was. I worked for a dairy specialist for about 6 months a few years back and I studied my butter, eggs and cream.
I could sniff out butters that were 80%, 82%, 86% butter fat...
I could also tell you if they were cultured, salted, or even shielded.
But nothing prepared me for what I experienced at Fouget's.

When I sat down, for lunch, I was given a roll and a serving of Echire Butter.
OK, I thought... I've seen and heard about this "Echire" before.
This is the stuff they serve in the First Class cabin...
So I took a swig of water and was ready to have a go at it...

I opened up the foil and observed it was tad bit yellow.
I spread it onto my perfectly baked butter roll and took a bite.
WOW! Slightly salty, perfect spreadability (but not oily in any way), a medium amount of high buttery notes to the palate, and very very smooth on the palate.
Needless to say, I'm a very big fan of this butter and will be searching all over Manhattan to get me some more of this AOC protected goodness.

Now to only try 1 type of butter while in France is like only trying 1 slice of pizza in NYC.
So my quest for enlightenment continued through out my short 3 day excursion.
I have 2 other notable butter experiences to share.

My second "WTF" butter experience came during my lunch at Cafe de la Paix.
There they served Baratte D'Isigny from Normandy.
Ummm yah...
Extremely pale in color, (again) slightly salty and definitely had the buttery high notes.
I had an extra serving of this butter because I realized my time in Paris was coming towards the end, and I wasn't getting any of this stuff back in the States.

My third notable experience was at an Oyster specialty restaurant about 5 minutes walk from the Arc de Triomphe. Although the butter wasn't individually wrapped, the perfect medallions of smooth white goodness sang in my mouth like an aria from the opera house. It was powerful and emotionally moving. This with some of the best raw oysters money can buy topped off with a wonderful bowl of Soup de Poissons could have been one of the most memorable meals I've ever had.

Stay tuned for my next write up on Croissants in Paris.

Someone killed Santa

Check out the print on the winter seasonal Coke cans.
Is it me or does Santa have a gunshot wound and is bleeding from the head?
WTF???