I hate to use the “F” word. But I fear the husband and I may be becoming Fat.
Perhaps it was the many fromages of Paris or the endless plates of fried noodles in Singapore.
He says I am crazy, of course. And I, too, tell him, Oh no, no, no — not you. (The things people say to each other.)
Nonetheless, we’ve decided, it’s time to take the devouring down a few beats. And so we’ve been turning to another dreaded “F” word: Fish.
For a first-timer in Paris, the Sister had not done badly.
Sure, we hadn’t managed to get into L’Ami Jean or Hidden Kitchen, but the basics had been covered: Berthillon ice-cream, Laduree macarons, cervelas at Brasserie Lipp, a cocktail at the Hemingway Bar.
What was left on the list? Much too much.
Nonetheless, we decided, end with a bang we must. And so we found ourselves packing into a tiny elevator and rocketing into the gray Parisian sky.
The lunch to end our lunches (for now) in Paris would be at a classic — Le Jules Verne in the Eiffel Tower, which, at more than 400 feet above ground level, offered a sweet spot to sip some bubbly and look out onto the city beneath.
Like many good New Yorkers, I had come to regard carbs as the enemy.
I’d accepted that Asian noodles were my Delilah. But with a few exceptions — any dish of steak frites that crossed my sight being the main one — I’d been able to stick to this waistline-watching strategy. I would push around (most of my) potatoes on the plate and leave bread (mostly) untouched.
Paris, however, has ruined me.
There were the perfectly baked breads that just demanded to be devoured. The delightfully salty butters that called to you from the table, insisting on being slathered on said perfectly baked breads and then devoured.
And there was the aligot at L’Ambassade D’Auvergne, a lovely little restaurant that specializes in the super elastic dish of melted Laguiole cheese stirred together with mashed potatoes and garlic.
My breaking point came when I set eyes on the aligot.
Fighting it was futile. I admitted defeat and said, “Just take me.”
We’re sitting at the Hemingway Bar at the Hôtel Ritz Paris, my friend Greg and I.
He leans over and says, soft and deep, “That face, it’s beyond the dreams of pornography.”
The face would be that of Roman the bartender, the friendliest man behind a bar that we’d met in our Paris jaunts thus far.
Greg and I, we’re bar people — we adore eating at bars, perhaps even more than eating at actual tables.
At bars, you tend to get to know your neighbors well — even if conversation only starts up because a fork is in your elbow. You have a front-row seat to behind-the-counter action, all the little dramas that aren’t meant to permeate through the welcoming smiles of waitresses.
You also get to know some pretty gifted entertainers pouring drinks — and Roman happened to be one of them.
The upside to visiting Paris with a first-timer: The excuse to retread paths well worn.
There is the Angelina chocolat chaud yet undrunk, the freshly baked Poilane pains undiscovered.
The sister, she has come to Paris with guidebooks well-marked and images of Amelie’s Montmartre flitting through her head. But first, the basics must be covered; important stops must be made.