Paris Trip Report - mostly dining, some pictures

[StevieG]

Last week I was in Paris for work. There was very little time for tourism, but plenty of opportunities for good food. I got some good advice in this thread, Paris Dining questions, some of which I acted on, sorry I could not eat at every place mentioned.

Gérard Besson

While there I definitely wanted to try a Michelin star restaurant, and I chose Gérard Besson since it was within easy striking distance of where I was staying, and I could get a reservation by email. I ate there the first night.

Here are pictures of the dining room (sorry, camera on the phone does not take the best quality pictures):





I took the menu degustation, and asked for wines to be paired with the courses.
The wait staff did not all speak English, so they had the two who were most proficient take care of me. Very helpful.

Began with an amuse bouche of a salmon mousse with a topping of creme and small bacon bits, served in a chilled shot glass. Starting off with bacon is always a plus, and this was a fine way to start. The chilled temperature and cream topping also made it refreshing, despite the strong salmon and bacon flavors.

The first course was seared foie gras with poached peaches served with a 2000 Muscat from north Corsica.



The sweet wine went very well with this dish, and the peaches brought out a real fruitiness in the wine. The foie gras was cooked perfectly. I found myself dipping bread in the plate at the end, to hell with my manners.

Second course - grilled sea bass and salmon with sauteed mushrooms and a sauce that was more velvet than anything else. Wine a 2004 sauvingnon blanc from Bordeaux.



Main course - wild duck with a fig confit.



Before serving it, the waiter warned me that they served it pink. At the time, I was thinking, "OK, I know I am an American, but give me some credit for having had duck served medium rare." Well, when I cut into it, I know why he warned me. Pink my ass! It bled when I cut it. Definitely on the rare side. I enjoyed it, but the warning was certainly warranted, and understated.

The flavor was definitely different from duck you normally have in restaurants. Not exactly gamey, but I bet it was flying somewhere the day before.

Still, delicious.

But what intrigued me we're the sides. First, the fig confit was basically fig jam in the form of a whole fig. Fantastic.

The other, a starch puree that I naively took for potato, but tasted like a chestnut or squash, and turned out to be...celery root! It was mixed with potato, but the flavor was nothing like the stalk (or the seed for that matter). Great surprise.

Red wine served with the dish. I confess I did not understand the French name, but it had Côtes in it somewhere. 1997. Big red and tasty.

Cheese course. Sorry, no pictures. Delicious 10 year old port to go with it.

Two cheeses stood out. One, a semi-hard cheese, a comté from Jura. It had that granular salty character of an aged cheese yet somehow was smooth and almost creamy at the same time.

Also a highlight was the corsican sheep's milk cheese (do not know the name) which had the sharp silky bleu cheese character without a vein of blue in it.

Dessert was a chocolate ganache with fresh strawberries and rasberries and ice cream on top. Honey ice cream, to be precise, sprinkled with diced pistacio.



Yes, it was as good as it sounds.

Then coffee and petits four. I managed to eat two without exploding.



All told, great meal.