Paris Trip Part I: Dinner at Jean-Georges’ Market

I’ve just returned from my vacation — including 3 days in Paris. I’ve got a series of posts that I’ll finish up over the next few days!

Jean Georges’ Market

On Sunday nights, not much is open in Paris. or at least that’s what I’ve heard. So we found ourselves dining at Market. Apparently it was on the early side for Paris, because our 7 pm reservation was the first table (Actually, we weren’t sure how long it would take to get there and showed up at 6:50 pm. They shooed us away… “we are not open yet”).

The atmosphere was modern and pleasant, with music loud enough to be heard but not intrusive (and wide-ranging including Blue Suede Shoes but spending much of the time in the world of Girls-Just-Wanna-Have-Fun Karma-Kameleon).

The menu was neither “blue suede” nor “karma kameleon” but rather a kind of new Asian with fresh influences (American? Californian?). It is a mix-and-match menu, with two courses for 36 euros and each additional course at 18 euros.

We began with coconut milk soup — basically Tom Kha Gai, flavorful and well-balanced and suffering from the same problem as most Tom Kha — chicken that’s bland and a little dry.

The spicy chicken samosas were more “curried” than spicy (hard pressed to say there was any heat at all) and a bit dry and flaky, but the coriander yogurt sauce sauce was refreshing and brought some nice taste and contrast.

Main courses were a slow baked salmon and roasted milk-fed lamb. The salmon was good but I’ve made better at home following the recipe from the Bittman and Vongerichten cookbook Simple to Spectacular. It was lifted up by the bed of parsnip puree and the citrus slice highlights.

Gus’s lamb had a nice bite and a robust lamb-y flavor…. But the pea puree just didn’t do it for me (but then again I am not a pea fan) — Gus remarked that the vegetables could just not compare in freshness flavor and presentation to what we could get in California, and I suspect he was correct.

The dessert for me was the crowning achievement of the meal — because really how can you go wrong with a well-executed Grand Marnier soufflé? With dark chocolate accents? And a small scoop of orange sorbet? Yum. I would have ordered two of those and skipped the rest of the meal. Gus similarly enjoyed his rhubarb crisp but wasn’t quite was rapturous.

It all comes down to this: decent meal, but no better or different than what we could get any day of the week in the Bay Area. Perhaps wasn’t worth one of our few meals in Paris. But I had great hopes for the next two nights and I was not disappointed: La Table de Joel Robuchon and Alain Passard’s L’Arpege. Stay tuned.