[Pigging by Wilfrid: February 15, 2008]
If you thought a duck was out of the question...
I mean an old-fashioned roast duck à l'Orange...think again.
tAs surely as the seasons change, the mood comes upon me every few months to put my nose to the ground like a truffle hound and snout out a simple, honest, traditional French bistro. Something a step or two down the ladder from the Upper East Side's L'Absinthe, less buzzy than Balthazar or Pastis, but more ambitious - please - than the Restaurant Row tricolor-flying tourist traps.
I am readily deceived, bless my aesthete's heart, by looks, so when I walked past what looked like a little corner of Paris in the heart of SoHo a few weeks back, I made a mental note to investigate further. Now a mental note is about as much use to me as an empty glass, so I forgot right away. Later, doing something else, I accidentally came across a restaurant called Parigot on the web. Never heard of it, I told myself.
But the wheels slowly turned and I finally conjoined the neat little restaurant au coin with this Parigot, opened by former co-owner and chef at Boerum Hill's Jolie, Michel Pombet. Monsieur Pombet, on further inspection, turned out to have a lengthy CV in his native France - including that Champs-Elysées jewel-box Le Fouquet - not to mention a spell at the Upper East Side's Demarchelier under his belt.
I could feel one of my periodic Clochemerle moods coming on.
So, a reservation was made - I suspect chef Pombet himself on the phone - and I squelched out of a rainy night in SoHo into a comfortable table at a moderately busy dinner hour. The interior - as expected - will remind New Yorkers of Jarnac and other Village French stalwarts: medium-sized room, short bar, no fripperies. Service by two young French women was earnest and cheerful; the chef was in and out of the kitchen in whites, and his partner Catherine (at least, I believe it was she) commanded the bar.
After, well, French bread, and a fairly ordinary drop of house bubbly (I should have ordered a kir), I planned a dinner around the pot-au-feu.
First, in similarly traditional spirit, an oxtail terrine. The positive aspect of this dish was that it was the equal of the pressed beef cheeks much heralded at Bar Boulud (if a bit less picture-perfect). The negative side is that Bar Boulud's charcuterie needed a lift - whether from seasoning or perhaps marination of the raw ingredients - and so did this. I'd be pleased with it if I'd made it - firm, meaty, savory - but I thought chef Pombet might have more flavor up his sleeve. The onion chutney helped; the cornichons too.
A twist on crab cake is offered, encased in phyllo pastry - a nice enough textural contrast. Again, the filling, though pleasant, needed zing.
Then to business. Since the time of Alexandre Dumas, this dish has been mythologized as the beating heart of the French domestic kitchen, and thus the foundation stone of French cuisine. Part of the legend is that the pot never cools: it simmers forever on some Clochemerlian hearth, pieces of meat and vegetables added as each day's dinner is subtracted, the broth becoming indefinitely richer and sweeter and more, well, profonde.
The blessed Liebling quotes Dumas in chapter four of Between Meals. Beef, carrots, onions, garlic and an array of aromatic and root vegetables were the foundation, together with "cracked marrow bones." Dumas was against fowl, apparently, unless old - a venerable pheasant or partridge; even a crow. Liebling recommended the pot of Benoit, a restaurant he called "small but not cheap" - truer than ever today, owned as it now is by Alain Ducasse.
I have no clear recollection of marrow bones forming a centerpiece to the dish in France, but they seem obligatory whenever pot-au-feu is offered in New York. It formed the central pillar of the huge and excellent pot I once ate at Café des Artistes - the best thing I ever ate at that restaurant. It also appeared in a more bijou expression of the dish enjoyed at Lutèce: chef Eberhard haute standards by featuring little cabbage parcels of foie gras.
The bone here was dandy - it's concealed by a twist of cabbage in the photo - and I dutifully scooped out the filling and applied crunchy salt. The broth was nice too - sweet and silky. Call me fussy, but I thought the brisket could have been more neatly butchered - some indigestible flaps and gristle clung to the generous chunks - but the meat itself was fine. There was easily enough meat here to make it a dish for two (mains are around $19 to $26 by the way).
The wine list is as simple as you'd expect - a handful of pricey Bordeauxs and Burgundies at the end, but mainly simple varietals in the twenties and thirties. Chapoutier's "Belleruche" is an honest Côte du Rhône from a well-known producer, and it is scarcely three times the retail price here - which is fair.
And the canard à l'Orange, that glory of old-school Cordon Bleu cooking - too often eschewed now in favor of insipid sous vide style preparations or raw seared duck breast with the texture of rubber bands - served here, like the pot in extraordinary quantity. An entire half duck, and a big one too, dressed with orange segments, creamy mash, spinach, and an uncloying orange sauce streaked with zest. Good of its kind, and those of you who are weary of it must seek solace in duck soil with orange foam at the latest standing-only downtown dive.There had been a cheese plate, but it was listed among the appetizers - a dismissive gesture as far as the American understanding of cheese is concerned, and one which L'Absinthe has been guilty of too. So I forgot it and ordered a slice of tarte tatin, which was better than it's limp brownness suggests.
A flourish of ices and a gathering of doggy bags brought the evening to a close.
I am still searching for the Clochemerle de mon coeur. I hadn't anticipated excitement here, but had hoped that a chef with Michel Pombet's experience might have brought more savor, more animation to some of the dishes. I'd eat the duck again (and indeed it made an appearance on the domestic table the next day), and it's a sweet neighborhood spot.
Those who would see for themselves will be regaled with information right here.
