Mon Vieil Ami

Mark, an old mathematician friend of mine from Cambridge, came to visit for the weekend with his wife Mina. It was excellent to see them both and we had a lovely time - the main activity as usual was flâner, with stops at the fete du pain in front of notre dame, chez georges/le comptoir des canettes in saint sulpice for a glass of sancerre rouge, lunch in lou Pescadou - our fourth visit there, still impeccable rapport qualite-prix, a visit to Richard Serra's exhibition of large steel rectangles in the grand palais (dull), the modern art museum for the opening salvos of the nuit des musees, then a quick transfer to the consistently good experimental cocktail club before dinner at le clown bar. Dinner was excellent again, on I think our third visit here. The menu is small and has changed each time we've been: the standard onglet with frites maison is always available, but this time there was also joue de boeuf, confit de canette, and Mark had an incredible entree consisting of little balls of brandade - that's a sort of cod puree - fried in batter. I think it's called Acras de morue. To drink we had a bottle of Cahors, the 'old wine' drunk by the romans (apparently) and made with malbec grapes now popularised by argentine growers - it was very fine, though I think I enjoyed the Chinon, a loire valley cabernet franc based wine we had last time - a little more. Their wine list is extensive, interesting and very reasonably priced, so I'm sure we'll be back to sample some of the other things on offer.

btw, mon vieil ami is also the name of a highly rated bistro on the isle st louis that we haven't tried yet - it's a little expensive, so we'll have to find a good excuse to try it out..