September 16, 2018   Breakfast – Hotel Fertel. Lunch – Brasserie Bert
Dinner – Montmartre

I awakened at 6:00. No U.S. NCAA football on any channel, so gave up watching TCU v. Ohio State.  Got dressed at 8:30 and went to the basement, where the hotel had a small but lovely breakfast room with three small dining areas facing a small courtyard planted with a few plants.  It reminded me of the small posada in San Miguel de Allende, but more elaborate with lots of breakfast choices placed on counters.
Tomorrow I will take photos.

I took a chocolate croissant and a piece of fresh baguette with butter and orange marmalade and a cup of tea one a glass of orange juice.

I ordered two eggs sunny side up and when the u came made them into a sort of omelet with three slices of ham and two slices of cheese.

After breakfast I went back to room and slept another hour.

We finally awakened at 10:00 and dressed and arrived at Porte Du Clingencourt about twenty minutes late where we found Kathryn waiting on the platform.  We made our way to The market of Clingencourt and walked around for several hours until we stopped for lunch.  We ate at Café Claude Bert in The market.  The food was not great.  I had a dish I had never eaten before! Boeuf Coccete, which is a sort of Boeuf Bouguinon without the addition of red wine.  It was delicious and I loved the fact that it had so much tendon with the meat.  I love dishes the have lots of inner muscular gelatinous tissue, because I  think eating it provides more collagen.

After lunch we walked back to toward the metro station and I followed the girls into a shop called Colonial and was confronted by large blocks of red coral.  I was transfixed that something like this was in France, since taking it is promoted in Chinese waters where it grows.  The largest and best specimen was 550€. I took the owner’s card and think I will buy it.

                                                     Kathryn and me in front of Colonial

Ditto with Suzette 

Colonial interior

                                                           The red coral specimen

We then returned to the hotel after telling Kathryn we would visit her apartment at 6:00 tomorrow and her succeeding we visit the Abbesses area in the Montmartre district.

We went back to the hotel and rested until 7:30 when we got dressed and made our way to Abbesses Metro station and the Jardin de Face for  dinner.  We arrived at Jardin de Face after walking several blocks up and down the curving warren of streets going up and down through Abbesses.  It terrain is similar to San Miguel de Allende, where many of the nicer homes are built built on a rather steep hill side or Zacatecas, where most of the town is built in a steep valley.

I guess this is what some folks call charming.

We were ½ hour early for our 9:30 reservation so we walked down the street to a small place and I drank a beer and Suzette drank a white wine for 30 minutes and watched people.

When we returned to Jardin we were seated at a table on the sidewalk outside the restaurant. There were more tables on the sidewalk that inside the restaurant as there were at many of the restaurants in the area taking advantage of the balmy evenings.  We were able to enjoy the evening air without a jacket, which was particularly pleasant.

Our waiter and waitress spoke perfect English and were very knowledgeable about the food and wine, which made the meal more enjoyable.  I think we collected oui first recipe of the trip; a ramekin containing a T. of cream, an egg, and a few pieces of foil gras baked for three or four minutes until firm.  The result is a hot creamy amalgam of egg and foil gras.  Very simple and very delicious.

Our second appetizer may also be a winning new recipe.  It was a loaf of freshly made cottage cheese (fresh cheese perhaps mixed with cream like the texture of ricotta cheese) served with Sautéed strips of eggplant and oven roasted cherry tomatoes lightly marinated with and served cold on a bed of lettuce.

Our entrée was less thrilling or memorable, a cushion (chunk) of veal breaded and deep fried to medium or beyond served with a round of mashed potatoes and a salad and a very flavorful sauce of cooking juices thickened into a light brown au jus sauce.

Our waiter recommended a Brouilly Beaujolais, which turned out to be perfect with the meal, light, fruity with just a hint of spice or acidity at the back of the throat on the finish, which gave the wine a cleansing after taste.

After we finished splitting our entrée, we still had ¼ of the bottle I drunk, so we ordered a cheese plate.  As in most French restaurants, it was exceptional, four small decoratively cut pieces of cheese, a creamy cow milk blue cheese, an amazing Münster style Brie like wedge, an obliquely sliced slice off a log of goat cheese, and a wedge of semi-firm Comte (which we can buy in Albuquerque at Costco) served on a plate of salad and roasted pieces of walnut with dark bread and butter.  We loved the cheese course as a finish to dinner. So very heavy and with lots of interesting enzymes and flavors that went well with the last sips of wine.

The meal was surprisingly inexpensive for the quality of the ingredients.

The wine was 24€, the apps and cheese plate  were each 8€, and the veal entrée was 16€ for a total of 62€.  The service is included in France, so no tip.  We loved dinner and stretched it out until almost 11:00.

Then we walked back to the Abbesses Metro station and returned to our hotel ½ block from the Argentine Metro station.  We love the ease and efficiency of traveling by metro in Paris, although a rather unusual thing happened tonight.  There was a ticket check just beyond the exit at Concorde, where Suzette was charged a 35€ fine for having no ticket.  She threw it away before boarding the subway.  Who knew you have to keep your ticket to prove you paid for your ride until your ultimate destination?

Bon Appetite