There are a lot of arguments in Paris - I see one person yelling at another almost every day. After getting our menus in the newly opened Frascati restaurant last night, we were treated to the day’s serving of drama. The chef was berating two workers, both of whom were staring at their feet. He was banging a ham against a slicer to punctuate his yelling. “Dans cette cuisine, JE SUIS LE CHEF! Pas TOI et pas TOI, c’est MOI!” He looked like he could kill them. Two conflicting thoughts entered my brain. One: this chef is passionate – his food is going to be great. Two: this chef is crazy, even if the food sucks I better finish it or he may beat me up.
Luckily, the chef's passion translated into tastiness! The mozarella and tomato plate was incredible. The mozarella was freshly-made and moister than I'm used to and there were both fresh and sun-dried tomatoes. It will be hard to eat this somewhere else now. Equally excellent was the rigatoni with truffle sauce, mushrooms and slices of ham. I wrapped each bite with a bit of ham and was totally contented.
The ravioli were ordinary - though I don't tend to like ravioli so I will let the Pingles comment. What is true is that we cleaned every plate but this one. As the angry chef was still storming around the place, neither of us was comfortable with this half-eaten plate. Pingles was whispering to me "Babe, can you put this plate in front of you?" I feigned deafness and stared past her.
Frascati is small - a cozy room littered with bric-a-brac that seats perhaps twenty elbow-to-elbow. If you're in the Marais and in the mood for some Italian, check it out.
47, rue du Temple
4th Arondissement
Paris
According to historians, when the Romans occupied Gaul back in Caesar's day, the legionnaires were both horrified and amused at the emotion displayed by the Gauls about everything. The Gauls were mystified by the lack of emotion shown by the Romans. So it goes way, way back.
ReplyDelete@Sal - to further confuse the story - they were yelling at each other in Italian too. So, not sure who was a Gaul and who was a Roman in that place.
ReplyDeleteYes babe... yours was definitely a winner! Love the touch of ham with the truffle rigatoni.
ReplyDeleteStill though.. I am still craving for good tomato based pasta. Maybe we shd do Al Di La some time this week since we are in NY?
@Puffin - oh yeah, Al di La, forgot about that one...
ReplyDeleteThanks for all your entries, Mr. Food Blogger
ReplyDeleteThey are so detailed, I have been watching this blog since I googled for Chez Taéko few weeks ago, later i went to explore quartier marais, then I found that place is so 'explorable'
Having notice that you and your gf stay in quartier marais, you two might really miss hot and spicy dishes, i recommend this chinese restaurant(I forgot the name): 17 boulevard du temple 75003 paris
Especially their spicy prawns and spicy crabs
Do let me know if you are contented ! =)
17 Blvd de Temple, huh? I go by there on the bus every day, but I don't remember seeing a chinese spot. I will check it out more carefully when I get back to Paris, thanks for the recommendation.
ReplyDelete