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Saturday, March 15, 2014

Bistro Bellet - Belly Up!

It's been a couple weeks since Co. and I checked the latest PLACE TO BE IN PARIS, Bistro Bellet in the 10th, not far from Gare de l'Est.   I'll keep this short because, you're busy, I'm busy, who hell has the time?  Plus, I really don't remember much about the visit anyway.  Too much interference courtesy of another terrific dinner at Septime last night - what a great place.

Okay, if Bistro Bellet was great, I would probably be saying it and remembering a whole lot more, but I ain't getting any younger and neither are the neurons in the memory center of my brain.  Don't mind me, you don't need to know that.  Okay, BB may not be great, but it's pretty damn good.  And the great thing about BB is they are open early and they close late.  You don't find that too often on the restaurant scene in Paris.  As Le Fooding inquires: Où trouver une bouillabaisse à 23 heures un vendredi ?  I hear you.

BB filled up pretty quickly not long after we arrived around 8 pm.  Big spacious room, a bit too bright for my taste, but comfortable nonetheless.  Before I get into the details, let me give you a piece of advice if you, like me and Co., follow the Google map (or your handy smartphone app) to find the best route from Gare de l'Est.  Let me tell you, that's a short - but colorful - walk, harmless, but a little dicey nonetheless.  The direct mapped route has you walking through the Passage du Desir.  Sounds pretty romantic, doesn't it?  Well, it sort of is, until you get to the end and you see these two giant closed doors chained and locked.  That's right, the map doesn't show that, which apparently appears around sundown when people are going to the restaurant and Google photographers are snug in their lairs.  Back the way we came to the next through street to rue Du Faubourg St. Denis, numero 84.  A mere glitch in an otherwise pleasant evening.

The more I ruminate here about the BB dinner, the more I realize I'm looking forward to going back.  Traditional French cuisine, regularly changing carte, and enough originality to merit the trip to a dead end and then back again.  Unfortunately, I didn't photograph the carte, so I can't remember the specific make up of the dishes, but have a look anyway:

Poisson and roquette - excellent



bouillabaisse à 21 heures - their specialty, and it lived up to expectation


Tarte chocolate - good as it looks, but you probably won't write your grandmother about it

Bouille Bellet - not too impressive



As for entrees, we weren't too intrigued by the 5 or so offerings, so we ended up splitting a pretty standard salade de legumes.  That put us in the 2-course 32€ category, in lieu of the 3-course 36€ option, but as mentioned, there were a couple supplements.  A decent 27€ bottle of Cahors, bringing the total to 101, with a couple dreaded supplements thrown in.  Basically, BB is a bright new addition to the Paris restaurant scene, moving us in the right direction in terms of less rigidity in opening hours, reservations, stodginess and bread (Sangaré Bakary, chez Thierry Breton).  You're not going to get blown away by François Chenel's originality in the kitchen, but you won't walk away unhappy.

BISTRO BELLET
84, rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis
75010 Paris
tel: 01 45 23 42 06
Website:  What website?


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