Archive for restaurant review
at the boor, as advertised
Posted in pictures, Statistics with tags Belgium, Boer Wars, boor, Brussel, Brussels, Bruxelles, Dutch language, Flemish language, jatp, North Sea, oysters, restaurant, restaurant review, skewness, South Africa, variance, waiter on March 8, 2024 by xi'an
a journal of the conquest, war, famine, death, and chaos year
Posted in Books, Kids, Mountains, pictures, Running, Travel with tags 8ième arrondissement, affogato al caffè, Alain Fournier, apocalypse, Arto Paasilinna, book review, books, Charles Dickens, COVID-19, Daniel Defoe, David Copperfield, Edmond de Goncourt, espresso, fantasy, film review, France, Frist World War, Journal of the Plague Year, Livre de Poche, miso, Musée Guimet, oysters, Paris, red cabbage, restaurant review, Russian invasion, snails, Sologne, sweetbreads, Ukraine on February 28, 2024 by xi'an
Read (in French) L’Anomalie (2020 Prix Goncourt) with difficulties as the time travel paradox behind the story is extremely shallow and uninteresting, with caricatures of mathematicians and of about any other category in guise of characters. Lazy writing at its worst, floors below a standard Paasilinna. On a whim, decided to read Le Grand Meaulnes (in French) which I had not fully read as a teenager, but was remembering as a “classic” I should have read. Ended up being highly disappointed by the book, except for its literary style and the insights on the daily life of in the French countryside before World War I (during whose first days the author, Alain Fournier, was killed in action). Indeed, the setting is puzzlingly fantastic, with the highlight of a costumed and doomed wedding in a remote castle that Meaulnes stumble upon, but with no clear intention and on such a scale as to be completely implausible for a small rural community, plus other glaring inconsistencies like getting lost in one’s own vicinity and reuniting some characters at the end against all odds and logic. Maybe I should have read it as a teenager! I am still bemused it was ranked in the top 101 French favourite novel list… unless readers share the same phantom memory as I of the book being a “must-read”, rather than of the book itself. As a side story, the edition I read dates from 1967 (number 1000 in Livre de Poche!) and looks its age, presumably one of the few books we had at home, courtesy of a family member with duplicates in her library, just like my version of David Copperfield. printed in 1965.
Cooked more of the seasonal vegetables, had oysters with no consequence (despite the current contamination scare on Atlantic and Channel fields, due to heavy rains saturating the nearby sewage systems), and celebrated our son’s 30th birthday (!) in a nice, friendly, and tiny 8ième restaurant with enough Italian roots they did not blink when I asked for an (off-menu) affogato! Which they made with a miso ice cream, surprisingly well-suited to the espresso. The dishes were all pleasantly surprising, with one of the best sweetbread preparation I have ever eaten. Great meal before a (rather arctic!) stroll to the Musée Guimet.
Watched The Night Agent delivering a moderately convincing conspiracy hunt at the core of the US government with improbable escapes and unlikely hunches and obvious red herrings, but an interesting couple of evil killers. Watchable on a lazy, wet weekend, maybe. Also had a go at Leave the World Behind poor and shallow, adapted from a 2020 bestseller with the same title by Rumaan Alam, heavy going, poor characters, poor actors, unbearable music. Only positive point for being included here, its connection with the (horsemen of the) Apocalypse.
ze kitchen galerie
Posted in pictures, Travel, Wines with tags Asian influences, Chenin, curry, dorade, fusion, gyoza, MIchelin starred restaurant, Paris, Quartier Latin, restaurant review, rouget, Savennières, tosazu, turron, vin d'Arbois, wasabi, yuzu, ze kitchen galerie, zucchini flower on November 17, 2023 by xi'an
A surprise invitation to Ze Kitchen Galerie, an original restaurant in the Latin Quarter serving a fancy fusion cuisine with strong South-East Asia influences. Including a stuffed zucchini flower. If anything, the opposition between the dish and its broth was sometimes too much, as in the white chocolate – wasabi ice cream where the wasabi was definitely overpowering. A great experience altogether (with equally unusual and well-suited wines).
a journal of the conquest, war, famine, and death year
Posted in Books, Kids, pictures, Statistics, Travel, University life with tags Austria, book review, books, Casa de Papel, COVID-19, Daniel Defoe, dark fantasy, film review, Hallstatt, heist, izayaka, Journal of the Plague Year, Kherson, Korean cinema, North Korea, Patrick Dewdney, restaurant review, Rue Mouffetard, Russian invasion, Ukraine, Vladimir Mayakovski, Vladivostok on July 11, 2023 by xi'anRead Les chiens et la charrue (Le cycle de Syffe, tome 3 ) by Patrick K. Dewdney, which came out after a long hiatus (esp. when missing the parution in September 2021!). It thus proved hard to remember the complex structure of this universe, as well as the names of characters from the earlier volumes. But after one slow third of the book, including an endless river slog, the right pace set in and I read the remaining 400 pages quite quickly (the trip to Jeddah helped!), with a climactic ending, despite a few too many coincidences. Looking forward the next tome, next year maybe?! While still being stuck in the (disappointing) last tome of Christelle Dabos’ The Mirror Visitor, I read another Max Gladstone’s, Dead Country (The Craft War I), within a few days, despite some weaknesses in the style (heavy infodump disguised as teacher/pupil conversations) and in the story. Unsure I will pursue this series.
Had an enjoyable early dinner at Otto, a Rue Mouffetard izayaka. Despite some highlights of the menu being unavailable, the remaining dishes were worth the visit! (And the bet that there would be a table available on a warm Saturday evening.)
Watched Korean Money Heist, which, I am told, is the K clone of La Casa de Papel (I had not watched). Very light and requiring a high tolerance for unlikely so unlikely twists, but with very good actors who managed to keep the pace till the last episode. With a appearance supposedly of the martyr city of Kherson, even though it is actually Hallstatt, Austria. (Just why would a North Korean student read Mayakovski’s poems in a Latin language while in Vladivostok?!)
a journal of the plague, sword, and famine year
Posted in Books, Kids, Mountains, pictures, Running, Travel, University life with tags Ankou, Arctic, Barnes & Noble, BBQ, BD, Biometrika, book review, books, Breton, Brittany, COVID-19, Daniel Defoe, fantasy, film review, flight, horror story, Journal of the Plague Year, kimchi, kindle, Korean food, Naomi Rapace, pandemics, pro-democracy protesters, real wood barbecue, restaurant review, Russian invasion, skater, soju, The Guar, Ukraine, Vercors on December 9, 2022 by xi'an
Read two successive books about seeking lost sisters, The Last House on Needless Street and Second Sister, after finishing the third book in a row involving a dead god, aptly named Three parts dead. This third one was rather enjoyable, thanks to the world construction, except for a blah ending. The first one, by Catriona Ward, is perplexing, complex and frankly a bit stretched in its gradual exposition of a multiple personality (disorder) patient. The “horror” side never really set for me, which is fine as it never does. Furthermore, this is the very first book I ever read where I saw a few words (correctly) written in Breton, as well as a thread with the Breton myth of ar Ankou, the local Death personification. Kudos for that! The second one, a physical book that I picked rather instinctively / hurriedly in a Barnes & Noble in Philadelphia is a thriller set in Hong Kong. Despite a bit too much of infodump on internet (in)security and hacking, and some caricaturesque sides, incl. the final coup de théâtre!, I enjoyed it as a page-turner. (But I now wonder if I am not getting prejudiced against Kindle books..!) Except for the anti-protest paragraph. Also read a nice BD, Les Animaux Dénaturés, borrowed from Andrew, which is an adaptation the 1952 book by Vercors, that I saw eons ago as a theatre play. The interrogation on what constitutes humanity (vs. simianity) is the driving force of the story, but it is somewhat marred by the killing of a newborn child that seems to negate the whole fight of the main characters.
Thanks to a short (train) visit to Coventry, I stayed overnight in the center of the city and enjoyed a fabulous dinner with friends at Jinseon Korean BBQ Restaurant, recently reviewed by Jay Rayner in The Guardian. Marinated thin slices of beef, pork, and lamb almost immediately cooked on the white hot (ring) coals, along rice and plenty of kimchi and hot sauce. And a sip of soju. Not an everyday fare, for sure, but quite delightful (and even more as my single true meal over two days!)
Watched a fraction of Swedish Black Crab, with Naomi Rapace playing the central character, but despite potential connections with the current survival war of Ukraine against the Russian terror, I quickly lost interest in the very shallow plot and in the accumulation of unrealistic scenes and heavily programmed eliminations of the characters (sorry for the spoiler!). For one thing, expert skaters skating 100km should not take days to cover the distance. For another, a military commando operating in the far North should wear appropriate clothes, not a sweater and a loose scarf! Luckily enough, I have had no screen nearby [me] to distract me on my round trip flight to NYC from reviewing Biometrika submissions. (The flight back to Paris amazingly took less than 6 hours, thanks to extremely strong tail winds.)
