I have to make some corrections to an earlier post. Specifically when I tried to get tickets to the Musee d’Orsay. I talked about the obelisk that is in Place de la Concorde. I said that it was taken from Egypt by Napoleon when he conquered that country. In fact it was given to the people of France by Egypt during the reign of Charles X in 1830. I let the story get in the way of the facts.
Today though we had a plan, go to lunch then go to another little visited museum, the Musee Cognacq-Jay. It’s a French townhouse exhibiting how a private wealthy family lived during the 18th century. We left around noon
intending to have lunch down in the area close to the museum before our visit. When we got off the bus we had to walk a few blocks over to where the museum was located so we were on the watch for a restaurant. The first one we looked at was very busy and didn’t look to have any tables. So we moved on and went down another block to a restaurant that we really like, but it was the same story there. Without a reservation they said no chance of a table. So we walked on some more and saw a place that was busy but not bursting with diners. Berthillon is best known for their ice cream, and have been located on the Isle St.Louis for a long time but today we found another location. As I mentioned they were busy but they pointed us to a table next to the window. A very small table, but given the circumstances we were happy to have it. Once we got situated we moved the table around a bit so that we weren’t both trying to eat off the same side. Also it was in the sun so that we were getting some solar heat, very pleasant. They brought us a carafe of water and we placed our orders. We split a house terrine en croute Richelieu appetizer. Then Deb ordered the chicken Corden Bleu with a side of whipped potatoes and I ordered a bavette (steak) with a side of mushrooms. The appetizer came reasonably quickly and we enjoyed that with a carafe of wine. Our main
courses took a bit longer to come out, but the food was fresh and hot. Both of the main courses were very good, although Deb said that there was entirely too much cheese in the Cordon Bleu. The side dishes were extremely good, the potatoes were scrumptious and the mushrooms excellent. My steak was perfectly cooked. When we finished to took some time to clear the plates but again we were in a pleasant spot. They brought us the dessert menu and I ordered two scoops of ice cream, that being their specialty. A marron glacé with Rum (chestnut glacé) and a pistachio. We ordered from one of the hosts and then we waited. Then we waited some more and joked that they had to churn the ice cream or send someone over to the Isle St. Louis location to get it. We finally signaled our waiter which we almost never have to do.. We told him what we had ordered and pointed to the host. He went into an apologetic mode and retook the order. We waited just a bit after that and the dessert appeared. It was good enough that we understood the reputation that Bertillon’s has for ice cream. But by then the sun had retreated from the street and all was in shadow.
It was late enough that we decided to visit the museum on another day. Besides in Paris sometimes the meal is the objective for the day. We walked back to our bus stop and traveled back to the neighborhood. On our street we stopped at our baker and bought bread and goodies for the New Years celebration. We also stopped at the cheese shop and got some very nice cheeses to enjoy in the next couple days as well.
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