Repaire De Cartouche: Some Repaire, Some Repast, Some Repeat.

Someone, I think it was Patricia Wells years ago, said that one had to go back to certain places every year because they were so consistently good; and Repaire and Rodolphe are among these in my book.

My dining partner and I were barely seated (Colette has what is running around Europe this January apparently) when appeared Paquin's signature warm crustry bread and rillettes as well as his seasonal take on pumpkin soup - quite different from the other 5 I've had this week.

Madame had the huge half of herring with shaved green apple and red onion (all room temperature) and I had the leeks with teeny tiny mussels all "cooked for a minute."  Delicious.

Then she, after receiving reassurance from the waitguy that the blanquette de veau would not be a repeat of that dreaded version served in her school cantine, had that, and I thought it was quite good and wished my school had even strived to serve such a dish; while I ordered with equal dread the lievre royale (which I always fear leaves my head's vessels swimming in bad fat) but while no one would judge it light, it was not overwhelming.

With a pot of Clos Marie Simon wine from Languedoc, two coffees and their own water, (decibel level 81.8 dB), our bill was 132 E.  "132 E?" you say, "Talbott, you're a cheapskate, how can you spend so much?"  It was a consultation fee for my friend's advice on my new French mobile in anticipation of my loss of fixed service by those thieves at Free.