The Blue Note at Le Bal Cafe: Ladies Wot Lunch.
There’s just so much wordplay you can do with ‘Bal’.
Having a bal… high bal… belles of the bal. It’s so punny! And if you don’t go down the testicular route, most of them are positive. Which is fitting, because Le Bal, as a place, is like the sun coming out.
If you’re an AROB (avid reader of blogs, racist), you’ll have heard of Le Bal and probably been. But if not, it’s a museum come bookshop come cinema come garden come gastro-café: the spatial equivalent of a one-man-band.
You will be worried as you walk there, because Place de Clichy is mostly comprised of shops selling plastic shoes and international phone cards. But then tucked down a little impasse… Bal – li h’ai will find youuu. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81NROmUb7o0 (This is a Rogers & Hammerstein joke. I don’t care if no one else likes it; it is wonderful)
Anyway, when I arrived, Sara was sitting in the back corner. She was sipping an orange juice and said she was very ill. I slapped her out of it. And when she finally came back round, the fun began.
This is what it looks like. This is a photo stolen from someone who obviously likes scones.
Sometimes you just instantly know you are in safe hands. The lighting, the fonts and the menu at le Bal Café told me this. My instincts, as ever, were bewilderingly accurate.
The two chefs (Alice and Anna – love alliteration) were trained at St John’s in London and the Rose Bakery in Paris. So, unsurprisingly, there’s an emphasis on offal and the slightly strange, but simply and compelling put, with a feminine touch, both on the plate and menu.
Firstly though, the man (who-told-us-his-name-but-I’ve-forgotten-it) was so nice! He answered all of my really annoying questions and gave us the largest carafe of water known to humankind.
Sara and I, both indecisive omnivores, decided to share various dishes, so we could divvy them up onto different plates and look like we had lots of friends (see exhibit C***). There is a set menu for 11 euros (that day it was soupe de chou fleur and Hachis parmentier), but we crazy like motherfuckers and decided to go off-piste.
We shared potted beef to start. I think you are supposed to take the photograph before you gouge and mutilate the food, but that’s just one of the many rules which I don’t follow.
As you can see, it came in a nice big ramekin with an off-white icerink of dripping on top (Sara looked at me excitedly – “What is that? Fat? Do you eat it?”) and three little radishes on the side. Apart from the crunch, radish tastes like being buried alive and opening your mouth, but the beef was very beefy, falling apart, the colour of the darkest wine, onto warm bread. Happy.
Beef is one of the great meats, up there with lamb and chicken, so we had it for one of our mains too. Rosbif for the rosbif, folded into fat, pink Viennetta waves upon a surfboard of bread. Said bread was a bit butters, in the literal, oleaginous sense, but it was served with a celeriac remoulade, bright and dazzling as a Hollywood smile.
And then… then there was Colin.
Colin is such a bad name. When you think of Colin, you think of a trainspotter in a wooly hat, who has smelly fingers and might eat cat food.
Colin in French however means coley. Which is a fish. A notoriously cheap one actually, which I often overcook from frozen till it has texture of a car tyre. But Le Bal’s Colin was FINE. Light, flakey and fairy-like alongside slippery-slidey confit leeks, all butter and citrus. There was also little salad of mouron des oiseaux (a type of weed, apparently) punctuated with plump caper full-stops. It all came together like a key change.
***Exhibit C/ pretending to be popular
As you will have noted from the photos, they are not very good.
Quite frequently, we looked like it was our first time in a restaurant. We dropped cutlery at every opportunity and divided our dishes with the dexterity of landmine victims. Also, I also eat incredibly fast. Worryingly fast. And then peer at other people’s plates. And not just the people I’m with. I was eyeing up pig cheeks across the room (pig cheeks was the dish, not the person) to the point where the diner rearranged her salt and pepper shakers to form some sort of shield.
We rounded off the meal with Rachel’s Cheesecake. Who the hell is Rachel? And where has she been all my life? Her cake was great. Better than great. Sara’s parents are in the restaurant trade (heard of a little place called McDonalds?) and even she said it was the best cheesecake she had ever tasted. Also, shout out to the plate. Really nice plate.
In the end, we were there for a good two and half hours, partially because we’d been given so much water to drink, but also because it was the perfect way to spend a Friday afternoon.
And, of course, a blue note. Here was our bill: bang-on. (Also, sideways, but I don’t know what to do about that)
Rosa Rankin-Gee
LE BAL CAFE
6 Impasse de la Défense, 75018 Paris
