For our final dinner in Paris Milady decided to pay homage to an event currently occuring in many parts of North America – the emergence portion of the 17 year life cycle of cicadas. Our dining spot du soir was Le Cigale Recamier on the Rue Recamier near the intersection of Rue de Sevres and Boulevard Raspail. The connection? Sorry, cigale French for cicada and a word generally not encountered in high school French, though the specialties of the house, soufflés, are essential to the understanding and appreciation of La Cuisine Française.

Soufflés are the metaphors of cooking – more in intent than in existence. With no internal structure to maintain their height, they are tall and graceful one moment and completely deflated, and not very interesting, the next. Preparing one for an intimate dinner for two is a challenge – preparing dozens in different flavors and sizes for multiple diners on multiple schedules must be a logistical nightmare. The complexities of preparing and serving are vanquished at Le Cigale – Milady and I ordered nothing that overlapped, and we were served piping hot dishes at precisely the same moment by a wait staff who were friendly, polite and completely bi-lingual.

We arrived early, Milady suffers some lost dinner reservation anxiety (probably because McDonald’s never seemed to honor them, regardless of how long in advance they were made) and our habit is to strike preemptively. Upon arrival the restaurant was nearly deserted and we feared it reflected a decline in popularity since our visit last year. We were wrong – we were just ahead of the crowd, which completely filled every table by the time we finished dessert.

What does one drink, knowing the dinner, if properly prepared, will be 2/3 hot air? (And what if the soufflés fall flat and become irretrievable disasters? Can one enjoy the same wine which would have supported triumphs, or should one spill the wine, break the glasses and drink only tap water from repurposed jelly jars?) We found our answer in an impressive 2010 Chinon from the modest wine list. Light, adaptable and affordable, it opened nicely, blossomed with the starters and took hold with the main courses.

Milady and I shared the most delightful tiny raviolis, stuffed with fresh vegetables and served in a mild Roquefort cheese sauce. I do mean tiny, as most were smaller than one centime coin, but served al dente with correspondingly scaled bits of al dente vegetables swimming happily in the Roquefort sea. The contrast between the wine and the cheese sauce clearly brought out the best in each. Our main courses were soufflés – Milady chose cheese and I chose a Coquille St. Jacques. Hers was a sweet, creamy taste carried by the tiny bubbles to her palate. Mine was exquisite, the scent of briny scallops but not a morsel of substance, tickled my tongue and suggested perfectly prepared nuggets of just out of the ocean fresh crustaceans without actually delivering them. [I would insert a SLURP here, but then the soufflé would fall and the magic would be lost.]

Dessert was pistachio soufflé for Milady, and salted caramel soufflé for me. How they created the incredibly intense flavors working with only air and the merest suggestions of the source items is truly magical. We left with pleasant flavors basking our tongues, and the promise to return not in 17 years like the cicadas, but the next time we’re in Paris.

While we were in Bordeaux we realized the hotel’s minibar did not stock Glenfiddich, Laphroaig, Oban, Talisker or even Glenlivet and that if we wanted a serious pre-dinner libation, we would just have to stock our own. “Ecosse malt pur” is about as close as the French come to having the phrase “single malt Scotch” and fortunately it’s available, one just has to find a purveyor with some imagination. This is not to say the French have given up their traditional aperitfs in favor of something stronger, it’s just their way of acknowledging there are some folks whose alcoholic beverage preferences they can’t fathom. I tried to communicate my desire to purchase a modest supply to the hotel’s concierge, but without much success. I tried my pal Siri, whose ability to parse complex sentences is limited enough that her efforts are frequently a source of amusement – again without any useable results. (Though her rejoinders to my exclamations of “struck out again” and “no joy” could provide a good Jungian psychiatrist or comedian with a sense of humor with hours of interesting material.) Siri did offer the address of a shop not far away offering wines and spirits for retail purchase.

Milady and I set off in a direction which seemed counter-intuitive – away from the docks and the river – arriving at a circular “magasin” a few blocks from our hotel. I am a somewhat slow learner, but even I have come to understand that many, many different stores can peacefully co-exist in a single physical building. In American those places are designated “malls” – and no one has bothered to explain to the Académie Française between their traditional “magasin” (a shop with a single offering and single proprietor) and an American shopping mall (a whole bunch of shops, many with multiple offerings and almost all with corporate owners). The mall was fun to look around, but we were searching for scotch – and coming up dry. We became mildly disoriented (circular malls have that effect on my DPS (Dragon Positioning System) even when I haven’t been imbibing) and exited “le grand magasin” by a different door. Smelling the river (an old draconian navigation technique) we headed towards it, thinking to find our way from a known location back to the hotel. As we walked, a shop with the attention catching name of Cognac Only was suddenly directly in our path. While single malt scotch is the epitome of pre-prandial indulgence, cognac is the bookend to it. Naturally we instantaneously suspended our plans to return to the hotel in favor of an immediate and complete investigation. We entered the shop and were immediately under its influence.

Dozens of cognacs lined the walls. From the really big brand names with hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of hectares under cultivation, to itsy bitsy tiny producers with less than 20 hectares; from fancy presentations in Lalique crystal decanters to what might have been repurposed water bottles; and from a few Euros to uncontemplatible sums, cognacs (and their cousins, pineaus des charantes) awaited our attention. The proprietor is a young, charming gentleman named Pablo who is as enthusiastic about cognac as we are, but infinitely more knowledgeable. (You can see photos of both the exterior and part of the interior on my Facebook page in the album “France – Food and Foolishness” if you have troubling visualizing. I suppose I could also suggest www.cognaconly.com, but that would be cheating.) We understood (subject to some misinterpretation owing to a lack of fluency in my French) his family loved cognac and had harbored a longtime desire to open a shop dedicated solely to offering the best of the best, and now they have two, the one in Bordeaux and the original in La Rochelle.

We discussed our preferred characteristics including floral/herbal preferences, smoothness, sweetness/dryness, and price. Pablo offered several smaller producers including Aubrey, Gourmel, and Beaulon that would meet our criteria and be substantially less expensive for the same qualities than their better known counterparts. We selected a small (375 ml) bottle of Aubrey XO, tucked it in our net bag and forgot all about locating a bottle of single malt for a pre-dinner sip. Until you’ve tasted a truly fine cognac, there are no words adequate to convey the experience. Flowers, honey, freshly mowed grass and an unmistakable je ne sais quoi pour from a very ordinary looking bottle and into your glass creating a most extraordinary experience.

Naturally we went back the next morning. I was half expecting the shop to have vanished overnight, a la Brigadoon, leaving us desolate and yearning for just one more taste. Instead, it was just where we’d left it and the credit card slip the human male signed after Milady chose bottles to send back to the cave, provides cold hard evidence of its real existence.

Just beyond where Rue de l’Ancienne Comedie turns into Rue Mazarine, tucked in on the left side (as you walk towards the Seine) is a doorway proclaiming itself “Top Chef Alcazar”. It was the human male’s birthday, and Milady went to great lengths to secure a proper dinner reservation, but L’Atalier de Joel Robouchon was only willing to sit us on the male’s next birthday, not this one. The conceirge had made a backup reservation at Alcazar and noting the “Top Chef” designation, we strolled off to dinner down by the riverside. (It’s not actually at the riverside, but it is a whole lot closer to it than the hotel.)

Arriving far too early (by Parisian standards) at this enormous restaurant, we were seated at a nice enough table in the English language section (we could tell because menus were in English and had a little red dot on the cover to distinguish them). Milady had a pleasant view of the kitchen, and I rubbed shoulders with the waiters every time they needed a basket of bread or clean silver. Our waiter was charming, and clearly an American intent on making his bones (an unfamiliar phrase? See The Godfather by Mario Puzo for a contextual explanation) as a real restauranteur by working in Paris. He was terrific, despite the occasional accentual lapse, and really took making our dinner pleasant seriously. We ordered a 2009 Burgundy, Givery 1er Cru, “Clos Jus”, Vincent Lumpp which was one of a number of reasonably priced offerings on the wine list. The waiter returned with the 2011, explaining there was no 2009 remaining. When I gave him a look and resumed examining the list, he mumbled something about “one more place to check” and returned with the correct vintage a few minutes later. Unlike the 2011 (which we feared would be too young), this one was ready to drink – a refreshing taste of bing cherries, and a lightness attributable to a relatively low alcohol content (13%), with a hint of spearmint on the palate as it finished.

The dinner menu is interesting. (No, not in the sense of the ancient Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times.”) The entrees (French, throughout Paris and perhaps the rest of the civilized world, for starters or appetizers) are pretty standard – Milady chose the “King Prawn Salad with Mango and White Asparagus”, and I went for the “Burgundy Snails (6)”. There isn’t much one can do when presenting traditionally prepared snails – the little silver tray with depressions, the small pointed fork, and the snail holder that looks like an instrument of medieval torture – but the kitchen should have the self respect to make sure the snail shells are unburned and intact. (For the uninitiated, the snails are prepared outside the shells and placed in separately purchased, reuseable shells, for soley for the purposes of making an attractive presentation of the dish. When exposed to an open flame for too long, the shells burn, and when heated in the oven before serving, they fracture at the back, exposing the snail. The sous-chef should really rescue the snail, reshell it, and then place it for serving. It didn’t happen that way this evening.) To be fair, they were delicious, tender and very tasty, if lacking the assertiveness one would normally expect in the garlic butter. The king prawns were presented head on, sitting attractively on a bed of white asparagus and dotted with small pieces of mango. The saucing was mild, but accentuated the mango and asparagus flavors.

Milady loves fish, and Alcazar featured a dish described as “wild cod.” The cod was firm, precisely cooked and delicately flavored. The saucing was decidedly timid, a milk emulsion with no distinguishing characteristics other than its completely successful desire to be inoffensive. The stalks of bitter green vegetable material topping the presentation were probably there just for color. I ordered the filet de boeuf with peppercorn sauce, medium rare. The beef was flavorful and tender – unfortunately the kitchen apparently lacks a hot enough flame to crust the exterior of the filet, and the sauce au poivre (which had a nice balance to it) somehow congealed almost immediately after the plate was set in front of me. Plopped in the middle of the plate like a failed floating island, surrounded by “skinned” sauce, the dish failed to achieve its potential. French fries, served on the side, could have provided a platform, improving the visual qualities of the most expensive item on the menu. A “Top Chef” presentation this was not.

Desserts also fell short of expectations, if not also short of their potential. The vacherine of strawberry and liquorise was beautiful to behold – bright strawberry sorbet and a very mild anise sorbet separated by layers of wonderful meringue, topped with chantilly (real whipped cream) left me feeling the flavors had been “dumbed down” so as not to offend the diner with their assertiveness. The “Bourbon Vanilla Millefeuille” had only two major shortcomings. The millefeuille pastry had been left in the oven too long, developing a distinctly burnt flavor (though it looked only very slightly darker than expected, it was actually the only assertive flavor of the evening) and a complete absence of bourbon vanilla flavor in what might have passed for a second-rate cannoli cream, lacking both richness and texture. It wasn’t bad, just not what one expected given the “Top Chef” design.

Certainly edible, but just as certainly, a disappointment. (The wine, however, was wonderful.)

C’est Mon Plaisir, Paris, France – 5/26/2013

France views itself as the cradle of civilization, and Paris views itself as the cradle of France. At least that’s the line from all of the locals, and I’m not prepared to argue with them except when it comes to dining out on Sunday (or Monday – but we’ll get to that tomorrow) evening. After a hard day of demonstrating against gay marriage and adoption, the hundred and fifty thousand or so demonstrators were all tired and hungry and in our neighborhood – only to find that most of the bistros, bars tabac and restaurants were observing the sabbath. This vexed the marchers, leaving them with unresolved conflicts and low blood sugar, so they slouched around Montparnasse and blocked the sidewalks and the few open places. Such behavior is NOT civilized, as was attested to by the wailing sirens of the gendarmes and the Croix Rouge. If they had made dinner reservations instead of expressing reservations about the new laws, we would have had a much more peaceful Sunday.

As the demonstrations were breaking up, we strolled along the Boulevard Montparnasse to a lovely little place called C’est Mon Plaisir which had received high recommendations from the staff at the hotel, and which we’d eaten at two years ago. We remembered enjoying it, but Milady hadn’t yet exercised the warranty on her old knees and had them replaced with new ones, so the stroll was a struggle and dinner lost on her in a haze of oxycodone and on me in concern about how to get her back to the hotel. This time we enjoyed the stroll and could focus on the food, which was very good. As with most of the places we’ve frequented this trip, CMP is small – but it feels much bigger with huge glass front windows and skylights – seating between 30 and 40 dinner patrons. We were seated beside the front door at a delightful table with a fine view of the gendarmes vans hauling unruly protesters off to processing – they were likely to miss dinner and be sent to bed hungry as punishment for their rowdiness.

The menu is limited – but each item is a treasure. The wine list is limited, and nowhere near as pricey as we’ve become accustomed to navigating. We chose a 2011 pinot noir without a distinguished lineage but with nice body and good fruit. It proved just the right choice for Milady’s mussels with crumbles of duck in a cream curry sauce. Silky duck, fat little mussels and a curry flavor bringing it all together to make one’s mouth water. I had ravioli filled fois gras – the little pockets of pasta stuffed with stuffed goose liver were unbelievably tender and tasted rich and gooey.

As a main course Milady chose the maigret of duck. For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, a maigret is a boneless breast of duck where the cooking has completely rendered the fat, leaving the meat succulent and fork-tender. This was. I chose the prawns and was pleasantly surprised by the presentation. Six large (but scarcely jumbo) shrimp placed on a bed of cooked fresh spinach cleverly seasoned with a very light dusting of “Indian” spices – not like a hot curry, but a cool tumeric and coriander blend which made the spinach almost a florescent green.

Dessert was something I usually avoid, but because of the vagaries of menu translations (we were given an English language menu, a nice idea but sometimes the translations and the food don’t quite match up) I order what I thought was a gateau de chocolate. What I received was a “molten chocolate lava” cake with a dollop of really excellent vanilla ice cream. No harm, no foul. Milady’s blueberry cheese cake was so-so; a respectable cheesecake topped by a confiture des bluets, but not special enough to warrant the caloric cost.

We strolled home from dinner pleasantly sated, but scarcely blown away. This is a lovely place to enjoy a pleasant meal and we did.

For as long as Milady and I have been coming to Paris, we have been eating at Le Voltaire. It was our first love, and it has endured. We’ve eaten at multiply starred Guide Mich establishments, but none has ever captured our hearts in the same way. Tonight was no exception.

“Our” waiter recognized us (never mind that our last meal there was about a year ago) and greeted us as warmly as if we’d eaten there last week. We were escorted to a beautifully set table (which would have seated four in most Paris restaurants) and immediately provided with fresh sweet butter, morsels of toasted bread, menus and the carte des vins. The cellar is extraordinary, the only thing in short supply are wines one can afford without cramping one’s style. Fortunately a careful perusal of the list yielded a fine Bordeaux, the 2005 Chateau Penat (St. Emilion Grand Cru) which delighted not only our waiter, but our palates (and our purse).

Settled with a fine bottle gently breathing on the table, our attention turned to food which would go well with the wine. White asparagus are currently in season throughout Europe, and the French have a way with the stalks. We chose to split a starter order – served with a mustard or hollandaise sauce on the side (our waiter thoughtfully provided both) it was perfect. The asparagus gently steamed to a perfection highlighted by the sauces.

The carre d’agneau (rack of lamb) is available only if shared by two – and Milady graciously consented to let me have a few bites, cooked á point. French lamb is an entirely different flavor, far more delicate and lighter than either its Anzac or American counterpart. Closing my eyes, I could smell the fresh, slightly briny meadows of Normandy where the very best lamb is raised. The proffered surgically sharp knife was barely required to remove the meat from the bone. Placed in one’s mouth it melted gently leaving only a whisper of salt air and green grass. [sigh]

The dessert menu is ample, but the only proper choice is the chocolate mousse which is the specialty of the house. A rich dark chocolate, it should be (and was) accompanied by a tiny espresso and a snifter of aged calvados. The trio of flavors was heavenly – and beyond my powers to describe.

This musing will try to follow the example set by the meal – nothing unnecessary to the appreciation of a fundamental truth. 

I’ll tell you about l’Epicuriste only if you promise to keep it a secret. It’s a small restaurant, only about 50 seats, located within sight of the Eiffel Tower – but the tourists haven’t discovered it and I hope they never will. Milady has an uncanny knack for dealing with concierges, and has coaxed several of them to reveal secrets like “Where would you eat if you wanted a really good meal but didn’t want to have to give up eating for the rest of the month to pay for it?” L’Epicuriste is one of the answers. It has a prix fixed menu for 32€ without dessert or 37€ with it. Aperitifs, cocktails, wines are extra, but tax and tips are included, making it a bargain. The menu is limited and changes frequently, largely depending on what’s good at the market, but quality is consistently very high. The chalkboard brought to the table when you sit down and the carte des vins which accompanies it are evidence of a carefully disciplined approach and the results are outstanding.

Today was cold, rainy and despite it’s being May, it felt like December. At the top of the chalkboard (which is only in French, no printed English version here) was a split pea soup – the perfect answer to the weather. Fragrant, delicate, hot and the most gorgeous green, we slurped it down with gusto. (Well, actually we ordered a 2006 Chateau Plaisance (Grand Cru Bordeaux) and slurped it with that.) Restored by the soup and our first glasses of wine, Milday insisted I translate the main courses. Fortunately for me, there were only a half dozen offerings – each more challenging to my medievally learned French than the next. Ever gracious, our waiter stepped in after I mangled the first attempt, and gave a useful and credible description of each item. Milady chose the cod with vegetables and was treated to a beautiful filet which had been soaked in milk and then roasted to perfection and served on a bed of root vegetables. No fishy odor (sometimes an issue with a strongly flavored fish like cod), only the scent of the vegetables, including a stalk of freshly roasted rhubarb which provided a surprising depth and a hint of sweetness to the melange. I chose the gigot d’agneau, a longtime favorite accompaniment to a red bordeaux. The slices of lamb were perfectly pink and presented en casserole with diced eggplant, red peppers, onions, green peppers and a hint of garlic which had been sauteed and then deglazed with red wine and seasoned with parsley, rosemary and thyme. (There may have been a bit of sage as well, but my editor didn’t want to pay the royalties its inclusion would have triggered.)

Desserts were listed and included “Pavlova” with fresh fruit, rice pudding, chocolate quenelle, cheese cake with fruit sauce and a cheese plate. Milady confessed to the waitress that we were unable to translate “Pavlova” and when it was explained it was a lemon meringue, asked for help deciding between it and the cheesecake. Smiling, the waitress unhesitatingly recommend the cheesecake – and she was absolutely correct. I devoured the chocolate quenelle – which was augmented by a tiny scoop of homemade vanilla glace and candied hazelnut. We walked back to our hotel and poured a bit of cognac to celebrate.

What a wonderful meal – but remember, you promised you wouldn’t tell anyone, or else. 

Milady and I walked from our comfy hotel on the left bank through a Parisian maze of streets without a map or an iPhone and promptly got lost. Not call the gendarmes lost (because we actually asked two for help and neither knew any more about where to find Auguste than we did) but the kind of lost that happens when you think you know exactly where you are going but the streets aren’t in the right places, or the ones in the right places have the wrong names. Happily, Auguste’s one Michelin star was all that was required to guide us safely to the door. (Never underestimate a dragon’s olfactory senses at dinnertime – the Maker provided us with the ability to find a decent meal anywhere at anytime.)

Auguste is a dream. Despite our belated arrival, we were greeted warmly and ushered to a secluded table in this small but elegant restaurant. It was 8:15PM and we were the only guests in the place – apparently those in the know do not dine before 8:45 at the earliest. Still, the emptiness worked in our favor as the maitre d’ and waiter were quick to provide menus, water and the carte des vins. From the latter we chose a 2009 Chinon (Clos de Gillaumette) which was moderately priced. The amuse bouche proffered was a cheese puff, fresh and hot from the oven. Delicious.

Milady began her meal with the white asparagus offering. An artistically shaped glass serving dish contained the albino vegetables in a light tomato broth with caviar and fresh mint accents. It was an unexpected combination – but the flavors and textures played off against one another to create a very special gustatory experience. I requested the snails – expecting a competent preparation with wonderful French sweet butter and garlic bathing the little mollusks (they are mollusks, aren’t they?). Instead, the artistic glass bowl contained a bottom stratum of tender snails in a parsley and butter puree with a hint of garlic, covered with an exceptionally light potato puree baked just to the point of crusting. I’ve never had anything quite like it – and can’t wait til I can have it again. [Slurp]

The turbot chosen by Milady was a perfect square filet topping a bed of julienned onions and leaks. It was crowned with a fried quail egg – the perfect circle of yolk bright yellow/orange on the white, and accented by see-through thin browned rice paper. Milady was so overcome by the dish that she either cannot or will not describe it beyond smiling and annoucing it was wonderful – then smirking slightly because I didn’t order it and she did. I chose a simple cote de veau – two generously thick slices of the tenderest veal I can ever remember eating, roasted to pink perfection and accompanied by pearl onions in fresh green pea puree and fresh green peas.

We enjoyed a cheese course – a lovely semi-soft cow’s milk reminiscent of a very mild edam and with a distinctly nut-like finish. Speaking of finishing, Milady had a magnificent pistachio souffle. The scent of the nuts wafted across the table and was a harmonious accompaniment to my velvety chocolate souffle.

It was a wonderful meal, and we were able to walk back to the hotel in half the time. It seems that in copying the directions, Milady inadvertantly left out a step because the street names in successive steps shared an initial consonant, several vowels, and a final consonant. Next time we’ll remember to bring the map.  

So, let’s assume you are in Cincinnati, on Saturday night, and you’re going to have dinner with an old friend to celebrate his birthday. Before you do anything else, climb into the Tardis and crank it back a week so that you can get a reservation at Orchids at Palm Court! When you return to the current time, you may need to check your chronostatus because the restaurant looks very Art Deco and incredibly brand new. Until some heathen takes out a cell phone and disrupts the seamless continuity of glass, gleaming brass and polished wood, the feeling of stepping back into a (much) better mannered era of elegance and anticipation could be confused with an actual timetrip. Fortunately, we didn’t need the Tardis because we had reservations made by the birthday celebrant’s thoughtful spouse. Upon arrival, we were escorted to a spacious table, set with the good silver and crystal. Not a hatchling in sight – this is clearly a very grownup place. Milady, upon later reflection, thought it was similar to dining at Peacock Alley at the Waldorf in Manhattan, but I think it’s better. While Art Deco décor predominates in both rooms, the warmth of Orchids makes it a far more comfortable venue.

Our friend and his personal preferences are clearly familiar to Charles, who seemed to be acting as maitre d’hotel, sommelier and waiter. A bottle of sparkling wine (tucked where I was I was unable to confirm it was Champagne champagne, but it was magnificently crisp and bubbly) arrived, glasses were filled, and the first toast of the evening drunk to the health of the party’s cause. A brief discussion with Charles ensued, and hearing our preference for red over white, a superb bottle of 2010 Chinon appeared shortly thereafter. I can fall in love with a restaurant with a great wine list and knowledgeable staff to present it, and sipping away at the Chinon I was on my way.

Charles recited the specials, and each sounded more intriguing than the next. As we were deciding which delicacies were most worthy of our attentions, amuses-bouches of tuna crudo were delivered and immediately brought discussions to a screeching halt while they were devoured. In a salute to our home, Milady and I shared the wonderful Hudson Valley Foie Gras served with whipped strawberry and rhubarb on tiny little johnnycakes. Just thinking about how rich it was makes me think the French are right about maintaining one’s own liver in good condition – if only to be able to enjoy such a treat over and over and over again.

Second courses arrived. Several members of the party, including Milady, ordered the morels, which arrived in a wonderful cognac-scented cream concoction with oyster and shitake mushrooms as well. The fungi were woodsy, chewy and utterly decadent. Being different (honestly now, how many green-breasted pink dragons do you know?) I chose the bleu cheese beignets. My French-English dictionary misinterpreted beignet as “doughnut”, entirely missing the essence. The morsels of warm, melted, and very piquant bleu cheese gently swaddled in wrapper halfway between phyllo dough and a brioche were exquisite.

(You may pause here for a palate cleansing sorbet and a sip of something bracing – then continue on to the main course, I would.)

The entree I chose was Lamb Milanese, and I’m glad I did. My understanding of “milanese” is a chop, pounded thin, breaded and then fried. I have nothing against it- provided the chop couldn’t get to the table without considerable culinary assistance. This version was a boneless round of lamb, tender without suffering the indignation of being beaten to death, dusted with a barely noticeable crust of what were presumably breadcrumbs (though I suspect pretzels may have been employed because bread is rarely that crisp) and cooked in some unspecified manner. The result is magnificent. Crisp and tender while retaining its essential lambiness – Shari Lewis probably wouldn’t have approved, but a dedicated omnivore like me can’t resist.

No meal is complete without dessert – but most desserts, even at great restaurants are variations on a theme. Orchids is different. The menu said “cheesecake” and I passed. Milady, on the other talon, adores cheesecake, and ordered it. Herewith, I admit to one of my exceptionally rare mistakes. But I’m not entirely to blame – the menu clearly said “cheescake” but it wasn’t – it was a cloud with cheesecake nuances; a sublime metaphorical cheesecake with an existence more in intent than actuality; a cheesecake that defies the laws of gravity. (Got the idea? It was really light and delicious.)

Cincinnati? My kind of town – with my kind of food.