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.