I am having a lot of fun discovering Japanese eateries in this city. There are so many dotted all over it is harder to get a good pizza than a half-decent bowl of katsu don. Of course most are as authentic as processed cheese. What I do to avoid the worst of them is to adhere to a few personal rules:
1. If there is a large glossy laminated menu with pictures of set meals plastered prominently on the windows. The bigger and shinier the dining space, the more reason to walk away. Unless one is in the mood for chain conveyor belt sushi, which can happen I will admit.
2. Dead giveaway that it is a Vietnamese joint masquerading as Japanese restaurant: nems (Vietnamese spring rolls) in the menu, complimentary nems with rust-water tea, or in case we miss all the signals, a team of kitchen workers making nems from a big pot in the see-through kitchen. Ditto sesame brittle, tapioca coconut cake and coconut juices in cans. Actually the tapioca coconut cake was quite yummy, certainly better than the machine-pressed sushi.
3. The staff can speak Cantonese, Teochew, Mandarin and any Chinese dialect you care to test them with. The soya sauce bottle is huge, like the ones my grandmother used in the 70's. The Japanese prefer teapot shaped soy sauce dispensers.
Most of the places that I like are terribly nondescript, as if they don't want to draw attention to themselves. Like Toritcho, which is tiny, a little worn at the edges, with faded plastic replicas of sushi in its window display. It is itself sandwiched between two bigger and shinier neighbours of rule no 1, along rue du Montparnasse. But they take their food seriously, there is a sushi chef out front and a garrulous mustachioed guy behind making the sumiyaki items. The bowl of very fresh chirashi sushi, complete with psychedelic pink floss, did much to bring cheer to an otherwise wet and grey afternoon.
Then there are the places that are specialised in only one or two types of food, like okonomiyaki bars. Literally one could sit along the counter and watch the cook make the seafood/bacon cabbage omelet pancake thingy. Just the thing for a mid-shopping snack, along with the mandatory glass of beer of course. At Aki they even provide a dedicated okonomiyaki spatula.
Usually a mimimum 15 minute wait is required. The beautiful okonomiyaki comes in its own hot plate and crowned with lavish curls of dried bonito, mayonaisse drizzles and a sprinkle of parsley.
Beautiful, no?
Onto desserts. The French and Japanese have this mutual pastry love going. All the big names in French patisseries are in Japan, and there are some serious Japanese names in Paris too e.g. Sadaharu Aoki. There are even wagashi teahouses here. Not just the big brand Minamoto Kitchens, but smaller dedicated places like the Toraya. Above was a spring confection of red beans with citrus flavoured shavings to resemble a peony, tres elegant.
Macarons get the Japanese treatment here, with predictable green tea flavours and the more unusual soya powder variation which I liked very much. The nutty toasted aroma and distinctive flavour made the eating of the delicate sandwich a truly beautiful and ephemeral experience.
When we were shopping in the 16th arrondissement last weekend for a humidifier, we came across yet another Japanese patisserie-cafe. Gamazaki has a dazzling selection of gateaux, millefeuilles, tortes etc which run out pretty quickly especially at the weekend. By the time we sat down, 20 minutes from its closing time, there was only a sad looking, but delicious nonetheless, hazelnut confection left.
What I enjoyed also was their savoury cakes, here we sampled a salmon/spinach combination and an olive/ham combination. Both were delicious with a cup of milky hot tea. Or a Japanese magazine, which usually carries lots of features about other Japanese eateries. In case, you know, we run out of ideas.
Toritcho: 47 rue du Montparnasse 75014 T: 0143 21 29 97
Aki: 11 bis rue Sainte Anne, 75002 T: 01 42 97 54 27
Toraya: 10 rue Saint-Florentin, 75001 Paris T: 01 42 60 13 00
