Le Bistro Paul Bert - Paris, France
LE BISTRO PAUL BERT - There are two problems with your typical well-kept secret: first, it's a secret; and second, it's well kept....and for good reason, I might add. Therein lies any genuine diner's fundamental dilemma in Parisian dining. The average visitor to Paris stays no longer than a week or two at most, insufficient time for an aspiring epicurean to develop an adequate feel for the hidden gastronomic treasures of the city. Visit often enough and chances are, you might develop a bit of that second-nature approach to dining out that most Parisian locals have come to develop.....over a lifetime. But, for the time being, you're on new territory. What do you do?
To be honest, there is only one way to tap into the well-kept secrets of Parisian cuisine. First, you have to find out who keeps the secret. And, second, you have to learn the secret - that is, you have to find some way to de-secret-ize the secret. Are we getting a hang of this now, class? All right, I admit, all of this seems perfectly doable on paper. But, in practice, well-kept secrets are hard to break - untapped mines of exquisite culinary treasures.
How do you get around it? You don't. You happen across it. Of course, you can pick up a food guide (the more esoteric, the better), but even that will only do you so much. Want to tap into the real gastronomic goldmines? Don't plan on it. As with most amazing discoveries, their only incarnation is pure accident. You don't plan on uncovering Aztec gold mines, you stumble across them. For any visitor to Paris, accidents are your greatest asset so use them purposelessly.
But, even accidents can be guided to a certain extent, with a limited set of tools that will enhance the probability of you stumbling across one. For an archaeologist, those tools include a good sense of judgment and gut feelings, both of which come from years of experience and sold training. For an epicurean, a good "nose" is equally as important, in every sense of the word. Which brings me to my next point.....what should you look for when hoping to accidentally stumble upon a plum well-kept secret?
Here are just three considerations to add to your instinctual toolbox when on the hunt for a well-kept secret:
(1) Location: Restaurants located in touristy areas are less likely to have the same authenticity of a genuine well-kept secret. Tourist districts are all about turnover and meeting demand. The pure enjoyment of food takes a back seat to satisfying the numbers. Some signs of touristy areas include: Starbucks, McDonalds, Planet Hollywood, tour buses, menus translated in English or tourist menus, main streets/boulevards, generic signs (i.e. "Authentic French Food Served Here").
(2) Customers: Who dines here? Chances are, if you are surrounded by English-speaking customers, you have a problem. However, this is not a set rule. In Rome, I visited a very famous pizzeria which happened to have succombed to recent invasions by tourist groups. So, while this rule generally applies, there are exceptions, particularly in cases where originally well-kept secrets become public knowledge. Your best bet is, however, to focus on restaurants with a predominantly local customer base.
(3) Menu: The items on a menu are an important consideration when on the look out for a well-kept secret. If the restaurant is serving burgers alongside "authentic" Alsatian cuisine, you've got a serious problem, my friend. The question is, "Is the menu trying too hard to please?" A real well-kept secret has little regard for the vegetarians, vegans, and lactose intolerant members of society. Chances are, if you ask them for food along those lines, the proprietor will laugh you out of town. (Sometimes I ask just to casually assess a restaurant's level of seriousness about their food.) A well-kept secret is not a place you want to be taking your teenage daughter intent on maintaining her figure or your diabetic mother intent on keeping her cholesterol down.
Now, you might be wondering, where am I going with all of this? My point is this: well-kept secrets are hard to find, especially if you're looking for them. It was in not looking that I found my latest well-kept secret: Le Bistro Paul Bert, which is located along a street by the same name. (To support my previous point about the importance of location, this quaint bistro is located on a sidestreet off another sidestreet.)
As always, I arrived about an hour too early. Told politely by one of the servers to return at noon, I trekked down to the local supermarket to check out the produce. After buying off an hour's worth of time by meandering aimlessly around the area, I returned to the bistro to find that I was still the first customer. 
The owner himself graciously escorted me to a booth looking out onto the street. As most of the French do, he assumed that I was naturally fluent in French and started to give the rundown of the day's formule menu (which was printed on a medium-sized chalkboard ushered directly to my table). Registering my incomprehension, the owner courteously switched to, what I was surprised to find, fluent English. Unlike most French restaurants where the inability to converse in French is looked down upon and leaves you feeling dumb if not totally incapacitated, the servers at Paul Bert showed no obvious signs of condescension toward a non-French speaker like myself (though what they were saying about me in the kitchen, I had no idea). They treated my linguistic handicap as nothing short of normal and made no mention of it apart from the initial registering of shock that accompanies most of the French population upon meeting a non-native speaker.
For lunch, I selected the more basic three-course formule menu. (In Paris, one of the glorious parts of dining is the fact that meals come in threes. Two courses are common, but single courses are rare though they are on offer.) While I waited, a few more patrons shuffled in: French-speaking senior citizens. Without delay, the waiter brough a large jug of tap water (refreshing since most restaurants eagerly push for the sale of bottled mineral water) and a basket full of sourdough bread. Unlike most restaurants who serve bread as a courtesy rather than any part of a serious meal, the bread at Paul Bert had a delightful chewy interior that exuded its fragrant sourdough perfume upon breaking through its crispy exterior with my bare hands. This was the kind of bread I would have gladly paid for outside of any restaurant.
While more native diners started pouring in, filling the room with a babble of rolling French syllables, my first course arrived: a fromage de tete et sa salade, which was, as the owner informed me, a rare house speciality. (The other option was the lardons with frisee but the owner seemed particularly radiant in his description of the salade that I had to concede.) Suffice it to say, I was pleased with my selection. A ham terrine was served atop a bed of salad and Italian parsley in a balsamic-oil vinaigrette. The terrine was cool to taste -- with soft delicate textures of the ham contrasted beautifully with the crisp textures of the gelatin layers. All of this was well accompanied by the tartness of the balsamic vinaigrette.
Having moaned with pleasure for quite some time over the bold and provencal flavors of the ham terrine salad, I reluctantly let the waiter take my empty plate away, which he graciously and promptly replaced with another basket of gorgeous sourdough loaves and another jug of ice cold tap water! While I waited for my entree, I took to watching the other tables. My neighbors had ordered a single dish for lunch: four whole small-to-medium sized sardines served on a ceramic platter alongisde a vegetable terrine of zucchinis and tomatoes. The fish had a beautifully, golden crisped skin garnished with herbs, making me almost wish deep down inside that I had ordered two entrees instead (to compensate, I ordered two desserts instead).
My entree arrived moments later: tartare de boeuf et ses frites mason. The Roman version of this dish would probably be the beef carpaccio. The tartare de boeuf is essentially a raw beef tartare served with crispy French-styled fat fries. The beef tartare was a colorful explosion of colorful reds, gr
eens, yellows, and whites, composed of an assortment of bold ingredients: horseradish, capers, cilantro, parsley, and garlic. Flavors in this dish were equally as explosive as its initial visual effects. The horseradish, as horseradish has a tendency to do, sets fireworks in your mouth, supported well by the sweeter flavors of the raw beef. Beef, in its uncooked form, has a delightfully sweet and cool flavor, which in this dish created a delightful interplay with the bitter flavors of the cilantro and garlic, and hotter flavors of the horseradish. And, while I have a general tendency to abstain from fried potatoes of any permutation (namely fast food permutations), I enjoyed the role these frites played as an accompaniment to the beef tartare, providing a hefty base of starch and oils to counter the brighter and sharper flavors of the beef tartare. While most fat fries in the US tend toward the dense, greasy, and soggy, the frites at Paul Bert were perfectly crispy and golden on the outside, with a soft, steamy, starchy interior - everything perfect fat fries should aspire to be. By the time dessert rolled around, I was quite full from having savored both the ham terrine and the beef tartare to their last edible bites (both being dishes, hallmarks of unaccomodating French cuisine, you might not want to prescribe for anyone subscribing to vegetarianism or any of the latest food trends, but perfect for the adventurous foodie). The first dessert was their tarte aux abricots. Its excessive tartness was a mildly disappointing conclusion for a meal of this caliber. However, seeing as how the major problem with most desserts is an understatement of natural flavors, it was refreshing to see that this dish was bold enough to draw upon the natural essence of the apricot, perhaps a little overstated in its expression. Its shortcoming was the overzealous reversal of a predominant flaw in most desserts today, a fact which can be easily corrected by slightly toning down the tartness of the apricots in this dish.
My second dessert gave this meal a strong finish. The glace maison au fromage blanc, or white cheese ice cream, was a pleasant reminder of how simple flavors can be mother to more intricate pleasures. The white cheese lent a savoriness and a mild tartness to this dessert, giving the ice cream a flavor almost similar to Greek yogurt. The sweetness of this dish did not try to compete with the other flavors, but complemented them with a pleasant subtlety. The chef clearly abides by the following principle: desserts do not need to overcompensate with sweetness to remind its audience that they are in fact deserts; bold flavors are sufficient.
Its willingness to play with bold flavors, work with natural, if not unusual, ingredients, and the fact that it fails to see a need to apologize for doing so, makes Le Bistro Paul Bert a truly worthy well-kept secret. And perhaps with time, its emboldened flavors will grow into a well-balanced maturity. But, as with all well-kept secrets, its secret is secrecy itself. Finding your way there? Well, I'll just leave that to you.
LE BISTRO PAUL BERT
Atmosphere: **** (4/4)
Food: *** (3/4)
Service: **** (4/4)
Value: **** (4/4)
Address.....alas, that's a secret!
