Wednesday, 11 October, Once again, no Musée de la Poste; l'Assiette
Written 29 November 2023
I swear there's a conspiracy! I am never to know the history of the French postal system. I've had the Museé de la Poste on the list for a very long time, but it's always been sort of out of the way of where we were staying, and like the Carnavalet, it was closed for renovation for many years. Way back in 2006, I heard that it had reopened. We were in Paris for a few days that year, on our way from England to Biarritz, and David was tied up in a scientific meeting for the day, so I set out to visit it on my own. I looked up its opening hours and days on the web, checked out the admission fee, and set out confidently to tour it. When I got there, I found it locked and dark. A hand-written sign said that it was "exceptionellement fermé," exceptionally closed, that day. Drat. For the full account, including my difficulties in even getting there, see my 7 July 2006 travel diary.
This year, we're staying well south of the center of things (because we're in the only hotel David could find that wasn't booked solid for 6–8 October; who knew France would be playing Italy in the early stages of the Rugby World Cup in Paris this last weekend?), so the Musée de la Poste is only three bus stops away, practically around the corner from the Bourdelle. I had once again checked—closing day Tuesday, open 10 am to 6 pm all other days, still charging 9 euros a head.
We set out from the hotel at 11 am, took the 92 bus, and strolled around the area of the museum (which is also the area of the bustling Gare Montparnasse, the Montparnasse train station and transportation hub) prospecting for an early lunch. It was still before noon, so the restaurants were just opening, and all the proprietors were standing outside on the sidewalk, staring hopefully at us as we read menus. We settled at a place called the Mona Lisa, where the staff seemed friendly.
I had a salad with hot goat cheese on toasts, lardons, roasted bell peppers, and walnuts, all on top of salad greens. It was good, but I'm sad about this new trend in which Paris restaurants make toasts for their salads with ordinary square sliced bread instead of the traditional baguette slices.
David had a confit leg of duck, salad, and a huge heap of exceptionally good fried potatoes.
We split an apple tart with ice cream and whipped cream for dessert.
We then crossed the street and presented ourselves at the door of the museum, where a polite young woman told us regretfully that the museum was "exceptionellement fermé" today. Hadn't we seen the announcement on the website? She gave us tickets good for free admission any other time between now and March 2024, but of course we're leaving for Italy at 5:30 am tomorrow. Anybody going to be in Paris in the next six months? Want free tickets to the postal museum?
As usual, in these situations, it never occurs to me just to say, "Let's whistle up an Uber and go see if the Nissim de Camondo is open. You've never been there, and I'd love to see it again." Instead, we just went into the huge train station lobby mostly to look around. David considered buying a French translation of a novel by some author he likes, but they were all too thick and heavy for travel. I was able to get a new Indispensable Paris bus guide to replace my old one, which is out of date and falling apart.
Like all French train stations, this one had lovely take-out food—sandwiches, quiches, viennoiseries, pastries, fromage blanc with red fruit . . . .Back at the hotel, I checked the website, and sure enough, a bright yellow banner now spans the postal museum's page, reading "Fermeture exceptionnelle le 11 october 2023." Drat again.
We hadn't booked a big dinner for the evening, because of the early start the next day (we hadn't been getting back to the hotel before midnight the last few evenings), but we'd been admiring the menu of l'Assiette ("the Plate"), a place just a few doors from the hotel, so we stopped in on the way by to ask how early we could get dinner. Not till 7:30, and you’d better reserve on line, they said. So I booked it on line, only to learn that the chef there, David Rathgeber, is actually a big deal! He was a long-time student of Alain Ducasse, and cooked in many famous kitchens, but he got tired of the stress and wanted to smaller simpler place of his own.
Meanwhile l'Assiette had long been a neighborhood institution run by Lucette "Lulu" Rousseau, a wise-cracking, cigar-smoking character renowned for her home-style cooking. According to articles I read about her, "le tout Paris" came to her place, including François Mitterand, who was a regular there. When Lulu was ready to retire, Ducasse proposed Rathgeber as her successor, and he's been there ever since.
I started with snails and diced tomatoes baked in little round clay pots, each topped with a crispy round crouton cut to fit. I got six, but I gave one to David before taking the photo.
David had the house-made poultry terrine, baked en croute, studded with pistachios, and garnished with little pickled vegetables. For scale, you can see the little snail pot and its crouton at the lower left.
For the main course, we shared a cassoulet, which, surprisingly, wasn't as good as the one at Chez Papa (though all the other courses were better!).
Next to our table was this great charicature of Lulu handing over the apron to Rathgeber. The artist (whose signature I can't read) signed it "To David Rathgeber, my neighbor and friend."
The cheese course was simple, just a board with two excellent, dryish semihard cheeses, which we scarfed right down.
For dessert we split a crème caramel, which was to die for! It was served in a little crock (too fragile to turn out or unmold) and topped with a caramel sauce made with salted butter, and boy was it good! Definitely, hands-down, best dessert of the trip, beating out even the wonderful lemon sorbets of Italy. We should have ordered one each.
