Monday, 16 September 2024, Paris: Café Kleber, Maritme Museum, Le Chiberta

Written 16 October 2024

For breakfast on Sunday, I boiled myself a couple of eggs in the breakfast room's seething cauldron, supplied for the purpose. You put each egg in a little wire basket that you then hang on the the wall of the boiling chamber. Each basket is numbered so you can keep track of which is yours. Not only did I get the timing right, but the eggs themselves were superb! So I did it again this morning, with the same result. Look at the color of those yolks! These tasted like the boiled eggs of my youth, from our own hens, who were fed commercial feed heavily supplemented with lots of garden trimmings, kitchen waste, and whatever they could scratch from the soil of the chicken yard (rich with earthworms and other goodies). Salt, pepper, and butter, and they were ambrosial.

Nobody even claimed they were organic, just "fresh," and the ease with which they peeled makes me doubt even that, but whatever those hens were fed, I wish American farmers would use!

Our excursion for the day was to the Maritime Museum, in the same building as the Museum of Man. We set out as usual at 11:30 am, this time on the #9 metro from the St. Ambroise stop. The shortest route there from the hotel was to walk a couple of blocks up the Boulevard Richard-Lenoir, away from Bastille, then to take a right through what was described on the map as a "shared garden." Sure enough, a rectangular garden, perhaps half a block wide and two blocks long, extended from Richard-Lenoir to the Boulevard Voltaire. Part of it was furnished with benches and playground equipment, but most of the area was a fruit and vegetable garden. It was pretty overgrown and disheveled, as you can see in the photo at the right, but in addition to the bright yellow patch of nasturtiums, you can make out a patch of corn, many flowers, and some overgrown salad greens. Fruit trees are espaliered against the wall behind.

At the left here is a large squash plant with some cucumber vines winding through it, and the dark red foliage is either Swiss chard or sorrel.

At the far end of the garden, we emerged directly across the boulevard from the church of St. Ambroise, which gives its name to the metro stop just to my left as I took the photo, to the small tree-lined square in front of it, and to the whole neighborhood, which is probably worth exploring on some future visit.

The perimeter of the rotary is chock-a-block with places to eat (except for the third of it bounded by the Passy cemetery), so for lunch, we walked partway around it, scouting menus. We passed up Le Coq, where we had dinner a few years ago when the nearby restaurant where we had reservations was unaccountably closed.

We both chose the salade Landaise: greens (in this case, mâche, aka lamb's lettuce, and nothing else), tomatoes, cold green beans, slices of cured duck breast, a slab of cold foie gras, and toasts. All generously drizzled with a great mustard vinaigrette. The toasts were a disappointment—American-style sliced bread—so I ignored them and ate the chunks of crusty baguettes that were brought to every table instead. Everything else was great!

For dessert, we split a serving of warm folded crêpes topped with sweetened cream of chestnuts. Mmm.

After pausing briefly between the two arms of the palace to admire the view of the Eiffel Tower across the river, it's Olympic rings still in place, we presented ourselves at the Musée de la Marine (one of the several branches, in different cities, of France's national maritime museum), in the same building as the Musée de l'Homme, which we had to skip a couple of days ago. They are only two of several museums and institutes housed in the Palais de Chaillot.

What a great museum! Clearly newly renovated and crammed with interesting stuff. Plenty of benches and stools for resting our feet. Just inside the entrance was this shiny (brass, I think) "scaphandre," a prototype armoured deep-sea diving suit with articulated joints. The Carmagnolle brothers filed for a patent on it in 1882, but the joints leaked persistently, so it was never actually used.

And if you're into model ships, this is the place for you. I never saw so many, from 2 inches long up to maybe 15 feet, some cut away to show interior structure, submarines with glass outer walls so you can see inside. One big one with all the sails and rigging labeled.

I'm pretty sure the one at the right here is a caravelle, like the ones Columbus sailed in and that Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal sent explorers all over the world in. Below the bow, note the tiny white cutout of a man, scaled to the size of the real ship; many of the cases included them, so that you could get an idea at a glance of how big a ship the model represented.

Here's David admiring a large model of a three-master.

And nearby, here's a much smaller model of a North American Mikmaq canoe.

Here at the left are a few ships in bottles. The one at the right-hand side of the photo is a four-master! The label explained that this kind of miniature work developed in the 19th century when commercial sailing ships starting making really long voyages, for example, around the horn. Some sailors kept them as souvenirs; other sold them at the end of the voyage. Some were created with no more tools than a knife. Ships in bottles, the label said, are "culturally associated with the age of the Cape Horners."

The little model of a two-decker resting on a wheeled launching cradle is made of wood, wool, and glass and dates from the early 19th century.

One the walls were many paintings. At the left here are three I especially liked. The one at the top center is "The Pleasures of Boating," but Joseph Ferdinand Gueldry, ca. 1906. It portrays a pleasure party boating on the Marne in a skiff; thanks to the bilingual labeling, I now know that the French word for skiff is "yole." The one below it on the right is "The Champion Rower," by C. Francis, first half of the 20th century. Unfortunately, I don't seem to have captured the label for the one with the sailboat.

At the right is a more "serious" project. In 1791 the Constituent Assembly of France commissioned Jean-François Hue to complete a set of large-format paintings of the major ports of France, and many of them are now displayed in the museum. This one is Brest, in Brittany. Apparently, the tiny figures studying plans in the foreground are real people, portraits of port officials of the time.

One section of the displays featured navigation and famous navigators. At the left here is a bust of Jean-François de Galup de Lapérouse, usually just called Lapérouse. We toured a whole museum dedicated to him when we visited Albi in 2014 (see my 6 June 2014 diary entry).

At the right are a pair of geomantic compasses, both from China, I think (although my photo of the label is pretty blurry). You can see that the right-hand one is labeled in Chinese characters. According to Google, "geomantic" means relating to art of placing things auspiciously; feng shui is apparently a geomantic system.

Here's another bust, this one of French king Henri IV. I think it was a ship's figurehead.

The collection of models is not just of wooden sailing vessels; it included modern ocean liners and military ships, for example this model of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, launched in 1994.

This unusual model is of the wreck of the Protector a ship of the line. It was made in 1964 by Eugène Leliepvre working from an earlier model by Henri-Marc Perrin. You may be able to make out the tiny yellow-clad scuba divers hovering around her, suspended on wires.

This 1894 painting, The Vow, by Albert Guillaume Démarest, seems to show a religious procession, perhaps of sailors about to embark for a long voyage.

This gigantic figurehead is intended to be Napoleon, though I suspect the artist flattered his physique a little. The gilded woodwork in the background is the decoration from the stern of a different ship.

At the right is the back of the Napoleon figurehead, where it was attached to the ship.

Here's a better view of the gilded woodwork. It was accompanied by a panel that explained what each piece represented: winged geniuses (genii?), escutcheons bearing an "L" surmounted by a crown, the four seasons, tritons blowing conch shells, etc.

This 36-pounder long gun was featured as being "among the most prestigious naval cannons," both for the quality of its bronze and the beauty of its decorations, which include this head sticking out from the breech end. It shot 39-lb (in modern measure) balls and was mounted on only the largest ships of the fleet.

The displays even included full-size reproductions of some ship-board accommodations. At the left here is the cabin of the second in command of the destroyer Mogador. A destroyer is apparently a "contre-torpilleur."

At the right are the bunks for ordinary crew members on a submarine.

In a display that I think was intended for children, the components of a three-masted 18th century sailing ship were compared to the weight of the whales it was pursuing. Did you know that the quantity of hemp in on such a ship, (caulking, rigging, hammocks, sails, other rope) was equal to the weight of three right whales? The iron was heavier; it weighed as much as eight right whales!

And a few of the displays were downright whimsical. Over a doorway, I spotted these metal items: on the left a steampunk fish, on the right a steampunk shark. Wonderful!

We'd covered about half of the displays when we gave up and headed back to clean up for dinner. We'll definitely have to revisit this museum!

Our dinner destination was Le Chiberta, right by the Arc de Triomphe, originally one of Guy Savoy's places but since handed over to his protégé Clément Leroy. Last time we were there, I had one of the best oyster dishes of my life, but I didn't see it on this year's menu. I've long been puzzled by what a chiberta might be—a search on the name brings up the restaurant, a clothing company, and a golf course—but I think I've finally found out. The Chiberta Forest, located between Bayonne and the Atlantic Ocean is a popular recreation area, and I think that must be the origin of the name.

Anyway, we took the #1 metro all the way to Charles de Gaulle–Étoile, then chose "Exit 1, Champs Elysées." Here, at the left is the view that greeted us as we emerged onto the sidewalk. From there it was less than 100 feet up rue Arsène Houssaye to the restaurant.

The first amuse-bouche was a "cork" served in a box of real corks. It consisted of a crispy pastry cylinder filled with cream of some sort.

The amuse-bouches continued with a cup with a custard of cêpe mushrooms in the bottom, topped with a single mussel and a consommé of corn.

The bread was a small spherical rustic loaf, cut in quarters. How very last year! The last time we visited Paris, every restaurant was serving those, but this was the only time we saw it this year.

My starter was one of the evening's specials (and not something you see often!), ham of beef tongue. The portion looks huge in the photo, but the slices were extremely thin and tender, and I polished it off in no time. I offered David a bite, but he shuddered and said it would give him nightmares.

David's starter, "the color of tomatoes," came in several dishes, starting with this fluffy tomato and mozzarella mousse.

It continued with a dish of jelly of some kind with raw tomato and and herbs on top, all surmounted by a honeycomb-shaped cookie. (David found more of the raw tomato and herbs under the mousse.)

The third component was this shiso leaf, fried crisp and topped with tomato sauce. David declared that leaf the best dish of the meal.

David's fish course was another of the evening's specials: lobster with cêpes, chanterelles, and a sauce with mirabelles (tiny yellow plums) in it; extra sauce came in a pitcher. The crispy spirals on top that you can see in the photo might have been dehydrated onion.

My fish course was a single rouget-barbet split up the ventral side and flattened, with the scales on, then cooked on a blisteringly hot griddle, scaly side down, so that the scales stood up to attention, lifting the whole thing off the surface (and therefore protecting the flesh from overcooking) and becoming so toasted and crisp and you could munch them right down. It was served skin-side up—you can see all those crispy scales standing up all over the surface. When I finished, nothing was left on the plate but a smear of sauce and the tiny pink tail.

My fish was accompanied by a slaw of three different colors of cauliflower and Kerala black pepper, topped with slightly sour droplets of something thick and tangy. Delicious!

David's meat course was pigeon and foie gras. The breast and foie gras were rolled up inside a crisp cylinder of pastry and roasted rare. The leg is the brown object curving from 5 o'clock to 3 o'clock on the plate. It was accompanied by a black olive preparation and by artichoke in the usual three ways—a half an artichoke bottom and its stem under the leg, splodges of purée, and a shower or crispy fried "chips" over the top.

My meat course was sautéed veal sweetbreads (which were superb), described as accompanied by hazelnuts, cuttlefish and "pil pil." The pil pil turned out to be a blisteringly spicy green sauce. I ate the sweetbreads and as much of the cuttlefish under it as I could scrape the pil pil off.

Its side dish was small new potatoes and very lightly cooked (but still rather slimy) chunks of okra garnished with crispy bits of sweetbread. Unfortunately, the potatoes were tossed with more of the pil pil sauce, which was just too spicy for me, so I couldn't eat much of them.

David's dessert was "variations on hazelnuts" (dense cake, fluffy cake, ice cream, brittle) with cascara and lime. I was a little leery of that, as I knew cascara (Cascara sagrada, aka Frangula purshiana, in the family Rhamnaceae) only as a notorious laxative, but it turns out that two different preparations are called cascara (the word is simply Spanish for "husk"). What the restaurant served was a preparation of the husks of the coffee berry (Coffea arabica and C. robusta, family Rubiaceae), which coffee growers had always stripped off and thrown away until they realized they could dry it and market it as "coffee cherry tea." So I should have been worried instead about David's caffeine hypersensitivity, but he seemed to suffer no ill effects.

My dessert was "salt-roasted pinapple," which you can see at the right being drizzled at the table with a thick caramel sauce. It came with a dish of caramel, coconut, and ginger ice creams.