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Yesterday, I had convincingly authentic Japanese food for the first time in Paris and felt it deserved a mention here.

Issé restaurant (“tempuras & tapas”) has a soberly stylish decoration and seemingly caters to a large japanese-speaking clientele, both reassuring points when compared to the flurry of Chinese-speaking sushi chefs and horrifyingly cheesy pseudo-oriental kanji signs, customary of most other places that claim to offer Japanese cuisine in this city.

The menu there is classic, yet not stereotypical, which means a lot of small dishes, no ramen, and only a few makis on offer. Somewhere between a typical Tokyo restaurant and a high-end izakaya (lots of the same food, but less greasy): we had loads of tempuras (shiso, seafood, a bunch of other veggies… even mozzarella…), seaweed salad, agedashi tofu, and a couple other dishes. All great and tasty (ok: I reckon my agedashi tofu is better, but I may be biased) and infinitely more reminiscent of the whole Tokyo experience than many a j-food joints on rue Saint Anne.

Prices were about average to high, but very reasonable for the quality of food (around 20-30 euros/person for dinner and a drink).

And for those who ever lived in Japan: sit there, sipping an iced ohlong-cha with schochu and nibbling on edamame, and I swear you won’t be able to shake the natsukashiness away.

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Sartres says “others”.

I say: “others, checking out sales at a major Parisian department stores on a hot Summer day”.

On the other hand, that satin-lined tux is so gonna get me envious looks from every last pimp in the neighbourhood.

Yes folks, satin-lined.

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If you happen to live in France, 9pm to 10:30pm tonight is possibly the best time of the decade to:

  • Safely drive a formula 1 at top speed through Paris.
  • Play a little soccer game with your friends on the Champs-Elysées, possibly using the Arc de Triomphe as goal.
  • Have unimpeded sex on top of the Pyramide du Louvre.
  • Rob Banco do Brazil’s headquarters in Paris with a bottle opener and a shopping cart.

On the other hand, if you’re looking for a quiet romantic evening, I’d stay out of Brazilian restaurants.

Anyway: we’ll be on the Pont des Arts with some fine food and a bottle of red wine, enjoying the quieter surroundings until late, quite likely all night, if Brazil’s pummelling of the French goes as planned.

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Exactly thirty years ago today, a large gathering of students took place in the South Western Townships of Johannesburg: then and still now, one of the most miserable place you could ever set a sight on. On that day, a few thousands black students were protesting yet another humiliating law passed by the pro-apartheid government, when armed policemen started firing real bullets at the crowd.

The resulting mayhem and deaths of many children had for indirect consequence to force the world into reconsidering its fairly lenient take on the Afrikaners’ quasi-aryan policies. The international community slowly but surely issued official condemnations and accompanying trade cutbacks. Although it should be noted that, until 1986, any UN attempt at imposing worldwide economic sanctions against South Africa was promptly vetoed by both US and UK.

Indeed, neither Maggie nor Ronnie ever deemed it necessary to have any lower an opinion of their South African (white) friends over such trifling details. I’ll let you guess which of the two, in 1987, labeled the ANC a “terrorist organization” and equalled the chances of it ever gaining power to “living in cloud cuckoo land”… though I must say the flowery language is kinda giving it away.

Worry not yourself, you may have done your part to help teenage-shooting, citizen-torturing, white-supremacist pro-Apartheid government of South Africa survive through most of the 20th century: all you had to do was getting engaged more than a dozen years ago.

Eventually, beside internal Black resistance and increasingly disadvantaging demographics, the fall of the apartheid system would seem to hang more on South Africa’s loss of credit on the financial market and ensuing economic turmoils, than any concerted efforts from so-called civilized nations to put significant pressure on its leaders. As it was, these countries were in no rush to lose their privileged trade relations with the ever courteous and oh-so-exquisitely well-mannered good old fair-skinned boys leading South Africa at the time. You know, the same countries who will jump on the first occasion to bomb moustachioed dictators back to the stone-age, out of their deeper concern for the well-being of the people and the advancement of freedom and democracy throughout the world.

Happy Soweto Riots Day.

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To the attention of the shopkeeper who has repeatedly been trying to shortchange me during my lunch pause:

Sir,

Either you are in good faith, and truly unable to count up to 20 euros without getting it wrong more than 60% of the time.
In which case, I would strongly advise for a career change.

Or…

You are just another average money-grubbing lowlife trying to improve his profits and survive in the dog-eat-dog world of small businesses by less than commandable means.
And I would then have to question the wisdom of running such a trade across the street from one of Paris’ major universities, specializing in Science and Mathematics.

If anything, I feel a bit insulted.

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A while back, I posted about finding some specific ingredients in Paris (mainly Japanese but also Thai and generally all sorts of non-French food) without having to pay for overseas shipping each time.

Following some kind readers’ suggestions and with a bit additional exploration, I have since resolved all my culinary woes. I figured I’d post a quick recap and a few extra advice for the sake of past and future seekers of exotic food in Paris:

First off: the bestest, cheaperest, fresh tofu, along with countless other goodies (can you believe they even had konnyaku!?!) was found at Supermarket Paris Store on Avenue d’Ivry (about 10 minutes from Place d’Italie, on the left side), thanks to Chrys, whom we shall dearly miss now that she has relocated…

Unlike most other Asian stores in the area (Tang Frères etc.), this one stocks up a fairly consequent aisle of typically Japanese products.
Of course they also carry the usual south-east asian fare, though their curry paste didn’t turn out all that convincing to my humble curry-loving tastebuds (their coconut paste: not at all). But these are much easier to find anywhere else in the neighbourhood… I still want to find some of this mucho combiniente cononut powder (same taste, much lighter to carry around), but the canned stuff is available everywhere… On my next trip, I might even try some of their kimchee (kimchee ramen… yay!).

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E. is currently visiting and has retained my services as personal bodyguard and multi-purpose interpret.

Expect lighter-than-usual blogging while I’m busy scaling Parisian monuments and translating food menus into Japanese.

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My mum always told me that when you have nothing nice to say, you should keep your mouth shut.

Obviously my mum has never heard of blogging.

I was really looking forward to hearing Bumcello live. I have loved many of their electro-loungy-hip-hop productions of the past few years.

Seeing the ‘acoustic’ mention on the bill when we got there was a big tip-off: when your band is a two-people act and so much of your music relies on sampling and overdubbing, pulling a proper live show would already be enough of a challenge. But choosing to strip it down to a couple drums, a cello and two lo-tech samplers while mostly improvising outside of your usual repertoire… is taking a huge leap of faith in your own live performer abilities.

Something they did, unfortunately to very mitigated results.

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