Before Rice & Beans, there was Rice & Fish. Same owner, whole different game, with a Japanese/American restaurant.

Don’t be afraid, that doesn’t mean enormous California rolls filled with cheese! Quite the contrary, in fact. Rice & Fish is playing the canteen setting with a selection of original Japanese food which remains, well, tasteful. I tried the bento box which consist of a pretty ordinary bowl of rice, a teriyaki beef of the tenderest kind and a very special, although very tiny, slice of cheesecake – which comes as a good surprise if like me you’re not into Japanese desserts. We went pretty early on a Saturday night and the place was half full with a few very glamorous couples, so the mood was something of a classy sitcom. For an easy and satisfying diner this one is a no-brainer.

Rice & Fish
22 rue Greneta
75002 Paris

I don’t know if it’s because of the winter but I’ve been thinking a lot about comfort food lately.

If there need to be a definition of a comfort food meal it might be something like “suddenly you feel like you’re home, back from school, waiting for your mummy to bring your plate”. Now here’s a pretty girly proposition filling that mindset:  Milk, goes as a shorter version for “Mum in her little kitchen” –  the mum is named Deborah and what she has to offer is 5,50 euros dishes at lunch time, and a 20 euros full brunch that really has the taste of a Sunday from your childhood. You’ll enjoy things like a mixed beef, courgettes and mushrooms crumble, a salmon and ciboulette clafoutis, or a strawberry tiramisu, and suddenly the Abesses area will be way more fun.

Milk
62 Rue d’Orsel
Metro Pigalle/Abesses

Le Parc de la Vilette is a rising area for music in Paris. The most renown place might be La Grande Halle de la Villette, an infamous and patrimonial XIX century metal building, which was hosting the Pitchfork music festival not so long ago.

In the very north of Paris, the area around the park counts many locations to attend: Le Cabaret Sauvage, which has been hosting successful house parties and rock concerts. Le Zenith, its high capacity for 6000 people is targeting mainstream acts only. And La Cité de la Musique, a great institution and also a high-performance room with its very large movie screen and the ability to remove the seats to adapt the settings for every act – obviously when Steve Reich pieces are performed or the Contemporary Music Ensemble is playing, that is the least you need.

The new addition is named La Villette Enchantée, a club- bar (friendly prices) and restaurant with a nice Funktion One sound system and luminous windows, a place that offers an eclectic selection of parties on weekends and quickly becoming a kind of schoolyard for all the main promoters in the city. Check this out here!

IFTT is an internet tool. You know what they do these tools: they make things easier. If you attend scholar conferences on Facebook and Twitter you might have heard a formula like “industrialisation of the self-publicity” to name the way the content management systems and forms are pushing us to reveal info about ourselves almost without thinking about it.

Well IFTT is pushing the logic to the next level. If Facebook is the industrialisation of self-communication, IFFT enters its post-industrial, late capitalism phase. Basically IFFT allows anyone to easily build chains of commands that will link together actions on the web. It acts pretty much like a meta social network. For example if you save an image on your Fffound account, IFTTT will help you have an automatic tweet status saying something like “I just found out this picture from XXX and I like it + link”.

Obviously it goes against the whole “conversational” paradigm and the idea that the most valuable social media optimisation comes from human engagement in discussions. But if you want to fill in your Tumblr page with content effortlessly, it might be a good idea and it will save you some time. The possibilities aren’t endless but they’re enough to be quite fascinating.

It is a well-known thing that a secret gives more value. This is also true for restaurants. The best kept addresses are the best indeed. But secrets don’t mean anything if you can’t chose to share them with the people you care about. Golden Pat is one of these addresses where you can’t just go with anyone, because it’s nothing fancy. It’s not a bistro playing on the retro flavor: it’s a real, authentic, old-fashioned and pretty cheap restaurant.

So that excludes colleagues and first dates. You don’t want to feel off in front of the woman who runs the place with a mix of great care for the guests and severity toward her waiters including, apparently, her own son – who had a little too much to drink the last time I was there. So that excludes your most eccentric friends as well.

With your person of choice, you will share a bit of the tight table space, shoulder to shoulder with your neighbor, and eat one of the ten options of the dish of the day, including all the various traditional French specials, for 10,50euros. Don’t hesitate to ask for a nice glass of Côtes du Rhône (2 euros only) that will exhaust the taste of your beefsteak. And leave the place with a thankful smile!

Golden Pat
20 rue de Mazagran
75010 Paris

With French Trotters nothing is random. The Parisian shop, pioneering the trend of heritage fashion, has launched its own brand a few seasons ago, and is still providing a selection of shirts, scarves, shoes and collabs that never miss the spot.

For their latest look-book they chose to invade the OH! Exhibition. Natassia Brückin was lucky enough to shoot the latest collection among the artwork of talents like John Armleder, Massimo Bartolini, Dan Colen, Rashid Johnson, Nate Lowman, Rudolf Stingel, Kaari Upson, Yan Pei-Ming and Massimo De Carlo. Amongst the things that immediately catch the eye, there is obviously this beautifully patched sailor knitwear

This liberty shirt which isn’t on sale on the website yet. You have to admit it isn’t very well served by these pictures, but it looks very promising.

And last but not least this bunch of light scarves with a warmer season in sight.

 To find and buy in the Parisian shops locations, go to: www.frenchtrotters.fr/onlineshop/

The neighbourhood around the Grands Boulevards subway station in Paris attracts a lot of tourists, but it is difficult to understand exactly why. Here is an alternative itinerary if you happen to lose yourself there. 

DON’T GO TO: the famous bistro Chartier. Okay, the place looks nice and traditional, but be careful, the food is mostly prepared from frozen meals. As a matter of fact, don’t go to any brassiere around this place neither. Remember you have an Indiana Café at home already.

RATHER GO TO: La Scala, a nice Italian restaurant, probably one of the few decent restaurants in this neighbourhood. Don’t be afraid of the hostile manners of the boss, he will get warmer as your lunch progresses, and anyway the specialties are worth it.

DON’T GO TO: Any theatre around. They are mostly about old fashioned boulevard comedies, nothing Broadway-like, plus there probably won’t be English subtitles.

RATHER GO TO: Le Beverley, the last pornographic movie theatre in Paris. The quality of the film doesn’t really matter, just to go there is a pretty special experience.

DON’T GO TO: All of the Irish-style pubs serving cheap pints. You didn’t really come here to enjoy the Parisian version of the European student exchange programs, did you?

RATHER GO TO: Rue du Faubourg St Denis. It is a short walk from these cheap pubs and you’ll find a more local and mixed crowd and maybe stumble upon Michel Gondry at Chez Jeanette.

Cambridge Satchel

+ : Best traditional look.

- : You have to use the shoulder strap, the hand strap doesn’t look solid enough to be used if you carry a laptop.

Sanqvist Satchel

+ : Best new classic

- : Over 150 euros.

The Messenger by Kris Van Assche

+ : Best modern look

- : It seems like the canvas fabric won’t like the rain too much

And the winner is:

Lafayette Homme Black Leather/Nylon Satchel. With its mixed Leather/Nylon material it looks classy while keeping the price low (75€). The elegant appeal of a regular business bag without it looking too depressing. And it won’t get out of trend easily, while the retro brown leather bag matching the Ivy/Heritage spirit certainly will soon enough.

Sempé has played a great role representing France in foreign media, with his numerous drawings for the cover of the New Yoker institution.

Recently his most famous character, Le Petit Nicolas, has even made it to the movie –I won’t recommend this one though. Right in the center of Paris, the Hôtel de Ville is giving the master the honour of an exhibition named Un peu de Paris et d’ailleurs (a little of Paris and elsewhere), which displays a great scape of drawings: from Parisian streets where the tiny characters seem lost in a sea of sunrays to cafés scenes where sports and football discussions are reproduced with a tender irony. There is a sense of voluntary laziness and quirkiness in all of Sempé’s work, as well as a kind of poetry, which work as one of the best defence of the French art de vivre.

When craving for an affordable and comforting lunch the options might not be so obvious in Paris: from the usual sushi place to the bistros charging nearly 15€ for French classic meals of standard quality. Let’s rather go for couscous. Here are the three places, each of them being the best in its own category…

The Champion: L’Homme Bleu.

Located in the 11^e arrondissement, its reputation is pretty much undisputed. The place is a bit small, but the portions are not! Last time I went, the French star DJ Laurent Garnier was there enjoying a meal with his family. All right, you have to pay the 15 € that get you to the superior category of meals, but you the money is worth.

The Good Friend: Chez Younice

Here you have a nice venue and you might want to take your time to have lunch and bring you own bottle of wine. Chez Younice is one of these rare places in Paris where you don’t pay extras to drink better wine – because it’s your own! – which will make perfect sense with the couscous or lamb tajine (my favourite), which is already of rare quality for 10-12euros. The perfect place for an informal dinner with friends.

The Canteen: Le Thorel

You go to this place like you get your feed under the table waiting for your mommy to bring the dish. The food is tasty, not frozen like in many of the restaurants of the area, definitely none of the nouvelle cuisine sophistication in here but the ingredients are served with generosity, and you can’t beat a 8,50€ menu (appetizer + meal of the day to choose from a large offer).