the drinking scenario

Hello,

it’s 8°C in Paris and I wonder what it will look like.

So, the presidential election is coming up and I said to myself yesterday that it’s quite the oxymoron that I am not allowed to vote in the country where I pay my taxes. Oh well.

This week I had a serious, serious, third time, serious red meat craving. Actually, it was a burger craving. Maybe because there’s been so much rap about the new gourmet burger spots? Maybe because the temperatures have finally dropped here? Maybe because last week I tore through a delicious plate of raw cow at les Fines Gueules and wanted to taste a grilled version with cheese, caramelized onions (animal style!) and delicious real bread buns? Oh and let’s not forget home-made fries, which are to the burger as Ginger Rogers was to Fred Astaire. There had to be home-made fries, the thinner the better.

So on Monday, I was off, and I decided to hit up Blend, supposedly serving the best gourmet burgers in town. After fulfilling my red meat fantasy I figured I would walk to the Centre Pompidou to have an art orgy.

As things tend to do on Mondays, nothing planned out like it was supposed to. I arrived at said restaurant at 2PM, confident a piece of cow was just waiting to be seared to my taste and slathered with various munchables, longing to be paired with fabulous libertine fries, and ready to enter my body with an explosion of savours, joy, rainbows and unicorns. As I walked up to the sliding doors, no sliding occurred. I gently, but firmly (I was hungry) tapped on what I still wasn’t quite sure was the door or a large window (when hungry I get confused) and raised my arms in a typical WTF gesture. A very gentlemanly, and quite handsome, young man stepped out of the shop to tell me they were closed. Repetition of the WTF gesture, enriched with a slight tap on the watch I wasn’t wearing, reminding him the website says 3PM (when hungry I get bitchy). The tall male person informed me that unfortunately a machine broke down in the kitchen and they had to close down the shop that day. This is when my face twisted in agony, and I asked him what I should do now. He smiled and said he was truly sorry. Dude, not as sorry as I was!

Monday, 2PM, starving. Ok, so l’hédoniste is like right around the corner, but that’s a different budget, even though with hindsight I wish I would have gone there. I ended up going to the next-door restaurant, as in litterally next-door, where I ate a sub-par burger that cost me 16 euros and drank a glass of anonymous Brouilly. Twenty euros later I was nearing a nervous break-down so I skipped the art orgy, sensing I was much too sensitive for such a strong input at that moment and decided to hang out with my best friend and her six month old AWESOME baby, Albert. We call him Little A. Big up!

Fast forward to Wednesday. My burger-craving has not been satisfied, and now it’s turning into an obsession where I think I’m lacking iron and I really need to suck down some cattle. Since the past few Wednesdays Le Camion Qui Fume (another new kiddo on the butcher’s burger block) was stationed at the market of Place de la Madeleine, I naively thought this was a regular thing, so I had jotted down in my agenda: wedn 1PM Burger Truck Madeleine. Oh how big a deception when, wandering around the market trying to spot a smoking truck with a crowd of chill (as in cold) foodies, my buddy texted me to say “Yeah ok, so they’re at Porte Maillot today”.  Score mid-week: Burgers 2 – Judith 0. Arf.  I had pasta.

But then, since a girl on a meat mission is a serious thing, friday came, and this time, no faulty machine, no bad planning, no nothing could get in-between me and the juices of grilled muscle. One of my morning appointments was cut short so I found myself in front of the burger truck at noon. There was already a crowd. It was pretty exciting. Then, I overheard the guy taking orders say to someone who had just given theirs that there was a 45 minute waiting time to be expected. Holy free-range organic cow. Ok, I really wanted the burger, so I ordered 3 and went back in to the warmth to read whilst waiting. When my friends showed up at the burger truck to pick up our order (it had been 45 minutes), they were told there was an extra 30 minutes of waiting… Uh… ok…. it’s not like we have jobs, sure we can organize our day around a sandwich! We opened a bottle of Vertige by Domaine des Pothiers and kicked back whilst stating, in an annoying repetitive manner, that we were hungry.

Romain Paire works with his parents on their family vineyard, Domaine des Pothiers in the Côte Roannaise, a 20KM slope of vines near the city of Roanne, Loire Valley. They produce a whole range of wines, white, rosé and red, and I’ve had the joy of drinking Romains wines for a couple of years now. 2011 is the second (third?) vintage of Vertige, and each year it seems to get more lush. It is 100 % Gamay, 100 % natural, and perfectly clean and proper. Sure, there’s a bit of reduction at first, but I opened a bottle that had traveled from the domain the day before… I decanted it and let it breathe. Once air gets to the wine, all that’s left is straight-up fermented grape juice, red fruit, some vegetal notes, clear-cut acidity.
It really is an ideal wine for burger-type fare. It is uncomplicated, refreshing, has enough character to stand up to caramelized onions, enough fruit to balance out the smoky grilled meat, and enough bite to give the meal an interesting twist.

The burgers, after 1 hour and 15 minutes, were finally ready to be picked up, and I have to give it to the burger truck, they were absolutely to die for. They were perfect, juicy, tasty, perfect. The fries were awesome but slightly cold, but hey, that happens when you paper bag carry them over 600 meters I guess.

With Vertige it was the perfect closure to my week-long quest for savory satisfaction. God Bless Romain Paire, God Bless Le Camion Qui Fume, and I’m an atheist so that says a lot.

Winely yours,

Judith S.