For urban residents and travelers, a trip from the big city into the suburbs is often disorienting. The mere suggestion of going into the suburbs for dinner can sounds like an invitation to go on a hard trek into the unknown. But there is a special taste that comes with a meal at the end of a long suburban journey. To borrow wine terms:
-The attack may be frustration at having gotten lost, relief at having arrived, apology for having gotten laid up, and irritation at having been led so far off track.
-The evolution is hopefully good humor, copious servings, conviviality, kind service, a meal well earned.
-The finish is satisfaction, amusement, a sense that at least there’s a story to tell (the best way to savor a meal), and any apprehension of the journey home tempered by a general sense of well-being.
In the case of the suburban adventures for this article, those dinners also have the taste of samosa, badji, dall, curry, tikka, kormas, vindaloo, tandoori, nan, massala, biryani, lassi, and other Indian offerings for which I claim no expertise, only appetite.
The expertise I left to Fabien Nègre, the gastronomic philosopher and all-round loquacious bon vivant whom I frequently turn to regarding restaurant-related matters. Fabien recently suggested that I join him at two Indian restaurants, the first in Paris’s southern suburb of Le Plessis Robinson, the second in the northern suburb of Asnières. Visitors to Paris are unlikely to have heard of either suburb because they have no known sights or notable riots there.
If seeking Indian adventures within the city limits, skip directly to the second part of this article since the first part concerns restaurants that require some logistical effort if journeying from the center of Paris.
Part I: Suburban Adventures
Rajasthan
I don’t want to discourage anyone from enjoying a decent lamb tikka massala, but it took me 90 minutes by public transportation (metro, suburban train, bus) from the center of Paris to get to Rajasthan in the southern suburb of Le Plessis Robinson. Furthermore, I was late getting started (well, Fabien had told me he’d be in the area all evening and could show up at any time).
Admittedly, there was a limited bus schedule that evening; it should be possible to arrive in less than an hour with good connections. Still, the attack had a distinct taste of “this better be good.” Fabien greeted me with an “I’ve been here since 7” (it was now 10) to which I responded, “We only have an hour before the last bus.”
Having got out of the way, Fabien then introduced me to Chaudhary Maqsood, the owner, whose warm welcome is the kind that one always hopes for after a long journey.
Rather than take the time to survey the menu Fabien and I simply ordered everything and instructed the waiter to keep it coming. For 55 minutes he did. I think that some of it was quite good and some of it was more ordinary and that we were kindly served in a comfortable setting of suburban ease, and I have vaguely fond memories of a lamb tikka massala, or was it a biryani (possibly both), but I was so focused on trying a dozen dishes in record time while listening to Fabien describe the difference between Indian regional cuisine and the state of contemporary French cuisine that I didn’t bother to take notes. Occasionally I had to warn Fabien to cut down on the commentary of the whos and whats the kitchen so that he would eat and we could get out in time.
The fact that our meal was one hour too short is no reflection on the restaurant itself, and in retrospect we could have had an additional 20 minutes if the bus schedule had been correct. I nevertheless include waiting on the street as part of the attraction of this restaurant adventure since it gave us a chance to learn about the origins and Fancilian life of the members of the kitchen staff who were also waiting for the last bus. To hear Fabien discuss Delhi with the dishwasher you’d think they actually grew up in the same neighborhood, but I don’t know if Fabien has ever been further east than Venice.
In short, if you have a long-distance desire for honorable Indian food, a hankering for a glimpse of a relatively peaceable southern suburb, and a good book to read (or Fabien to listen to) on the train, then put Rajasthan on the list.
Rajasthan, 11 Grande Rue, 92350 Le Plessis Robinson. Tel. 01 40 83 09 51. www.restorajasthan.com. Open daily. Take RER B to Robinson then Bus 179, 195, 390 or 395 to the Coeur de Ville stop. The restaurant is then 100 yards away. With waiting time for RER and bus the trip will ideally take about 1 hour from the center of Paris.
Kaveri
Kaveri, named for a river in western India, sits across the highway from a northern whip of the Seine in the working-class suburb of Asnières. The restaurant’s immediate surroundings are actually more given over to middle-class apartments with a view of the Seine, and Loreal has offices nearby. Nevertheless, one doesn’t typically go to Asnières for quality, other than to go to the well-reputed Théâtre de Gennevilliers, which one passes when walking from the metro to the restaurant. Nevertheless, Kaveri is a more polished and slightly pricier restaurant than Rajasthan. It isn’t a high-end restaurant but its spacious, purified décor, relatively devoid of Indian clichés, does lend itself to business lunches and genteel dinners.
Reaching Kaveri by public transportation from the center of Paris should take less than 45 minutes. It’s a straight if bifurcated shot on metro line 13, direction Asnières-Gennevilliers, to the Gabriel Péri stop. The restaurant is then a 15-minute walk (1/2 mile) from the station (have GPS or a map).
Those 45 minutes don’t take into account the haphazard schedule of northbound line 13, whose infamous delays and crowding have led users to accuse the subway system of ignoring their plight in favor of lines servicing wealthier suburbs. (Plans are underway to gradually improve service on the line beginning in 2011.) Once again it took me 90 minutes to get there—again no fault of the restaurant.
This time I hooked up with Fabien while we were both waiting for the metro at Place de Clichy. It was a long, crowded, annoying wait of about 30 minutes, after which we let a few packed trains go by before stepping on, but there is never dead air with Fabien. By the time we arrived at the restaurant I knew a thousand fascinating and forgettable facts about the River Kaveri, the history of line 13, and the life of Didier Gobardhan, the French-Indian owner of the restaurant we were going to test, along with a few things about Younis Mohammad, the Pakistani chef.
Once arrived, Fabien and I again ordered everything on the menu but this time settled in for the long run. All and all it was very good and well spiced though slightly uneven meal (some dishes overcooked). As a starter, the bara kabab (lamb) won out over the tandoori quail, with chicken tikki winning the bronze. For a main course, the butter chicken and the eggplant with prawn were both excellent, and the dal sag added good spinach-and-lentil variety to the meal. I enjoyed a mango lassi and appreciated getting to know Grover Vineyards’ ripe Bordeaux-leaning Indian cabernet sauvignon La Reserve (not that I’m planning on ordering a case).
In short, location, location, location Kaveri has not, but if looking to venture into an unknown suburb with the promise of good butter chicken at the end of the road then it’s well worth considering.
Kaveri, 3-5 quai Aulagnier, 92600 Asnières. Tel. 01 40 86 10 11. www.kaveri.fr. Open daily. Take line 13, direction Asnières-Gennevilliers, to the Gabriel Péri stop. The restaurant is then a 15-minute walk (1/2 mile) from the station (have GPS or a map). Kaveri opened in 2009.
Part II: Urban adventures
Passage Brady, Rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis, La Chapelle
There are two main areas for Indian restaurants in Paris. They’re in separate neighborhoods in the 10th arrondissement but are actually connected as you’ll see below. The more central of the two is Passage Brady, a covered alley that goes from Rue du Faubourg Saint-Martin to Boulevard de Strasbourg and then more picturesquely from Boulevard de Strasbourg to Rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis. Metro stop Strasbourg-Saint-Denis is the point of entry to explore this neighborhood.
I’ve no particular recommendation for Indian restaurants in the passage, which is a polite way of saying that none of them is noteworthy, or as the friend whose office is nearby said when I asked him to he recommended one so that we could have lunch there, “They’re all the same, let’s go somewhere else.”
That shouldn’t deter you from visiting this area because the area surrounding Passage Brady on Rue du Fbg St-Denis is truly one of the most remarkable food streets in Paris. Every return traveler curious about food or ethnic mixes or neighborhood life should put it on his list under the itinerary heading “6:30pm-7:30pm: Wander in unknown neighborhood to work up appetite.”
Here, Indian shops and restaurants coexist in ethnic vibrancy with Black African and North African and otherwise Parisian shops. Easy directions: Start at the arch at the beginning of Rue du Fbg St-Denis and walk north.
The heart of Indian/Pakistani/Sri Lankan commerce in Paris is a 15-minute walk beyond Passage Brady on Fbg St-Denis toward the La Chapelle metro stop, which is why I say that the two Indian areas are actually connected. If out to explore Indian Paris and have a meal, I suggest—for the full rewards of this urban ethnic adventure—visiting Passage Brady and Faubourg St-Denis then walking north, passing scenes of street life (e.g. men gathering by ethnicity outside telephone businesses) and the Gare du Nord train station along the way to the La Chapelle quarter.
The intense subcontinentness of the La Chapelle quarter begins right behind the train station at about #180 rue du Faubourg St-Denis and continues on neighboring Rue Cail, Rue Perdonnet, and Rue Louis Blanc. Somewhat surprisingly there’s a very pretty very French bakery at the corner where Cail meets Louis Blanc, a clear sign that one neighborhood ends and another begins.
The La Chapelle is chock full of inexpensive Indian restaurants, “Indian” being shorthand for Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, and/or Sri Lankan. For what it’s worth, I note that when I asked a Sri Lankan friend (living in the aforementioned suburb of Asnières) to have lunch with me in the area at the restaurant of his choice, he suggested the Sri Lankan restaurant Bharath, and I trust his choice in the matter because I know that his Sri Lankan wife is a very good cook.
Bharath, 51 rue Louis Blanc, 75010 Paris. Tel. 01 42 09 35 84. Metro La Chapelle. At #67 on the same street there’s also a Café Bharath, which is also a restaurant, where I’ve never eaten.
Elsewhere in Paris
Maharaja is a kindly Indian/Sri Lankan find in the Batignolles quarter of the 17th arrondissement. Batignollesis an old-fashion middle-class neighborhood of special attraction to the curious traveler.
Maharaja, 48 rue La Condamine, 17th arr. Tel. 01 43 87 08 22. Metro Place de Clichy, La Fourche, or Rome.www.maharaja-restaurant.com. Open daily.
More bourgeois settings for Indian cuisine are naturally found in upscale areas such as the two following selections on the Left Bank near the river:
New Jawad, 12 avenue Rapp, 7th arr. Tel. 01 47 05 91 37. Metro/RER Pont de l’Alma. Open daily.
Yugaraj, 14 rue Dauphine, 6th arr. Tel. 01 43 26 44 91. Metro Pont Neuf. Closed Mon. all day and Thurs. lunch.
Both are nice, easily accessible, and spiced for French and international taste bud. Where’s the adventure in that?
© 2010, Gary Lee Kraut