Partly sunny and cool.

As good a day as any, we thought, to try a small restaurant recommended by a friend whose opinion we trust because she has the good sense to maintain a pied à terre in Paris. So we called the restaurant, la Marlotte, for a reservation. To our surprise, the response was unfriendly. The patronne, Mme La Farge (not her real name) did not seem at all interested in having us for customers. At that point it would have been prudent to cancel immediately. While it’s all very well, we feel, to gamble on money or matrimony, with a nice lunch at stake it’s best not to take any chances. But for reasons I can’t now imagine, we didn’t cancel. So la Marlotte it was, for better or worse. But first we had some shopping to do.

While in France, Jean often takes the opportunity to buy a new copy of a certain undergarment, like a camisole but knitted and tight-fitting, that is not easy to find in America. Normally when in France she picks up one for about F30 at an outdoor market, but on this occasion she thought of going to a store. Two questions—what store, and what was the name of the garment in question? We decided to follow Janine’s suggestion from the previous evening to go to the Bon Marché store near the Métro stop Sèvres Babylone, and ask for a maillot de corps.

Despite its down-scale name (the phrase bon marché means "cheap") the store proved formidably chic. A saleswoman in a regulation hip-hugging black-and-gray suit and shiny black medium-heel shoes, all exposed personal surfaces painted, buffed or brushed to the gloss of a brand-new automobile, explained that what Jean wanted was indeed a maillot de corps, but more precisely a débardeur—size 4, probably, but better check to make sure. The saleswoman’s manner was a nice mix of friendliness and hauteur, as if she were thinking—she’s American, dowdy of course, but probably has pots of money. Or she was thinking no such thing, and I had simply been reading too much Dianne Johnson.

Presently, from the depths of one of the comfortable rose-plush armchairs provided for husbands (or perhaps sugar-daddies?) I observed Jean emerge from a fitting room with exactly that item she wanted. She bought three at F150 each. Our standard of living had taken an upward jog. Never again would the outdoor-market maillot de corps be quite good enough.

After leaving Bon Marché we walked south on rue St-Placide towards the restaurant, noticing along the way several small shops specializing in women’s clothes. We turned on to rue Cherche-Midi, and a few steps brought us opposite:

55 rue Cherche-Midi near rue St-Placide, Paris 06. Métro St-Placide.

The moment we tried to read the menu posted on the wrought-iron grill in front, we saw trouble looming. It was handwritten in an old-fashioned, ornate script with the self-indulgent illegibility of graffiti. From previous experience we anticipated that the author would expect us to admire her artistry and take offense at any request for clarification.

That’s how it worked out. The gloomy, heavyset Mme La Farge treated our inability to decipher her writing as a disingenuous cover for total ignorance of the French language. Furious, she snatched up the menu and pointed a fat trembling forefinger. "EAT EASE CHEEK HUN," she explained as if to a child known to be mentally retarded and also somewhat deaf, "EAT EASE FEE SHH." Seeing we were still mystified, she dropped the menu with a gesture of disgust and waddled off, leaving us in the hands of a thin, wan, abjectly subservient young waitress.

Chicken, fish—the clues prompted us to drop into crossword-puzzle mode. Chicken in French, about eight letters starting with v or possibly u—volaille! In front of that, two words, L or S followed by eight or ten letters in all, one of them bearing a diacritical mark—Suprême de, obviously. In that way, fueled meanwhile by thin slices of a tough and oily but tasty saucisse de Rouergue and a salade verte offered in a big bowl to partake of as we wished, we eventually deciphered the whole thing.

Suprême de volaille au beurre de foie gras, haricots blancs: The chicken breast was overcooked to the edge of toughness, there were no white beans and the potato purée served in their place was undistinguished. But never mind all that—the foie gras and butter sauce saved the day. Suave and rich with an intriguing gamy note from the foie gras, refined yet abundant, it made us happy that we had not cancelled our reservation.

Filet de daurade à la fondue d’endive: Sea bream, fresh and perfectly cooked, with a fennel flavoring most distinctly evident in an accompanying greenish-beige sauce. The reduction of endives, served separately, admirably concentrated the sweetness of that ingredient.

We drank Riesling G. Bohn 1993, a particularly good match to the beurre de foie gras.

There being no written dessert menu, it fell to the waitress to recite it. No doubt at her employer’s behest to cater to us monolingual ignoramuses, she made a game but inept attempt to give us the list in English. We interrupted, and with a smile of relief she cried, "Oh, vous parlez français!" An exaggeration, but we made no protest, and suddenly the waitress was relaxed and talkative and oblivious to the ogre glowering from her perch at the cash register. Our too-brief chat leapt to New York, to Central New Jersey, to horse sports—the hunt, polo, equitation. The waitress seemed to be enthralled with those, in our view idiotic, pastimes.

The bill we finally received might have been, in Mme La Farge’s handwriting, practically any collection of seven culinary items from abaisse to zuppa inglese (just a little difficult to understand, the waitress agreed with a conspiratorial smile). The total at La Marlotte, including a dessert of commercial-quality sorbets, came to a perfectly reasonable—and legible—F473.

***

After lunch we joined a throng strolling in the Jardin du Luxembourg. We headed towards the octagonal pool, traditionally the center of the universe of toy sailboats. From a distance the sails looked like confetti scattered across the green expanse of water. Close up, we observed the youthful and some not so youthful ship captains struggling by various means, from high-tech (remote rudder controllers) to low-tech (poking with sticks), to correct their vessels’ tendency, after sailing obediently in a straight line, to suddenly go berserk or capsize. We lingered a while at this window to childhood memories.

Later, pausing for coffee at an outdoor table on boulevard St-Germain, we noticed a number of policemen, slim, young and neatly turned out, systematically inspecting the interiors of the cars parked along the thoroughfare. Perhaps they were checking for bombs—certainly there was plenty of evidence of concern about sabotage. In the central city we saw many steel barriers set up to prevent vehicles from parking close to buildings.

In the evening we had a baguette de campagne from a local bakery—almost as good as the Beauvallet & Julien product, we thought—with Nyons olives and tapinade. We drank Tokay Hubert & Bleger St-Hippolyte 1995, (F35 from Champion).