HUNGRY GERALD

There’s been a long tradition of New York department stores containing some fairly beloved restaurants. The intent, obviously, is to keep the customer in the store and keep her shopping (the gender specific “her” is probably an out-dated notion, but NY’s department stores were initially created for and catered to an almost exclusively female audience). Tea sandwiches, salads and exuberant desserts were featured. Gourmands sneered at these dainties but during HG’s days in New York, HG often lunched in department stores. HG’s favorite was Lord & Taylor. The store broke with tradition by operating a soup bar. A very large African-American man wearing a chef’s toque ladled soups from a big kettle. The soup was served with Ritz crackers and was a cold weather treat. Dignified B. Altman (long gone) on 34th and Fifth was famed for ladies’ intimate apparel and high quality furniture. The restaurant was classy. The hands down favorite of fashionable women was Bergdorf Goodman with restaurants in the basement and on a high floor (spectacular Central Park views). Alex Witchel of The New York Times did a charming story (in 2013) about lunching there with writer Patricia Volk. Paris, of course, has the best department store restaurants. Bon Marche’s are the height of chic but for variety nothing tops Galeries Lafayette. There’s a dim sum restaurant, an oyster and fish eatery, Italian restaurant, Spanish counter with the best Serrano ham. There’s pizza, tapas, paella, Indian tandoori..and more.. (HG’s pal, journalist/wine expert/author Peter Hellman did a nice article on Paris department store dining for The New York Times some years ago). In addition to dining, Bon Marche and Galeries Lafayette have stupendous food and wine departments. Bon Marche’s, the Epicerie, is epic. HG/BSK have many happy memories of smoked salmon, country pate, jambon persille, countless varieties of perfectly ripened cheese and savory charcuterie. The makings of exuberant dinners with wine and fresh baguettes in HG/BSK’s rented Paris apartments. Of course, the glories of Paris department store dining and food halls (including the splendid one at London’s Harrod’s) dwindle when compared to the limitless cornucopia of delicacies offered at KaDeWe, the Berlin department store (largest in Europe). There are two vast floors of food plus a rooftop cafeteria. HG/BSK plan to be there sometime in the future and indulge in oysters and champagne plus many other good things from every part of the world.

Last day in Paris (alas, alas). Went to the elegant Bon Marche department store (annual sales are going on) where Left Bank fashionistas do their shopping. Beautiful clothes for women, men and kiddies, but they certainly are’t giving them away. Prices are astronomical — even with the on sale reductions — during this time of weak American greenbacks. Disheartened, HG left the clothing and wandered through the Bon Marche Epicerie, the great food hall. This is pure food pornography. Enough to make a dedicated foodie weak at the knees. The ultimate in smoked salmon (sorry, Russ and Daughters). Fantastic cheese, breads and sausage (sorry, Zabar’s). Orgasmic pates (sorry, Vancouver Oyama). The wine “cave,” like the Maltese Falcon, is “the stuff dreams are made of.” Particularly liked the four figure magnums of rare Bordeaux.

For dinner, HG/BSK put French food fantasies aside for a delightful dinner at Shin Jung, a Korean restaurant just footsteps from HG/BSK’s Rue Clapeyron apartment. Nice rose wine. Juicy pork and vegetable dumplings. Crispy kimchi pancakes. Quick fried, egg-battered slices of zucchini. Very generous platter of salmon and yellowtail sashimi on a bed of shredded daikon radish. Spicy barbecued pork served in a hot cast iron pan and accompanied by bowls of rice and the traditional Korean array of kimchi and other pickled good things. For dessert there was ginger ice cream doused with ginger flavored vodka. Nice conclusion. No, this isn’t the kind of powerfully flavored food you get in Manhattan’s Koreatown or the Sunnyside section of Queens. But, the service is sweet; your fellow diners are nice to look at and the noise level –and cost–is modest. A refreshing detour from French cooking.

There are three great department store food halls in Europe: KaDaWe in Berlin (never been); Harrod’s in London (HG’s been many times and will visit again in a few weeks) and Bon Marche (HG’s favorite) on the Left Bank in Paris. After some energetic shopping at Agnes. B. (last two days of “soldes”…the annual sales season in Paris when fashion is marked down as much as 70%), HG and BSK entered Bon Marche to provision tonight’s dinner. Everything anyone has ever dreamed of eating is at Bon Marche. Everything is the best of its kind. The prices are astronomically high. Customers are courteous but demanding. They want the very best and are willing to pay for it.

The staff is informed gracious and skilled. Smoked salmon is sliced with surgical precision. Ham is cut beautifully..never too thin or too thick. Chocolates have an other worldly beauty. Charcuterie dazzles. Meat, fish, fruit and vegetable departments contain still life arrangements that deserve a place in the Louvre. So, enough already. What did HG and BSk buy for dinner? Norwegian smoked salmon, Gravlax (and mustard sauce); Parma ham; roasted Spanish piquillo peppers; jambon persille (a ham, parsley and aspic loaf); a duck loaf enclosed in a pastry crust; cornichons; Maille mustard, chutney and some other good things. Wine from Cave des Abbesses and breads from Grenier a Pain are waiting.

Jolly times ahead.