October 12, 2016 - Birthday dinner in Paris, France, in 1987

Part 1

          We had an opportunity to travel on business to Europe the end of November into the first week of December in the year 1987. This is the evening we dined alone in Paris to celebrate my husband’s birthday.  [This is before they started using the euro.] 

We start the story as we arrive at our hotel.

          We arrived around 6:30 p.m. at the Royal Hotel, 33 De Friedland, in Paris, France via taxi from the train station.  As we alighted from the taxi we notice the Arc de Triomphe only a few blocks from us.  Waiting for my husband, is a birthday telegram which the concierge reads in his thick French accent.

          “Happy Birthday. From Ma Mére and Mon Pére Saint John.”

          I smiled with satisfaction.  We were now world travelers having telegrams awaiting us. We quickly checked in and rushed to our room to see if we had a better view of the Arc de Triomphe.  Our room was suitable for royalty.  It had a skylight, an armoire, a bath scale in kilos, a magnified mirror for shaving, and even a bidet.  We flung open the window sash letting the frosty wintry air invade the room and hung out like children to check the view.  We had a perfectly breathtaking view of the white marble monument lit with golden lights against the darkness of the night.  It glowed with history.  It beckoned to us, “Come to me. Stand beneath my arch as great soldiers and liberators of the past have done before you.”

          We stopped at the concierge’s desk to change currency and to get a recommendation of a nice restaurant in the area of Place de l ’Etoile.

          “Is there a restaurant near the Arc de Triomphe?”  My husband asked.  The look on the concierge’s face was ‘I presume fast-food American hamburgers.’  I quickly intercede.

          “This is to celebrate my husband’s birthday.  A French restaurant.”  Realizing how dumb that sounded, I tried to clarify it and got myself in even deeper.  I said,

          “I mean a real French restaurant . . . I mean a place where French people dine.”  Amused by my foolish Americanism the concierge smiled and asked,

“Your first visit to Paris?”

“Yes,” we admitted.  The concierge and telephone clerk spoke very quickly and discreetly in French, and they both agreed on a restaurant that was in walking distance.  The telephone clerk wrote it down on a slip of paper and gave us directions.

“Up to the Arc de Triomphe on De Friendland,” he pointed out the door at the street we were on and then continued,

“Cross over, une, deux, trios, three streets to the right.  You will be on Mahon.  Go down there one block.  It is Ternes.  You will see Brasserie La Lorraine.  It will be there.  You will see this.”  He handed us the paper adding,

“Goot, goot, goot!” assuring us.

We headed towards the door, and at the last minute I realized that I didn’t have my city map of Paris with me.  I thought what if we got lost?  I turned back and asked for something with the hotel’s address.

“Certain mon,” the concierge beamed at me.  He produced a business envelope to which he added the telephone number.  I jammed it in my winter coat pocket as we went out the door.

The Arc de Triomphe was only two blocks away from our hotel. We crossed over the traffic circle and stood beneath it.  What a powerful moment! Waves of emotion swept over me.  I thought Hitler had been here when he took the city.  Later the Third Army had liberated it.  My Grandfather had been here in World War I.  I closed my eyes.  I could image French liberation day; tanks moving through the joyous crowds as flowers were tossed to the solders.

I took pictures of the Arc de Triomphe against the dark night sky with the traffic whizzing by.

We cross over the busy traffic heading on Mahon toward Ternes.  What an unexpected treat to be invited along on my husband’s business trip.  How romantic it was strolling arm in arm in the city of love!  The Brasserie La Lorraine had a beautiful all-glass front with gold embellishments in the corners of the large windows framing the patrons as if they were a Toulouse-Lautrec painting.  We noticed four gold stars next to the entrance.

Their raw bar was outside at the curb.  Trays of raw oysters, mussels and clams were carried past us through the entrance.  My husband hesitated looking at the elegance of the restaurant.

“I haven’t got on a tie,” he complained.  He wore dress clothes, yet no tie.  I was instantly disappointed.  I wanted to eat HERE. I didn’t want to be robbed of this culinary experience.

“We probably need reservations,” he further added and turned his back to the restaurant surveying our location looking for another restaurant.

However, I was determined not to have this restaurant erased from my options.  I said, “I will go in and check”

“Bon, Soir, Mademoiselle . . . .” the maître d’ met me grandly with a bow.  I lost the rest of his greeting due to my inability to speak French.

“Ah . . . Does the gentlemen need a tie?” Instantly I realized he didn’t understand my question by the way he was looking at me.

“Monsieur, does he need a tie?” and I pointed to my husband outside.  The maître d’ was talking a mile a minute in French waving to my husband to come in.

I was thinking, ‘why can’t I think of tie in French? It escapes me.’  I tried again using one word sentences.

“Does?” I turned and pointed to to my husband and added,

“Monsieur,” pause “Need,” I gave the maître d’ an imploring look and reached out and touched his bow tie, “Tie?”

“AH, Non, Non!” he understood and opened the door for my husband.  The maître d’ delivered us to a tuxedoed waiter who in turn bowed and ushered us to a vacant table in a connected row of tables against the wall.  The waiter swept the table for two out of the connected row of tables into the aisle from its place declaring,

“Mademoiselle.”

I slipped into the bench seat that ran the length of the connected tables against the wall.  The waiter swept the table back into the connected row, locking me in.

I thought, ‘I am here for the duration.  I hope to God I don’t need to go to the toilette!’

At the next table was a party of five and they were literally at my elbow. My husband and the waiter were exchanging some sort of non-communication.  My husband was rubbing his mustache not understanding the waiter. The waiter repeatedly asked,

“Votre manteaux?”

I am as confused as my husband. Suddenly my husband put his hands up in the air and shooed him away.  The waiter beat a fast retreat.  I slipped my coat off my shoulders and let it settle around me on the bench seat.  My husband still standing had removed his wool topcoat, neatly folding it in half.  He was considering laying it over the back of the chair until he realized that would not work due to the roundness of the chair back.  He then glanced around for another solution.  Magically the waiter appeared again and he simply put his hands out. My husband relinquished his burden murmuring,

“Merci.”  He sat down embarrassed and unfolded his crisp napkin timidly.

“I think we are in trouble!” he admitted.  It was exactly what I was thinking.  The waiter returned with menus handing the wine menu to my husband who quickly handed it to me.  I quickly perused it noticing 117 francs for a bottle of wine.  I thought that 117 francs was a little exorbitant since I was still thinking in British pounds.  I politely stated,

“I guess we don’t want any wine.”  I put the wine menu aside.  My husband asked for water.  Our waiter spoke no English and my husband started to get exasperated.  As a last resort he used German proclaiming,

“Vassah!” as he pointed to a bottle of water on the next table.  The waiter understood and repeated it.

“Vassah” as he held up one finger for himself, and as he pointed to me and held up a second finger stating, “Vassah” again.  Our waiter went off for our vassah.  We smiled and laughed softly to each other.   We had made it over the first hurdle.  We were going to have something to drink.  We studied the menus.  I was privately panicking.  I had been in a number of French restaurants, three, four and five star restaurants, all across the United States. There was only one entrée on the menu I could recognize which was steak au poivre.  My husband looked at the menu and then put it down.

“Honey, what are we having?”  This was his subtle cue that he couldn’t read the menu and that I should order for us.

“The only things I know are steak au poivre and salade saison.”

“Yeah, that’s fine.”  He shut his menu.  The waiter returned with our ‘vassah’ and poured it with a flourish into blown crystal water goblets.  He paused for our order asking,

“Mademoiselle?”

“Steak au poivre,” I answered.  He wrote it down and looked at me for more.

          “Salade Saison,” I pointed to me and then to my husband. The waiter nodded.

         

          “Mon Petite,” I said and used my hands [that universal language] in front of me. Then I pointed to my husband saying,

          “Steak au poivre,” and enlarged the circle.  The water nodded understanding.  The waiter asked,

          “Bien Cuit?” repeatedly and I didn’t answer him and shook my head not comprehending.  Finally he shrugged his shoulders leaving us.  My husband salutes me with his ‘vassah’.

          “To Paris!”

          “I think I ordered us steaks and salads,” as I clink our glasses gently.

          At first our conversation was limited because my husband didn’t want to converse for fear that the five some beside us could understand English.  Fresh bread and a quart crock of butter were delivered. We nibbled on this and drank our vassah.  The five some beside us was obviously daughter and son-in law, her mother and father, and perhaps an uncle.  We quietly compared notes.  The resemblance between the daughter and mother was unmistakable.  My husband referred to the elder woman as gran mère and tagged the fifth wheel as Uncle Joe.

          Suddenly a silver platter carried by a waiter passed us and we both cranked our heads around at the sight of the turtle resting on a bed of greens.  The sight had caught us both by surprise and my husband snickered at me,

          “I sure hope you know what we ordered,” he said as his devilish grin widened.  I thought, ‘I thank God I hadn’t tried to be adventuresome and try something new or we could have ended up with ‘la turtle’ placed before us.’

          TO BE CONTINUED  . . . see tomorrow’s blog for the conclusion.