The man running the bar, who managed some truly impressive multi-tasking, was a very sociable guy. Given that French waiters are notoriously disinterested, I was not at all prepared for the moment when the bartender stopped me five seconds into ordering a glass of wine to carry out the following conversation (in French):
K: ...I'd like the Côte du Rhone -
Bartender: Wait, first, tell me, are you doing well tonight?
K: ...oh! Yes, I'm great, how are you?
B: Very well, mademoiselle! So you've come back to Paris!
K: Come back?
B: Yes, you're studying another year in Paris, right?
K: Um, yes, I'm studying here for a year. But I've only been here for three weeks.
B: I'm so glad you've come back!
I think the conversation carried on for a bit, with me continuing to be confused and him continuing to think for whatever reason that I had been living in Paris for a year already. Either way, I immediately felt very welcomed!
L'Avant Comptoir has a bit of a pig theme. There's a pig printed on all the wine glasses and various other pig paraphernalia appear on the menu and on the walls. The menu itself is actually a series of signs hanging from the ceiling, each essentially a large white card on which they've printed the name and picture of a dish. It's a bit hard to see all of them, so I don't think I ever got a complete look at our options. What jumped out immediately to me from my vantage point was "Oreilles de cochon caramelisées": caramelized pig ears. [Vegetarians may wish to stop reading at this point.] When you see something like this on a menu, you have to order it. Here's the final product:
Essentially, we ate strips of ear composed of cartilage (that's the white part - quite crunchy!) and fat. Pretty delicious. (I must admit, though, that the cartilage kind of weirded me out after a while. It's just weird to eat something semi-bony.)
I had also seen someone else order "gaufres artichauts jambon," which is a piece of belgian waffle topped with an artichoke spread and freshly shaved ham:
Among the group, we ended up with some really delicious plates. In addition to the pig ears, we also had what we finally learned was pig belly. (We got a mini French lesson from the bartender, who explained that in French they use the word "chest" where in English we would use the word "belly.") I think this was my favorite dish. (Sorry for the blurry picture!)
Another unexpected combination of foods came in the form of the marinated (raw) tuna with strawberries - quite a delicious pairing!
The best part is that these were each between 3 and 5 euros - so we got some really excellent food for quite a bargain!
We moved on to dessert in the form of crême brulée and what I thought, when I saw them go past and then ordered them, were chocolate-stuffed macarons.
As for those macarons: one of my friends saw them arrive and immediately said "wait, you realize that these have blood sausage in them, right?" Er, no... I missed that detail. Blood sausage and macarons?! Who would think to put that together?! Fortunately, because I am Croatian and have had blood sausage previously (though it's never been my favorite menu item, and in the US there isn't actually any blood, which I am 95% sure is not the case in France), I shrugged off my astonishment and ate one. I still do not think it was a winning combination of ingredients, but the blood sausage was pretty good. (What I've had in the US is much drier than what we had last night.)
Having had our fill of random animal parts, the five of us hopped in cabs to go to a bar in the 2nd arrondisement on the other side of the river. This bar is called the Experimental Cocktail Club, and it's a bit of a speak-easy. It's got heavy velvet curtains covering the windows, and there are two suited bouncers seated on either side of the door from the street. They let us in after a moment of sizing us up. Inside, the bar is kept dimly lit; there are a couple of lounge areas and a piano in front of the DJ's little booth, which is where we positioned ourselves. The drink menu proved immediately intriguing, and my friend and I both ordered a cocktail called Bad Etiquette - mostly for the name; we couldn't identify half the ingredients (even after drinking it, I still have no idea what was in it).
The group ended up with a range of interesting cocktails, the most popular of which proved to be the gin cucumber martini topped with a layer of thick, spicy foam and a cucumber slice.
We hung out there for a while before moving to a club a few blocks away. I was a bit skeptical - I'm old enough to have generally outgrown the club scene, and nowadays once I hit midnight I usually start thinking "okay, time to go home..." This is the wrong attitude to have in Paris because clubs don't get going until well after midnight. We arrived to find the place not empty but definitely not yet happening. I stuck around for about 15 minutes before my friend and I decided we were more interested in being able to take the metro home than in waiting for another hour or two for the crowd to get going.
The metro closes at 1 a.m. on weekdays, and we knew leaving the club that this was going to be a race against the clock. We didn't know where we were, so first we decided to just walk south (I could discern the direction at least) since that was the direction we needed to travel. We came to an intersection with maps a block or two later and looked to find the nearest metro, which turned out to be back the direction we'd just come. We managed to get into the station and figure out our routes, both of which required a transfer at the next station over. We got on the train and rode to the next stop, where we thought we'd made it because there was nothing to stop us going onto the platform, and the sign said another train was coming in 9 minutes. Two minutes later, however, a guy came onto the platform and announced that the metro was closed for the evening... so we followed a handful of other people out onto the street. At that point we knew we would just have to find a cab, but all the ones driving past were busy already. We decided to just walk south, and luckily, I spotted a free cab within a few minutes. Cabs aren't too expensive in Paris (I think it would have cost more in DC to go the same distance), but I think it's time I learn about the night buses which run all the time!
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