Three 3-stars in France day 1: a painful arrival in Paris

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One of the details I missed while booking my flight on Qatar Airways was that my flight would be arriving in Terminal 1 at Paris Charles de Gaulle. This is the oldest terminal, and as we were parking at our gate, I could see that the other airlines using this terminal were the likes of Turkish Airways, Saudia, Egyptair... ALL from Muslim countries. This was a sign of things to come.

I had heard about the long lines at EU border checkpoints for months, ever since the new EU Entry/Exit System was introduced. As I exited the plane quickly on account of being in Business Class, I would have been ahead of many passengers from my flight.  I passed by the automatic kiosks set up for registration for EES, but saw that all of them - somewhere about 16, I would guess - were "out of order". So we would do the biometric registration manually, then...

Thanks to the delay on the tarmac in Doha, we landed close to 3 p.m. on a Friday afternoon. Add to this that we were in the oldest terminal, with passengers flying mostly on Middle Eastern airlines, you can see that once you strip out the EU nationals and ones carrying passports from 4 special countries - U.S., Canada, Mexico, and Japan - who would have easy entry, I was surrounded by mostly brown people. It's Friday afternoon, the French immigration officers couldn't really care less about what happens to us, and I found myself standing in line with at least 150 people in front of me, and only 3 immigration counters open.

Those three counters subsequently became divided into two separate queues, with two counters serving families with children, and the rest of us - I'm guessing 100 people in front of me - waiting in line for ONE officer. As the afternoon went on, three working counters became two, and just before it was my turn to get processed, the single counter processing people without kids went dark. ONE counter left. By the time I cleared immigration, I had stood in line for TWO HOURS. My luggage had been waiting to be collected for a long, long time...

I had originally thought 4½ hours would be sufficient for me to clear immigration, get to my hotel for check-in, then walk to dinner. Now I wasn't sure. I grabbed a taxi and hoped for the best, but it was close to 5:30 p.m. on a Friday afternoon when I left the airport. Traffic. The quickest way, apparently, was to loop over to the west side and come in through Porte Maillot, pass the Arc de Triomphe, cross the Pont de l'Alma to the left bank, and eventually arrive at Hotel Mercure Paris Gare Montparnasse TGV.

Check-in was quick, and I called the restaurant from my room to tell them - in my very broken French - that I was gonna be about 30 minutes late for my booking. I quickly changed out of the clothes I had been wearing, then walked as quickly as I could to my destination over 1 km away.

I know I looked very flustered when I arrived at Joséphine Chez Dumonet, but the staff recognized me instantly and led me to my table. How many single Asian diners were they expecting? Anyway, it was obvious that the majority of their patrons were tourists...

I munched on some bread and breakfast radishes while waiting for my food to arrive.

Three 3-stars in France day 1: transit through Doha

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I'm off to France for a week, and unlike previous trips, I've chosen to transit through the Middle East rather than fly direct. While look at airfares a few months ago, I realized that Business Class fares on Cathay Pacific were just shockingly expensive. All of the major Gulf carriers were charging fares which were 50-65% less, but of course it comes with a layover. And given what happened in March of this year, there is concern about flight disruptions resulting from the US-Iran war. Nevertheless, I chose to fly with Qatar Airways and transit through Doha. I figured the savings was worth the extra hours I would have to endure.

I finished checking in for my flight just before midnight, and since Qatar Airways is a member of the Oneworld Alliance, I was given access to the Cathay lounges at Hong Kong International Airport. There are A LOT of flights departing Hong Kong late at night, and The Bridge lounge was very, very packed. So as I headed waaay to the back of the lounge and settled there, I discovered that "The Nook" was not serving the usual noodles but a completely different menu.

They had scallion pancakes (蔥油餅) and even Shanghainese rice rolls with pork floss, fried dough stick and pickled vegetables (上海粢飯), but I was more curious about the spicy lamb pastry (香辣羊肉肉夾饃). Gotta say it was pretty good! The pastry was nice and flaky, and the filling was juicy with a nice kick. And yes, the lamb fat tasty goooood!

Dim sum for a short visit

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Mikacina's back in town for a short stopover, and The Great One organized a dim sum session for lunch. After rotating through some of the usual suspects over her last few trips, today it was Seventh Son (家全七福)'s turn. The quality of food here has had its ups and downs over the years, but my last visit here earlier this year yielded a good meal.

Even though we're here for dim sum, it's difficult to walk out without being tempted to order "the pig"... so RAW Yeah put in an order for half a piglet.

Barbecued whole suckling pig (大紅乳豬全體) - instead of the usual version where the crackling is separated from the meat, today the whole pig has been chopped up into pieces.

Clueless at the club, part 2

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We're having our third MNSC gathering in a month, and tonight it was Curry's turn to play host. After debating whether he could live with the poor stemware at his favorite Seventh Son (家全七福), our host ultimately opted for the more serene settings of the Derby Room at the Hong Kong Jockey Club. It's been nearly five years since I last dined here, when Francky Semblat first started his stint with the club. Word is that the menu has shifted back to a more old-school, "clubby" offering, without much semblance to the refined nibbles from Oncle Joël...

Corn fritters - these were pretty sweet.

Tomato sorbet with pickled cucumbers and crème fraîche - nice acidity to whet the appetite.

Party like it's 1990

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An invitation came to join a group for friends to dinner, ostensibly to help celebrate Giona's birthday. The chosen venue was somewhere the birthday girl has never been, and one that I have also never been. I had heard about SẾP when it first opened some time ago, but while I was somewhat intrigued, I had never heard friends rave about the place. I did join a dinner where Chef DoBee Lam collaborated with other chefs, but as it was a joint effort, I didn't feel it was indicative of what the "true" flavors would taste like.

We were in the large private dining room, so we were not in a position to watch the chefs work over wood fire in the open kitchen... which was supposed to be the attraction. Oh well...

123!! Dzo - there were three appetizers:

Bánh tráng: Phú Quõc dried shrimp, quail egg rice paper - the sakura shrimp here tasted pretty nice.

Mực ống: yobuko no ika basil tartlet - the tartlet came with diced spear squid (槍烏賊) from Yobukocho (呼子町) in Saga Prefecture (佐賀県). The squid flavors were pretty nice, with just a bit of heat and fish sauce, while the pomelo pulp provided a good contrast.