#la cinq

Hommage à l'homme d'affaires, de médias puis Président du Conseil italien Silvio Berlusconi 🌹🇮🇹🎈le "Cavaliere" R.I.P 🕊

Photo de Carlo Carino, 1981

Silvio Berlusconi et Mariano Apicella 🎶 Meglio 'na Canzone

Cela a bercé notre enfance !

Bonjour à tous,

Je vais essayer de vous proposer régulièrement des vieux jeux télé, jeux vidéos ou des produits, marques qui ont bercés notre enfance… En gros, je vais vous parler d’un temps que les moins de vingt ans ne peuvent pas connaitre !

Je vous présente aujourd’hui un premier sujet. Il s’agit d’un jeu télévisé pour enfant. Ce jeu a été diffusé pour la première fois sur la défunte chaîne…

La Cinq at George V Hotel 31 George V Avenue Paris

The absolute majesty and opulence of teh George V hotel really does transport you to a level of privilege and less so class than what anyone could not - even with practice - accept as routine.

Our dinner booking was for 2100h (9pm) at 0200H (2am) the next morning the staff will still providing immaculate service when we paid the bill. Thanks to the Paris Metro running 24 hours a day - we also managed to get back to our base in Paris.

At no time despite our quite appalling French were we treated like anything else other than honoured guests. We did order pre-dinner drinks. My partner ordered ginger ale and lime. I ordered Cointreau on ice - no fruit.

Our Amuse Bouche arrived. It was a trio of little canapes each more exquisite than the last. The details escape me because I was so overwhelmed. One was swiss chard, the other parmesan and the last some foie gras. I never would have thought that swiss chard would send a chill down my spine and raise the hairs on the back of my neck. Count that as 1 fine dining moment never to be forgotten, and our menus had not even arrived. 

The menus arrived, and were printed in French & English. The Manager, the Maitre 'D, the head Sommelier and his assistant as well as two waiters were polite friendly and happy to let me torture them with my French. After two words, I broke into English, and so did they, just like that scene in 'The Hunt for Red October' where we see the KGB dude speaking Russian and then he gets to the word Armageddon and then slips - in the same scene - no cut mind you - into English. It was like that but much smoother.

After perusing the menu and asking questions we each made our choices. We elected on all four courses, and as we are both dessert fiends, agreed to split Savois Fraises which had a minimum order for 2 people.

My dining partner ordered, mushrooms - served two ways - a mushroom unique to France and similar to chanterelles, but not chanterelles. I ordered the tomato entree also served two ways. For the fish course my dining partner ordered Sea Bass, I ordered Turbot. For the meat course she ordered Duck, and I ordered Veal. As mentioned above we worked from the dessert list back to the entree.

It then was my turn to order wine. My dining partner rarely drinks wine, and while I was thinking Mersaut or Sancerre, in the end I headed towards a Grand Cru Alsace. The head sommelier listened to my questions. My dining partner did not want anything 'too dry' and this resulted in the Head Sommelier recommended a bottle of Riesling from the Mosel region.

It was in a bottle with a cork. I remember thinking, umm shouldn't everybody be using a stelvin cap by now? That's about all I remember. After I smelled the wine, I had another of those spine tingling hairs on the back of your neck moment, then when I tasted it I could not contain my sense of rhapsodic elation. I muttered Oh My God and nearly passed out. The complexity, the finish, the acid and the essence of the Mosel river exploded in my mouth. I thanked the Head Sommelier with 'Oh my god, that is mind blowing. You are a fucking genius.' I apologised for swearing, then apologised again. Then drank some of the Riesling and wondered why the room was spinning.

In my fine dining experience of twenty five years (I started very young thank you Mietta O'Donnell) to have one or two spine tingling, hair on the back of your neck stand on end moments during a meal. At La Cinq there were seven. Each one some how managing to beat the last. My head was spinning with each mouthful and my brain was already saturated in the restrained, attentive service and the mind blowing surroundings.

The evening went by at a formal, not hurried pace. I was truly shocked to discover it was 0130H (1.30am) when our dessert was served. Time, at least to me, had stopped still at our dinner table. The manager offered us a complimentary glass of Landon Rose Champagne and it beautifully accompanied the wild wild strawberries of the Savois.