Feb 5, 2015
Dining Izakaya – 6036
Last year, Chef Haruka Casters – formerly of Abri, where I had great meals with family and friends but a nightmare to get into nowadays – striked out on her own and opened up a small, 14-seats izakaya in Belleville. Its name 6036 represents the distance, in miles, separating Paris and Tokyo, but here, the two food cultures are closely wed to make an interesting Franco-Japanese meal, tapas style.
The menu here changes regularly but there are seemingly some staples (onigiri, cold cuts of Galice and Belotta, St Nectaire or Comté, macha crème brûlée), others rotated and appear every so often, and some depending on the season. A good mix, I would say, for a menu of approximately 10-12 items: 7-9 savoury, 1 cheese and 2 desserts. On the late November night we were there with a few friends, we tasted 10 of the 12 items possible, skipping out on the soup and the carbonara.
For a small kitchen with a single chef at its helm to serve these many items is quite a feat and requires some degree of organisation. For our table of 6 covers and two-hours time slot (there would be a second seating later on), it meant we had to agree on what to order at what quantity right from the start. If you’d like an additional serving of a particular dish, the waiting time may not be quite as friendly, especially if Chef Casters is busy preparing something else for other diners. Choose wisely, my friends.
We ordered in portions of 2’s and 3’s for each item, and happily received a stream of well-time dish one after another. It even felt like I was having a degustation menu, sans the equivalent price tag – something I’m always happy to have. I absolutely loved the salad of mizuna (Japanese mustard) with shitake and wasabi vinaigrette, the sake broth that came in the clam dish was surprisingly creamy and flavoursome, and the onigiri packed quite a package within the deceptively simple rice triangles. I was less enamoured by the cold cuts, but happily chomped up the pickled vegetables that came with the plate.
We moved on to “mains” of which there were fish (pan fried bream and a sauce that ginger freshness and goodness) and duck (charred, à point, with vegetable and gravy, although could do with a small touch of salt) before bridging the savoury and the sweet with a good wedge of Saint Nectaire, served with hazelnut caramel (gnom). Me being me, I began to wonder if we made the right call to leave out two of the dishes and probably missed out on something delicious… I know, my FOMO is very food specific!
The desserts served were a real treat. One on side, we had matcha crème brûlée with matcha ice cream, and the other, we had chocolate three-ways with mandarin. It was very difficult for me to choose which I preferred, although I believe there was a certain consensus around the table that the chocolate-mandarin pairing was just too divine to ignore. I’d willingly eat more of these so I can make better decision, hehehe.
To be re-tested on another occasion, in a different season, to see what other dishes Chef Casters has to offer. Strangely enough, or not, I am looking forward to the desserts… ;)
6036
82 rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud, 75011 Paris
Métro: Couronnes, Parmentier
Tel: +33 1 73 71 38 12
Tuesday to Saturday, 7.30pm – 11.00pm; Saturday 12.30pm – 2.00pm
Oishi yummy ne ;) Fusion indeed
I should keep an eye on their menu sometimes, since it seems they serve sea urchin from time to time!