Passard's Ephemeral Vegetable

Alain Passard - the Michelin three-star chef of l'Arpege - has opened an "ephemeral restaurant" called Vegetable in the department store Printemps. If you are in Paris right now - go - I mean right now. They're serving dishes straight off the restaurant menu - with produce from Passard's very own garden - including the legendary egg amuse-bouche and the life-changing herb-stuffed raviolis. But instead of paying up to 320 euros for a seasonal tasting menu, you can get three eggs for 8 euros or a bowl chock full of the raviolis for only 11. When I had the raviolis at the restaurant, they were roughly 10 euros per single ravioli - not that I didn't think they were worth every single centime. I went today for a late lunch with James - former sous-chef at Manresa - passing through town from a stage at The Fat Duck to a stage at elBulli - and FOP - Friend of Pim's. In the Small/Weird World Files, James got his stage at elBulli after Manresa chef/owner David Kinch read my post about How to Get a Stage at elBulli. Even though I raved about the raviolis - I could tell from the look in his eyes that he was thinking "Girl, how good can they be?" But the look on his face when he bit into the first one justified my raving. "Man, what are in these things!" Leeks for sure we could discern - inside the transparent but resistent handmade pasta wrappers - and chervil, chives, and parsley at least - but our cooks' curiosity was tempered by the fact that we just wanted to eat them. Vegetable is open from lunch through dinner - service non-stop - until June 5th. No reservations - unless you hold a Printemps credit card and then it's still reservations for dinner only at that. FOH is managed by l'Arpege's director of the dining room himself with one of his regular servers - and BOH by the sous-chef with a team from the restaurant. Go. Now.