Belleville

How I wish I had brought my camera with me today, it was so sunny, and the sky was so blue. I would have taken some photos of Belleville, Paris' old Chinatown in the 19th arrondissement, where I had lunch and bought groceries today after woodworking class. Bet you can’t guess what I had for lunch at the place with the cleverly obscure name, Restaurant Ravioli, at 47 rue de Belleville. The ravioli, or potstickers, are hand-made, including the wrappers, as I have walked by during off-hours and seen the workers sitting at a floury table, rolling out circles of dough at lightning speed, filling, sealing, done. Today I had tofu, shitake mushroom and chive ravioli, small, pan-fried and crispy on the bottom, tender and tasty with just enough chewiness everywhere else.

I couldn’t leave without getting some essential groceries: steamed pork buns, roast duck, and dried black beans. Black beans are amazingly difficult to find in Paris, and after looking around in many different areas of the city, in all kinds of gourmet, ethnic, and health food stores, I finally found some in Belleville, on the bottom shelf of a small display of beans in the basement of a very modest store on a side street near the Metro.

 Nobody in this town ever has change for bills bigger than 5 euros, so I’ve gotten into the habit of always trying to pay with exact change. I was at the checkout, painstakingly counting out my coins, when a young Asian woman rushed over, clutching a gingerroot and two boxes of strawberries. She seemed agitated, swayed side to side, and held her groceries tight against her body. She spoke in Mandarin and told the cashier her stomach really hurt, and could she please pay right after me, and before the next person, a middle-aged Caucasian man with a full grocery basket. The cashier considered her request, then replied in Mandarin that she should really ask the man, who was next in line. “But I don’t speak French!” said the young woman. The cashier turned to the man, asked in French if he would mind letting the young woman go first, and he said it was fine. As the cashier rang up the gingerroot and strawberries, she told the young woman: “I hope you understand why I said we had to ask him first. We have to be a little careful, we don’t want them accusing us of only looking after our own people!”