After months of waiting after my fateful morning of calling France to make a dinner reservation the day had come. Of course it did not come without a little trepidation that they actually wrote down my correct information and that it would still be there after all that time. After coming back home from the day of walking around the city i received a voicemail message email from my google voice account confirming my rsvp for the night, but unfortunately there was no phone in the apartment and all pay phones in the city use a calling card so what was i to do. So of course we just walked on down to confirm in person. With some time to kill we walked along the Rue Montorgueil which has a bunch of local type cafes, boulangeries, fromageries, and did a little shopping and snacking.
Once it was time for our reservation we found a line of people waiting for the Frenchie wine bar to open up across the street, and a few people seeing if there were any cancellations for the main restaurant (which there weren’t). It felt pretty special to come to such a exclusive type place that didn’t cost an arm and a leg to eat at. There are only two seating times 7pm and 9pm, and which i learned the 7pm is basically the seating for the Americans as we got to know our table neighbors were from Philadelphia and the other from somewhere from the midwest.
They offer up basically two different choices for each course along with a Foie Gras supplemental. We ordered once of each dish, along with the Foie Gras and a bottle of wine for our meal. The meal was paced out nicely and every dish was delicious. The stand out dish for me was the Foie Gras and its typically hit or miss for me, but i really enjoyed it with the fig compote. The Foie itself was smooth and not gritty and along with the sweet fig and toasted bread was delicious. The horseradish on the smoked trout kept surprising me, which made me go back again for another taste.
Foie gras torchon, figs
Mushrooms, speck, chestnut
Smoked trout, horseradish, fennel, Granny Smith
Royal sea bream, Swiss chard, sorrel, pine nuts
Quail, celery, raisins
Napolean sheep’s milk cheese, summer truffle honey
Mirabelle plums, lemon curd, aromatic herbs ice cream
After our meal Joy made me go take a picture with the Chef Greg Marchand. Probably the only thing that i wouldn’t have had would be the espresso after the meal because in the middle of the night i was buzzing and couldn’t go back to sleep. That stuff is crazy strong.
