The wife and I are back after a wonderful trip to Paris. We had a wonderful ‘fancy’ lunch at Le Clarence and a romantic night at Petrelle. And some pretty great meals at other spots too. Thank you to everyone who contributed suggestions and helped me finalize my itinerary on this thread.
But before we get to the good stuff, let’s start with a dud, shall we?
Des Terres
We ate here primarily because of FOMO and got kinda punished for it. You see, I had assumed we could just stroll in here late on a weeknight and get a spot, but were rather stunned when — after making the subway ride all the way to the 20th and then walking along an empty residential neighbourhood at about 9pm — we walked into a packed restaurant that didn’t have a single spot for two.
So while we were there, and not wanting to miss out on the food this obviously ultra popular place had to offer — we booked a table for another night.
After another round of subway and walking, here’s what we had on that subsequent trip to the restaurant.
We started with a vegetarian pithivier, filled with autumn veggies. This came with a parsnip puree and a fresh green salad dressed with some cheese and hazelnuts.
This was arguably the best dish of the meal. The pastry was crisp and light, the filling was tasty, paired well with the parsnip purée, and the salad was impeccable.
I thought it would be heavy, but we wiped the plate clean in no time.
Next we had two main dishes — a beer braised beef and a roasted sea bass fillet.
The braised beef’s outside had been crisped before plating, which contributed to a nice contrast in texture with the softer meat inside.
But other than that, we thought the dish was just fine. The salad that came with it was generic. The cooked down braising sauce didn’t blow my mind, and the two purées that came with it didn’t quite meld with the rest of the dish.
The same for the fish. It was perhaps a touch overcooked, the red/brown sauce felt a bit heavy, and the only thing that felt fresh and crisp was the radicchio under the filet.
Again, it was fine, but not very good.
And finally dessert — this was not good or even fine, but pretty awful. It was a rice pudding with miso caramel. The pudding was gluggy and lacked the lusciousness that’s necessary. The caramel was generic and we couldn’t taste any miso in it. There were some rice crackers on top for presumably a crunchy texture but they weren’t too crisp. There were a few sugared berries that were swimming around aimlessly. The one good thing was the fruit sauce that added some freshness to the otherwise very disappointing dessert.
Look, this place is clearly beloved by locals (think we were the only tourists there) and has a wonderful vibe with reasonably priced food and wine. Service was friendly too, though (reasonably) more engaged with French speakers. If I were living in the neighbourhood, I’d probably have it on my rotation.
But would I make the trek once again as a tourist? Nah. There are so many other better places. More on those soon in this thread!