| rev:text
| - It is difficult to assign stars to this restaurant because it is uneven. In many ways it should have four or five stars -- for the ambiance and service and noise level and much of the food -- but some of the food did not measure up.
I went to Restaurant La Porte with four other people on the recommendation of a friend and based on good reviews. Four of us had never been there before, and one realized when she went inside that she had been there but not at all recently, and she thinks it has changed since then.
The restaurant is very pleasant, not too upscale but just enough so that it's worth dressing up and it feels like a special outing. We were all pleased that it was not too noisy, although the restaurant was full. The waitstaff was attentive without being obtrusive, and they were helpful when we had questions. This is a French restaurant, so I was faced with my usual problem of finding very little for me on the menu, but they were accommodating in tailoring some dishes for vegetarian consumption.
The menu is set up in an unusual fashion, and the waiter explained it to us as soon as he passed around our menus. On one page there are listings under "devant la porte", consisting of starters, and "derriere la porte" consisting of main dishes. In addition there are three types of "menu" that differ in price ($60, $80 or $100) depending upon how many dishes you want included. If I understood correctly, the most expensive one had to be ordered by the whole table, but I am not sure about that. Among the five of us, one person ordered one of the "menus", so he had a starter, main dish, dessert and additional dishes including a sampling of little desserts ("mignardises") at the end. The rest of us ordered a starter, main dish and dessert.
As a vegetarian I had two choices of starter: either a gazpacho with some alterations to remove animal content, or a salad. One of my companions and I opted for the gazpacho, which was made with melon. It was slightly sweet but good. One of our party ordered the terrine de foie gras and pronounced it very good. Another had a dish of two types of fish that was also very good. Three of us chose the same main dish: risotto. Our server told us it would have a soft-cooked egg on top and we all begged off having the egg, plus I asked that the meat content be removed from mine. We were all happy with our risotto. The person who had ordered the $60 menu opted for a beef main dish, and he did not say anything about the beef specifically, but he did comment that his menu overall was excellent and a great choice. Last, one of our party ordered the fish of the day, which in this case was halibut, and he found it clearly substandard -- dried out and uninteresting. Strike one.
For dessert two people shared an interesting chocolate dessert "with smoky paprika" and avocado ice cream. The chocolate was delicious, but the ice cream was just green ice cream. Two of us opted for the Kouign-Amann, which I believe the server said was a specialty of the restaurant and which is a delicacy that I have savored in the past, many, many years ago. This dessert was disappointing. It was drowned in a copious and sticky caramel sauce, that was supposed to be salty but was not noticeably so, and it was accompanied by a "buttermilk" ice cream that was half melted and unappetizing. For me, this dessert was a sad ending to an otherwise good meal. The other person who ordered the Kouign-Amann also found it to be the flaw in his meal; he described it as "heavy but tasty". Strike two.
Just to be complete, we did start with drinks, which were good, and we had a very good wine with dinner.
Overall, this experience was uneven, but the good parts of it -- which were many -- are sufficient to make me willing to go again some time. Certainly the ambiance and the friendly waitstaff are very inviting and make one want to go back.
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