| rev:text
| - I came here for a birthday dinner, choosing this spot because it was open on a Sunday night. I wasn't sure how it would go. The latest reviews here in English seemed good, but the French ones were terrible. For a French restaurant, I'd tend to give the latter more weight, but I remained openminded.
The staff were very friendly and helpful, but there were just too many mistakes to be forgiven. Unfortunately for us, the menu was about to be changed the next day, so about three items were off. But the server neglected to tell us about the specials - mussels. I wouldn't have ordered them anyway, but it was a bit strange to realise that I could have, by seeing servers bring back the pots. Service was prompt but forgetful. We had no place settings when our starters arrived. We had to ask twice for Worcestershire sauce for the tartare, and our water was empty more than once. To be fair, there was a large party of about 12 on the terrace, but given the Indian Summer weekend we were having, and the resto's location on Prince Arthur, they should have had more staff.
We were three and ordered a goat's cheese salad and two lots of snails in puff pastry to start:
- The snails came in a cheese sauce with two triangles of puff pastry on the side. That isn't a feuilleté. Also, the cheese sauce "manquait de finesse" - was not terribly refined. I wouldn't say it was disgusting; it was actually reasonably tasty, particularly as the snails were quite juicy, but it was very disappointing, with the cheese sauce completely overwhelming the dish.
- The goat's cheese salad was also not really "dans les règles de l'art" - how it's usually done. It The salad looked like it was for decoration, which shouldn't be the case at all. There should be a subtle combination of salad leaves and cheese on small slices of bread.
For mains, we ordered two plates of duck confit, which was billed as "forestier" ( with mushrooms), accompanied by roasted vegetables and potatoes. The other member of our party ordered the steak tartare, which he was very pleased to be able to mix himself. Except that he had to wait for the Worcestershire sauce. The tartare was accompanied by fries and salad, and wasn't bad.
The duck confit on the other hand was extremely disappointing. A leg of duck confit should be crispy on the outside and melt in the mouth when you bite into it. It wasn't. In terms of portions, it was great - there were two legs. But the skin wasn't at all crispy, and it was extremely salty. I was tempted to send it back but contented myself with simply letting the server know. On top of that, it was accompanied by one half of a large button mushroom (forestier, you say?), some difficult-to-identify "roasted" vegetables (blackened on the outside but crunchy - seeming to indicate they'd been cooked in a too-hot oven, too quickly), and what I can only describe as "breakfast potatoes".
For dessert, we had two crème brûlées and a brownie. They were both pretty good, but the crème brûlée was taken straight out of the fridge. It should be served "tiède" - at least at room temperature, and possibly ever-so-slightly warm.
The place has just changed hands apparently, so one might expect teething problems. However, I don't think I can give them a second chance unfortunately.
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