5.0 (she 6.0, me 4.0) Chez Marie Louise, 11 rue Marie et Louise in the 10th, 01.53.19.02.04, closed Sundays and Mondays, formulas at 14 & 18 (weekdays at lunch), a la carte 25-34 €, has gotten not great but not bad reviews after it opened recently - and I think I know why.
I arrived earlier than my old co-conspirator and proceded to have a glass of Beaujolais Nouveau from the House of Meyran to see if the hype about this year's product was anywhere near my palate (fruity, yeasty, cheer, berry). I donnnnnn't think so.
Looking over the ardoise - I said to she - "I'm going to do something really stupid." She's known me long enough to realize that this ranges from extreme stupidity to a minor connerie. "What?"
"I'm going to order two shellfish dishes - the langoustine bisque and the ecrevisse risotto" - say I. She shrugs, signaling no big deal (oh, but it was, Dear Reader, as you shall see shortly).
She ordered a millefeuille of aubergine, tomato and something else (courgettes i think); in short - a cold decontructed ratatouille; wonderful, while I had the quite good bisque of langoustines with a great deal of cream a top. So far so good.
Then she had raviolis of langoustines which were superb and I had the risotto (which few people on earth make correctly with the appropriate Italian rice, prepared per order, not swimming in the same crustacean sauce as the 1st course) with what seemed to me to be morsels of barely-thawed frozen ecrevisses sprinkled on top; yuk.
We shared a fried banana dessert with caramel sauce and banana ice which was again very good.
So why am I giving a 4.0 to my meal when the bisque and banana were so good? Just because they couldn't do risotto, which hardly anyone who lives/cooks more than 5 Km from Modena can anyway? Plus it was my stupidity (declared like a losing bridge hand in advance) to order two dishes where the exact same base had to be made from the exact same shells. So as many have accused me of, I plead guilty to both stupidity and meanspiritness.
Our bill, with a bottle of Syrah, (half the wines were bio,) 2 Richard coffees and no bottled water, was 73.90 €.
Go? Only with my old pal who orders intelligently.