4.5 Monjul, 28, rue des Blancs-Manteaux in the 4th, 01.42.74.40.15, closed Sunday dinner and Monday lunch, with lunch menus at 14 (2 courses) and 18 (3), Sunday brunch at 19 and a la carte 30 €, has been open for a year and a half. It took me this long to go because Emmanuel Rubin gave it a one heart, but over the 18 months it's acquired more and more fans (notably Richard Hesse for whom it seems to be his favorite place) and I keep seeing it everytime I get my hair cut across the street.
My downstair's neighbor and I went today and had an interesting meal; we entered and there was one customer, a situation that lasted until practically the end of the meal when two couples came in. There was no amuse bouche as Hesse described but not to worry.
My friend ordered the two-course 14 € menu. She seemed to like both the raviolis of potato and something else which came with an incredibly light emulsion of potato mousse as well as her salmon and potatoes two ways.
I had the same very crisp raviolis, almost like crispy dim sum, with a bit more cheese and ham than she inside but I also got an onion "soup" which was really more like onions slowly simmered in broth and a side of the same incredibly light emulsion. Then I had several pieces of nicely cooked monkfish with sesame and some sticks of very spicy (hot) stuff.
We had no dessert and our bill with a bottle of Corbieres was 72 €.
Later, I actually did get my hair cut and and was talking to the barber asking if he'd been there and what he thought of its cuisine. Yes, he said, and it was traditional French cooking. I disagreed, saying it was fusion-esque Asian-oriented, etc., to which the other custumer piped up with - he's right (meaning me), it's not traditional French. My dining partner agreed and posited that the reason it might have been weakly reviewed and empty is that the French "don't get it" (she's French.) And maybe she's got a point; it's certainly closer to Ze Kitchen Galerie and Carte Blanche than Clocher Perriere or l'Epigramme.
Go? As Monty Python used to imply: if you want something completely different.
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