Is this a cool looking place or what?
5.0 Le Bistrot de l'Entrecote, 10 pl du Marechal Juin in the 17th, 01.46.22.01.22, open 7/7 is the 10th such like named (according to the Pages Blanches) not counting Miami and Geneva, rivaling the number of Original Ray's Pizza joints in Manhattan. But, but, but, it's different.
The standard formula is a red awning with "gold" lettering, a rigidly fixed "menu" where one is asked "How do you want it," thas it. I know, I've eaten in three, in as many months.
Why did I go? Well, after leaving Paris three weeks ago (in the slush and bone-chilling cold) on my Grand Tour of Switzerland, Northern Italy and the Mid-Atlantic, I arrived this morning (in bone-chilling cold) thinking only of Spike Lee - I "Gotta Have It" - it being French beef. Now why French beef is different is the subject of another essay, but it's definitely different from Colorado beef or Kobe beef, etc.
So I'd read of this place opening a coupla weeks ago and while the esteemed Emmanuel Rubin gave it only 1/5 hearts, it sounded like his rating was due to his having ordered a "pathetic" squid fricassee and "sad" pot au feu, which was not what I craved, nor what they "do."
The place is really newish looking and the walls are covered with faux-bookshelves, reminding me of a place on the Upper West Side in the 1970's called the Library, most memorable for the waiter who asked Colette, not me, to taste the wine. This location, though, is really trendy and while tables are jammed and full (economic crisis?), it's not cramped.
They do have the famous 25 E formula, but not of a salad and an entrecote (a downer for me, that's what I wanna'd), but a salad with nuts on top (yuck) and steak tartare with frites. So to the carte.
I started with a most excellent salmon mousse and even better bread crisps. Then I had the entrecote (ordered blue, delivered rare) with a gelatinous looking bowl of Bearnaise which despite its appearance was spectacular and frites that were, well, Paris frites - somehow the frites god jumped from Belgium to the US of A, bypassing France.
Then, since I had a lot of Ronan wine (it's a Bordeaux, I didn't recall its origin, either) left, I had a plate of Ossau-Iraty which was (gasp) room-temperature with an incredible cherry confiture. My, oh my.
My bill, without bottled water (nor did many others, that's a sign of the times!) but with coffee, my bill was 45.50 E.
Go? It scratched the itch, what more does one want?
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