2.0 Le Gorge Rouge (neat name eh?), 8, Rue St Paul in the 4th, 01.48.04.75.89, open 7/7, was my “Plan B”, “fall-back” place when the Villa Pereire, whose pubs and website said was open Saturday lunch, was definitely not. So I made it from the extreme Northwest of Paris to the full Marais in 30 minutes (no cheating by running either.)
I entered to a mixed-age crowd – two octogenarians and five Gen X’ers – and the welcome was most welcoming. Nice place. Nice full menu (despite its advertising itself as a wine bar). Nice setting. Everything cool cool, calm calm, zen zen.
Despite my inclination to order the foie gras crème brulee, Choukroun’s signature dish that I missed yesterday, I decided that if my cardiologist ever found out that I’d had foie gras twice in one meal, he’d fire me, so I opted for the geezers. By this I mean the microtomed gizzards, cooked to a wonderful crisp and with a sauce deglazed with raspberry vinegar, along with a salad and chives and finished off with ground baies roses (pink peppercorns) – quite wonderful.
I was then sitting with my wonderful wine reading today’s Figaro and anticipating my “Perigord hamburger.” And I sat, and sat, and sat, and sat….well you get the idea, like the airlines that never tell you what’s wrong and how long it’ll take to fix it, I sat there, raising my eyebrows occasionally at the waitress, and sat.
Now, luckily, Le Figaro today was really chock-a-block full of information, and my wine already poured in a carafe was like that of Jesus serving loaves and fish to 5,000, it lasted forever. Then I started to compose an essay on “When do you walk out,” and ask for the check (no one else had been served for 20 minutes either, and we were a total of 14 in a place seating 26) – when the “hamburger” appeared.
The bun was actually pretty good, indeed, when I tried to eat the confit of duck, cepes and foie gras separately – it didn’t work and I went back to the “burger” approach, Dr. Barry Sears be damned! The potatoes and salad alongside went barely tasted but mainly untouched – I just wanted out.
Afraid I would be there forever, I ordered a coffee serre (Illy) and the check - and my wonderful waitress said (for the third time) how was it? Now, my wife, friends and puzzlingly loyal readers know I’m a coward and always say, ”OK,” “excellent,” “thank you” or some such, but never the truth.
However, today was a life-changing moment and I said – “Well, the food was quite good, when it came, but the time I waited was not.” Did I get struck with a thunder bolt? No. Did she spit in my soup? No. Did she tell the chef? Certainly not. But she did offer me a digestif. Did the “Prune” repair all? No. But I was at least a bit mellower.
My bill = 61 € (in fairness, they do have a three-course forced choice menu for an astounding 13.50 E and a plate of charcuterie with a glass of wine for 15 E and the foie gras etc., I had, did cost more than the average dish.)
Ah, the “train wreck” reference. I once asked my buddy, the cellist in a major symphony orchestra, what the deuce had happened in the second movement of a symphony the night before and he said – oh, you mean the “train wreck?”
Go? To the worst price-quality place of the calendar year?
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