5.0 Girondine, 48 bvd Arago in the 13th, 01.43.31.64.17, closed Sunday night only, menu-cartes are 18.90 and 30 €, bills itself as the bistro of Gargantua, and it surely is. I saw the announcement of its getting a new chef on RestoaParis and when my enquiries about it among my food critic buddies were greeted with silence, I decided to go.
It’s in that funny no man’s land in the 13th where no metros run but restos abound to feed the residential buildings at night and hospital staffs and lawyers in the day. The day I went the weather was splendid, the terrace was wonderful but despite the occasional breezes, two chain-smokers marred it.
The two menu-cartes are startlingly good values; the 18.90€ is less interesting (ex., avocado and shrimp salad, rabbit gigolette and foie de veau) but includes a glass of wine with two courses; the 30€ offers an apero (small but refreshing) and tapenade on toast and a ¼ pitcher of wine.
I had what was called a croute of morilles and champignons but was really a cream sauce of just morilles, that tasted like the woody forest itself. The confit de canard was surprisingly bland but had a nicely browned, crunchy skin: but the accompanying potatoes and chocolate moelleux dessert (called a kif) were my best of the genre of the decade.
The arrival of plates was quite slow, likewise delivery of water; the morilles and salad had the same shredded stalks of some exotic item; coffee was Florio; and the service was strange – despite seeming friendliness, the waitress never enquired why I ate only 2/3rds of each dish (Ans: portions being Gargantuan, it was too much for me, but maybe she knew that from experience.)
Total = 32.50€.
*Originally published in September 2006
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