6.0 Pierre au Palais Royal, 10 Rue Richelieu in the 1st (Metro: Palais-Royal), 01.42.96.09.17, closed Saturday lunch and Sundays, is a place I rather liked (although Colette did not) under chef Pascal Bataille, but upon his departure to Bordeaux, Konrad Cegiowski, ex-Team Cagna designed a new menu and that, along with a "re-look" was cause for a revisitation.
As usual I got there a bit earlier than my friends and had time to peruse the food and wine menus. I soon found Waldo aka Talmar, that is, the cheapest red and waited to pounce on my friend who's a wine guy. He and his wife arrive, he looks at the list and I tell him, "anything red under 30 E is OK with me." He looks and looks and finally (I've never seen this before in a decade of eating with him, asks the sommelier/waitguy for his advice on a good prix/qualite wine; and after much hemming and hawing, they decide on my 28 E find which the whole world finds very good.
But back to the food. Two courses at lunch are 33, three = 39 E but there were supplements all over the place, including the sauteed foie gras (+7 E) I wanted, which brings two courses up to the three course price. No matter, I could not manage dessert after foie gras. So we plunge in.
Then Madame had the terrine of foie and foir gras, quite nice, Monsieur a risotto with duck hearts crispy/crunchy on the outside and I had 100% perfectly-sourced and cooked foie gras lobes with winter fruits, the tang of the apricots still resonating in my memory.
Madame then had the bar with a crispy-crunchy skin, veggies and purees (I thought her bar was also 100% perfect) but the two men agreed that our rable de lapin with fresh linguine and nantua/ecrevisses sauce was totally nowhere - at least before we added salt, then it was somewhere, but not where it should have been.
He finished up with a dessert so forgettable that I've forgotten it except it had quince somethings and have no photo as well.
Our bill, with 2 bottles of wine, no bottled water and 2 coffees, was 176.00 E, thus about 117 E a couple.
So off to the bathroom before departing, where I found this charming container of tampons, which if you Google/Image its name you get stuff not all of which are suitable for a family blog.
Go? No, and I cannot explain why I say that, because the foie gras, bar and wine were terrific, but the rest was truly forgettable.
Great photo!
Posted by: Bud Carlos | February 28, 2012 at 09:11 PM