OK, so I'm given the assignment of planning for a Sunday lunch and I need a place for 4 lovely French and Yankee female colleagues and one cool husband and last week I see in A Nous Paris that there's this chef, Bruno Glegan, who since the end of March has succeeded Henri Seguin at Le Pressoir, changing its name but still cooking farm to table products with no bullshit at a joint now called Chez ma belle-mere (which recalled my Mother in law's cooking where I always got a square meal with no frills, so how bad can it be?).
5.8 Chez Ma Belle Mere, 257, ave Daumesnil in the 12th, 01.43.44.38.21, open 7/7 (Metro: Michel Bizet or Tramway T-3, which is "the" way to go), is, I agree, to hell and gone. I'm a tad early and used some of the time to go across the street and get some of the last Gariguette strawberries from the street market vendor for dinner. Then I come up to this place that looks like a 1000 other bars/bistros/brasseries in town with a huge outside seating area, an impressive menu and a wine list that looks like I can score well - which I started off doing.
I had idly look at the wall lettering while reading my JDD, but one of my most surdoué friends on installing herself at the table looked at them more closely and reeled off their translations "What are you doing on All Saints' Day?", "Say that and I say nothing" and "I don't like my daughter in law" Woof.
As so often happens, the other 5's first dishes far outranked mine: soups of bio carrots and sumptious chopped mushrooms with a poached egg, a superb huge, never-ending platter of cheese and charcuterie (I assume from Chez Christian Parra) and my pathetic leeks with a weird mayo sauce. But I'm ever hopeful.
Our mains brought the game up another notch: super half-cooked slices of fresh tuna, superb foie gras (a starter served as a main) and crispy, crunchy calamari with chorizo with a dusting of espilette with creamy Basmati rice, really, really good.
At this point, we were tremendously satisfied, yet hankered for that last blast, so ordered one dish of chocolate mousse for the table. The guy placed it in the center of the table with 6 spoons and said the French equivalent of "Dig in." All 6 of us being physicians, said or motioned to the waitguy -"Wait a minute, we want separate plates, this is unhygienic." "Nope - dig in!" "OK." 3 hours later I'm still OK.
The bill - with one "cocktail sans alcool" (where did that come from?), 1.5 bottles of wine, no bottled water, decent bread and 4 decent coffees, was 187.80 E for 6, thus 62.60 E a couple.
PS Owners, we cheated you out of 80 centimes which someone will deliver, sometime, sorry.
Go? Well, my 5 guests loved it and I thought if it were in my nabe I'd be back soon. It's got some good stuff and with a dB level of 74.1 dB in the midst of hustle & bustle, it's a find.
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