Pottoka in the 7th is one more of these places I loved (6.5) despite a slight hitch (longest wait for dessert on record, stay tuned) long ago (2011) and have just never gotten around to going back to. Today friends who have eaten regularly there since it opened needed litte convincing to get us to return.
There were 2 blackboards, one carte and one tapas redboard and our wait-person became tired of our hesitation in ordering and took off, only to return when pleaded with by our host who threatened to leave. This after they neglected to offer to take our coats (or point out the hooks on the back wall) or help our party of 6 install ourselves on the banquette by pulling out the tables - e.g. we had to do this ourselves! (not typical French hospitality in a restaurant!)
To start we had:
- a huge portion of perfectly fried chipirons
- very nice tartares of scallops and bar
- terrific foie gras with toast and
- a "perfect" egg with foie gras, compte and black truffles.
Then after a 20+ minute wait we had:
- a great lobe of perfectly cooked sweetbreads on top of macaroni with melted parmesan
- a very nice lamb chop
- two tasty pieces of savage bar with truffles and
- a super joue de porc with a good (for me) pasta risotto.
We shared 3 very good desserts:
- brioche perdu & ice cream
- a gateau basque and
- pear with pear ice cream, caramel & chestnut cream.
Our bill with 3 bottles of Spanish wine, no bottled water and two coffees, was 354 E or 118 E a couple.
Go? Well, we were ready to walk out after the coat-ignoring and order-taking delay, annoyed by not getting the red tapas menu, incredible time between courses and lack of attention to spilled drops of wine, but the topper was dropping a grease-laden knife between my suit jacket and chair back and neither apologizing nor offering to clean my coat (11 E at my Pressing.)
Sorry John to hear about this cascade of incidents. It must have been a bad day. Could it be that they had celebrated the New Year a little bit too late in the night? As for me and as reported elsewhere, service has always been friendly and caring.
What rejoices me is that at least we agree on one point, food is exceptional.
Best regards
Theobroma
Posted by: Theobroma | January 03, 2015 at 07:03 AM