Mensae in the 19th: Well worth the journey to a place where "the octopus is so tender" and the desserts worthy of "another one."

Mensae in the 19th always reminds me of the mensas I went to as a backpacking student in Italy in the 1950's that offered you a first, pasta, main, fruit, dessert and wine for some ridiculous price; while the Latin root might be the same, the difference between those places and this is more than two generations of progress.  We went with another couple enamoured of it today and it puts out some great chow at some great prices.

For firsts, we ordered the entrée du jour - a soft egg with bacon cream, a soup of petit pois with sheep cheese mousse, and grilled octopus that Colette and I both deemed the most tender this year - my frying pan full of frogs legs in oil, garlic and parsley missed the photo-cut despite its quality.

For mains, we went with the confited whiting (merlan) and petit pois, the plat du jour - roasted yellow chicken with a risotto of petit pois; the quasi de veau (perfectly cooked) with grilled while asparagus, pleurotes and veal juices with Tio Pepe; and another dish to "share" - the sautéed sot l'y laisse with a juice so reduced it was like Tio Pepe.

For dessert, Colette and I shared the strawberry-pistachio concoction - the pistachio puree was divine!  Colette liked it so much she ordered the dessert of the day to take home for dinner - a deconstructed meringue lemon tart.  Our bill with 2 bottles of wine, one bottle of fizzy water and 2 coffees was 206.50 E for four, thus 103.25 E a couple ( we owe our friends some Euros due to our math miscalculations.)