As I was walking out of the polling station in the US last month, a bystander said behind my back “old boy” which an official told me referred to my shirt, bowtie and seersucker suit. I’m never sure what “old boy, old school cooking” is in France but one might think that escargots, frogs’ legs and chocolate mousse would be pretty similar to what I had in 1953 at a country auberge. Unh, unh.
Sellae in the 13th is the recently opened sibling of Mensae both of which are far from my digs but well worth the schlep. The menu and carte choices look super-traditional in print but one look at what came out of the kitchen to our neighbors showed burrata with a ton of fruits and veal with a ton of veggies, in dishes that were totally unfamiliar.
Colette started with gazpacho with both a melon and watermelon twist, peanut bits and ham and I had escargots and mushroom strips besides a very large portion of purée. Wow!
Then she had the snails and mushrooms as a main course and I had a "partiger "course of frogs’ legs, crisply fried and then presented swimming in a sauce of clear butter. Zowie!
For dessert Colette had the strawberries with sorbet and I had what was called a chocolate mousse. Guess what?, it wasn’t. It was a bowl of divine warm chocolate poured over a scoop of ice cream.
Our bill, with a bottle and glass of wine, their bottled water and two coffees was 118€?
Comments