Mensae in the 19th is a place I've only eaten at three times, but it's going in my "must repeat monthly" file. As before, I had trouble reserving; they're short-staffed, don't answer the phone or let you reserve by leaving a message, their website tells you to reserve on line at mensae@gekt.fr (not La Fourchette etc), which I did last week and this week to no avail. So we just showed up; that is my oldest French friend in Paris (20th) and Colette. No record of a rez. OK. We looked over the menu and specials and despite the enticing prices of the "menu" went a la carte.
Our starters were under the category of "to share" and we did: mussels cooked in a wonderful South-west style and frogs' legs cooked with enough oil and garlic to kill any vampire. We pleaded with our fine wait-lady for bread with which we gratefully dipped up the sauces of both and moved on.
For nexts (a mélange starter, accompaniment and main) we had great green asparagus with a non-Béarnaise sauce, a tartare of oysters and veal with sliced raw mushrooms and two big slices of perfectly under-cooked canette breast with a very large cooked (to sweetness) carrot.
For desserts we went three ways: to a chocolate mousse with dark chocolate pieces, their special - rice pudding with caramel and a gratinee of citrus fruits, whoops, that picture features the unordered "exotic fruits." Ah well at least it was a French wait-person misunderstanding a French customer not some damn Yankee.
With two bottles of Chinon (bought in honor of Randy de Paris's conversion to red wineatude Saturday), no bottled water, wonderful bread and three coffees, our bill was 169.50 for three or 113.00 E a couple.