It’s very rare that from the minute you enter a restaurant, your gut instinct goes to level 1 alert and one’s chef-dar starts beeping and not in a good way, and then from that moment on, as if on cue, the cascading effect of a monumental failure slowly starts to flow. Such was the case at Les Tablettes in Paris. It’s not as though one could blame a lack of custom in August, for the restaurant was full to the brim, for the poor service or the amateur food. Nope, it was just one of those nights that one wishes could be erased from one’s memory. So, to keep things brief and to the point, bullet points always help.
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August 25, 2012
Les Tablettes, Paris
August 24, 2012
L’Atelier Saint-Germain de Joel Robuchon, Paris
Titan, legend, godfather, celebrity…just a few titles that adorn the legacy of Joel Robuchon, a chef who really needs no introduction and who’s empire extends from Las Vegas to Tokyo with a total collection of 28 Michelin stars (4 restaurants having 3) . Needless to say, the man knows what he’s doing and has done so for a very long time! In this years 50 Best Restaurants guide, his restaurant in Saint-Germain, Paris, notched up to 12, and during the month of August, is one of the very few Michelin restaurants open for business. At first, the cheek-by-jowl seating arrangement at the counter seems a bit odd for a restaurant of this nature, but as the meal progresses, one realises that it’s actually quite a lot of fun, and the most remarkable thing is the unpretentious, gregarious and laid back service that goes with the evening.
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August 22, 2012
The Burlington Restaurant, Bolton Abbey, Yorkshire
Driving from Edinburgh to London can get a bit tedious and tiring. A slight detour via Yorkshire seems like a ridiculous idea if you’re trying to get from point A to B as quickly as possible, but quite a good idea if you want to take the scenic route. After all, the Yorkshire Dales are really quite a pretty sight and the rolling countryside rather pleasant. It just so happened that on our leisurely Sunday drive, we had the rather interesting fortune to encounter the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde of weather where for 5 minutes there would be 10% visibility and then clear blue skies for an hour, then back again to an Armageddon style storm and so on. The Devonshire Arms is one of those sprawling country house hotels that seems steeped in time. Sprawling gardens that stretch on for acres and acres, happy couples walking about with their trusty spaniel, gardeners tending to their roses, an old listed building that now serves as a hotel and restaurant; you get the drift. What truly makes it steeped in time is that once inside, you realise that your visit to the restaurant is about 30 years too soon, given the average age of the punters there is that of your retired parents. Nevertheless, putting on our best ‘elderly’ face and trying ever so hard to squeeze into the stiff air of pretentious formality, we quietly sat down and made our way through a rather drab Sunday lunch.
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There were at least 3 different tasting menus, yet only 3 choices of starter, main and dessert – a combination I thought quite out of order especially on a Sunday lunch. Nevertheless after an amuse bouche of basil and grapefruit mojito, I started with an assiette of duck containing foie gras terrine, roast duck, cured duck, poached rhubarb and sorbet. This ever classic and undying combination went by rather easily and without much ado, as did Miss N’s Confit salmon, brown crab, picked crab, grapefruit, cucumber – pretty, yet a tad bit too delicate to be delicate instead of insipid.
With the mains, my braised lamb shoulder, celeriac puree, pied moutons, peas was severely underseasoned and under-sauced while N’s pork loin, coco beans, black pudding puree, asparagus and girolles was ever so slightly better.
A pre-dessert of mango mousse and granite, yoghurt ice cream and oat crumble was possibly the best thing on the menu. Luckily, my dessert of coffee and liquorice came with all the right intensities of flavour that it deserved with a multitude of textures that kept everything firmly in check. Sadly, the same didn’t apply to N’s dessert of apricot, rye, hazelnut and basil which was rather unpleasant – severely sour apricots and nothing else on the plate managing to dance well enough to maintain a steady rhythm.
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Mojito
Foie gras
Salmon
Lamb
Pork
Pre-dessert
Apricot
Coffee
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With the rain luckily having subsided, we were soon back on the trail with the glimmering sunset behind us and the road to London getting ever shorter. At least some things worked out!
Food: 6/10
Service: 6/10
Website
August 22, 2012
Epicure at The Bristol, Paris
Ah, Paris in the summer would make any Briton sell their soul, with its endless days of clear blue skies and hot afternoons that lead into perfect evenings. Truly the city of love, walking in Paris is achingly beautiful and spending an evening on the banks of the Seine with a picnic of foie gras, champagne, ham and bread with raspberries to go with mille feuille as you watch the sun set is nothing short of poetic. Having been infuriatingly depressed with the gastronomic offerings on a previous visit, the expectations of grandeur were firmly kept in check – a caution I found to be exercised by many epicureans of late.
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