-1, -1, 6: Ellsworth, 34 Rue de Richelieu in the 1st, 01.42.60.59.66, closed Sundays and Monday dinners (Metro: Palais Royal) is a place recommended, yea so praised by two trusted blogger-friends, that I convinced two other expat blogger guys to go to today. For various reasons, I asked them to make the reservation.
Backstory: The reservation-meister of the couple informed me he could only reserve on line (he's in IT - so OK), had to reconfirm as if it was Le Cinq, and said his partner chimed in - "why are we going, Laura Adrien and Braden Perkins' places are jammed with Americans," and another pal pointed out that A Nous Paris said its food suffered from "foodialisation" and Le Fooding that it was "SPANISH, TAPAS AND PINCHOS, NEO-BISTRO, AMERICAN" served up by a Canadian chefesse. Now in defense, I think what Braden & Adrien are doing in Paris, like Daniel Rose, deserves our (expats') support, lord knows they don't get it in the French press.
The building is under repair and folks outside were hanging around like flies on a cow's carcass, the room is railway car narrow and the noise level with 20 American women who have had a glass of wine reached 95.2 dB (a jackhammer at 50 feet). Nonetheless we ordered on:
My pals from the 15th started with broccoli with anchovies (which neither they [with colds] nor I [undiseased] could taste. At this point I began to get their dirty looks, that said "John, why do you torture us so regularly?" My fluffed ganache of foie gras was equally blah but had great croutons.
Then, JJ had the orchiettes with (?) pesto and salad (don't bother looking at the menu posted above, they baited and switched) and all 3 of us thought it was not only tropo al dente but hardly cooked at all; R. and I had the tempting looking and wonderfully basted chicken nuggets, excepting they had (R., a chef who teaches cooking, posited) been brined and never desalted so they were delicious looking but inedible unless you didn't want to urinate for 2 days.
Now, just as I was getting more dirty looks, like in the Three Penny opera, Victoria's messenger arrived and we got three wonderful finishers: a cheese from Chaource with a large load of apple sauce; ice cream with a malt sauce; and fine apple beignets with a caramel sauce.
With two bottles of wine (like Jack Sprat and his spouse, one cannot do red, the other white), no bottled water and one coffee, our bill was 131 E, thus 87.32 E a couple. Just to add insult to injury they made us keep our utensils after our first courses, but my pals told me they didn't pull that on the 5 French folks nearby.
Go? For dessert.
