6.5 Hexagone, 83-85, ave Kleber in the 16th (Metro: Boissiere), 01.42.25.98.85, closed Sundays and Mondays, has the required gunmetal gray fascade and miniature pine trees that one elegant customer pinched like a pear to test its reality - how tacky.
The interior is cool, very cool, right down to the toilettes and the carte overwhelming and pricey - but they have a 49 E 2-2-3 "menu" at lunch so off we went.
Just after we'd ordered our wine (first ?, huh?) and food, a waitguy comes by with a trolley with about 8 containers with everything from artichokes to truffles - "Nice" my companion says to the wait-guy, "No," he says, "It's for you to pick your accompaniments." Ohhhh. Never seen that before.
The amuse-bouche description was lost on me but it tasted like some sort of potato and foie gras fluff; then we both had potatoes with cubes of beef paleron in a nice tartare sauce; then nicely crispy-skinned paigre in a coco-curry sauce (that to me tasted like a classic lemon buttery one) with, in her case celeriac and mine artichokes (which were undercooked and cool). All was light and yet complex, nice but left you wondering if the chef had put his heart into the poor peoples' "menu."
For dessert we split ways, with my companion having the "cheesecake" with two mango-preparations, which was certainly not what she grew up with in Philadelphia, and I had a banana with lime and meringue. Again, all were light & complex and with the mignardises left me, anyway, wondering if Pacard was holding something back.
Our bill, with good bread and better butter, no bottled water but two coffees and a bottle of wine, was 138 E a couple. dB level 76.2, thus quiet.
Go? Funny you should ask. As I was eating I thought it was pretty good but like a Woody Allen movie, after it was over, I wondered what the fuss was all about. No doubt the guy is reaching for a star or two and probably he'll get it/them, but it just wasn't my type of "grab you by the guts" food.
