L'Envie du Jour in the 17th is a place I ate at with my painter/entrepeneur friend a month ago or so and loved every bit. So today I rounded up Colette and our former downstairs' neighbors and went out to sample Sergio Lino's food and Alex Dos Santos' warm welcome.
Three of us started off with carpaccios of lieu with ham bits and many too many salt crystals even for me, Colette had fish chumks and turnips and other veggies in a mushroom soup that was good and our first bottle of Bordo Nouvo Bordeaux (my pick) was definitely underpowered.
Then two of us had the hake with chopped snow peas and two had the cod with wheat-berries with the same rather "so-what" sauce - the last time I was here, the cod with Grenobloise sauce that leached into the mached potatoes was divine. Go figure! By this time we had switched to the Domaine Michelas-St. Jemms Crozes-Hermitage Fleur de Syrahne which was a big step up from the prior wine.
Our bill with the two bottles and one glass of wine, no bottled water, nice warm bread and 2 coffees, was 157 E, thus 73.50 E a couple.
Note: No menu was offered and there was no ardoise. The restaurant was about half full, but we waited a very long time for the waiter to tell us the dishes of the day. Also, the length of time between placing our orders and the delivery of each course was inexcusable.
