5.7 (Products 8, execution 5) Les Provinces, 20 rue d'Aligre in the 12th, 01.43.43.91.64, closed Mondays, is no longer "no reservations, standing room only," Christophe Dru hired a chef to do cooking of all his stuff a la plancha. And the stuff is top notch quality.
I convinced my buddies from the Left Bank to go carnivore today and we started with two platters of superb house-made terrines and porkie stuff - truly great - we argued over what was best - and a bottle soon to turn to two - of a wine from the Var.
Then failing to convince either to share a cotes de boeuf, they both had lamb - ordered and delivered rosé and saignant respectively and I ordered an entrecote - bleu! Theirs were as ordered - mine was Sacré Bleu, well-done, to be charitable and the potatoes albeit good, alternated between cold and hot. In fact, theirs were less well-done than mine - go figure!
Pause - "John, Why didn't you send it back?" Ans. "Because ours were the 5th-7th orders in a kitchen that had now received another 20 plus so the wait, inconvenience and dislocated service delivery was just not worth it."
At this point we were pretty full, but I was pissed off about the steak and induced my friends to order a plate of superb cheeses and a sort of nothing "pudding" with chocolate and I had a floating island hoping Colette might join me when she comes back - it was not bad.
With about 2 bottles of wine, no bottled water and decent bread, our bill was about 93 E a couple.
Go back? It's unfair to punish them for the over-done steak, cold potatoes and bland pudding when the other 6 dishes were superb - but that's the way it goes.