Les Tablettes De Jean-Louis Nomicos: Another Outstanding Meal at an Astonishing Price.

We returned to Les Tablettes de Jean-Louis Nomicos with the parents of a chef we know and when pere tried the amuse of a lemon gel bottom, a creamy middle, fennel and a tomato sauce on top, he, three hours off a plane said the likes of "I've never had anything like this before, it's very good."  The four of us went with the 42 E 3 course "menu"' with wine from the carte versus the 58 E 4-course one with coffee and 37.5 cl of wine.  Smart Euro-wise?  I'm not so sure.

For firsts, the rest of the table chose the langoustine emulsion with foie gras raviolis and raw green asparagus and I decided to try to bouillabaisse jelly with squid, rouget, fava beans rouille and basil oil .  Both were fabulous despite the fact that my prevailing theory is that French chefs use fluff like salt to cover up their sins, here the fluff was fab.

For mains, in descending order, we had the artisinal pasta, morilles, asparagus and sot l'y laisse of chicken; crispy skinned lieu (of the cod family) with marjorum, smoked eggplant and piquillos; and a jarret of veal with a ginger sauce, raw carrot slices and terrific (I assume Noirmoutier) potatoes).

 Desserts were a fondant of chocolate with cocoa sorbet and mascarpone and various "wood" fruits with fromage blanc and raspberry sorbet.

With two bottles of nice Bordeaux, 3 coffees and no bottled water our bill was 116.50 E per couple which our guests picked up in a terribly nice gesture.  Disclosure: the head guy gave us all glasses of a wonderful fortified red wine from Ukraine that had echoes of cassis, prune and other fruits.  Another nice gesture.