Marloe on the Rue Commandant Riviere (ever wonder where the French get all their street names? I mean after they've used up Honore Balzac, Jean Jaures, Jules Ferry, Charles de Gaulle and Marachel Leclerc (who freed Paris all by himself while poor George Patton was sitting 40 km outside slapping malingering privates around), etc.? Well, Commandant Riviere was a French writer and Naval hero active in Hanoi/Tonkin aka to us/we Viet Nam Vets as Bắc Kỳ), is another very good addition to the usually dreadful eating choices in the 8th. It was, as it has been since it opened, chock-a-block full of shirts, loud (88.5 dB) and so successful it's clogging up/bogging down between courses.
On one side of the table, our friends the Dean (not my Dean, but the Dean of a just-barely-not-in-the-Ivies-but-very-hot-college and his wife, the culinary writer and teacher) had a terrine of rabbit that they thought was too dry but I considered quite good, albeit strangely flavored; and our side had the gambas in panko that Colette and I swooned over. Score 2-0.
OK; to the mains; their side had the Croque Monsieur (at 19 E), which the Dean judged ordinary and the food-expert the daurade, which she deemed "too fishy"; while the Talbott aka Talbot (orthography in the 18th Century was a slippery slope) side of the table had the scallops in a very light sauce with juliened veggies that were divine. Score 4-0
Entering the last innings, their side had an extraordinary creme cafe with a macaroon crumbled into the cream that both sides declared superior; but Colette's Bourdaloue (pear) tart was not disgraceful - so, let's see, 4.5- 1 final score. But who's counting?
With the moral equivalent of two bottles of wine, 30 cl of bottled water, good bread and 3 coffees our bill was 239.20 E, thus with a bit of rounding it's 120 E a couple.