The Bad

Le Bistro de Paris, Laval, France.

It pains me to write this post. Really.

The Bistro de Paris is the only restaurant in Laval to be rated in the famous French food guides, Michelin and Gault & Millau. It's been given the equivalent of one star by each, which is a lot considering that most restaurants never make it into a gastronomy guide in the first place.

The chef is a maître saucier, a master sauce maker. Uh-huh.

I've had, in the past, excellent meals at the Bistro. But not lately. Not even in a long time.

And the last one was particularly disappointing.

The service was too fast. Seriously, the server took the champagne flute out of V's hand. And took the crostini and anchovy butter away long before I was finished with it.

The first course was good. But nothing amazing. Shrimp with garlic and julienned vegetables.

The second course was fair. Duck breast with orange and avocado slices. Should've been reliable but wasn't. The sauce, of all things, was the worst part. Tasted a bit like that turkey gravy at the Dixie Truck Stop somewhere in Illinois between Joliet and Astoria, which was appropriate, good even, on the open-faced turkey sandwich. Not so much on duck and orange and avocado.

The dessert, a sablé covered with chocolate sauce (yum) and vanilla ice cream, was good. But I've made the same at home.

The little dessert bites they brought out with coffee were beyond disappointing. A funky cherry thing that was just too strange to be good, texture-wise. And I won't even go into the macaroons or the meringues.

Sigh.