We passed by this place and decided to go in for dinner while walking down Rue Mouffetard, and it was probably the worst experience we had the entire time that we were in France. I was there with my brother and my parents, and we ordered one meal from their 14 euro fixed menu and three from the 17,90 menu. We also had two glasses of sangria and some water. We were too stupid to realize she was bringing us bottles of Evian instead of plain tap water, which we were then charged 12 euros for, but that's on us, not on them. At first, the service wasn't too bad, but as the night progressed it was clear to my mom that the waitress was either not happy with us or holding back service to make the restaurant appear fuller to passerby.
3/4 appetizers were decent, we ordered a goat cheese salad (Mom), shrimp and avocado (Dad), 6 piece escargot (brother), and beef carpaccio (myself). The carpaccio was drowning in oil and came with parmesan shavings and mache (not arugula like the menu says) but was missing any semblance of seasoning(I added salt and pepper myself so I could feel like I wasn't just eating slime), as well as the typical white truffle and vinegar that usually dresses carpaccio. They were all a decent size and were aesthetically nice.
Main course is where we entered the danger zone. The first thing we noticed was that the plates looked really empty. You can see what I mean once I figure out how to post photos. The waitress had told us when we were ordering that main courses come with salad and potatoes, but when the food came out there was half a handful of sad, oily zucchini, and about the same amount of hard, undercooked rice. We asked her what happened to the sides and she told us that they were out, but as we were halfway through our disappointing meals we saw other patrons with bright fluffy piles of salad on their fuller-looking plates. We weren't the best restaurant patrons ever, we're a little loud, speak very little French, and my dad acts really weird, but we were polite and didn't complain, so I don't see why we were treated differently from other patrons. We're pretty understanding and try to make the night go smoothly for our servers, even when the food is bad or service is having some problems.
And boy, was the food bad. I mentioned before the tiny portions and the weird substitutions, but all the meat we ordered was like cardboard. We ordered the lamb (Mom), duck confit (Dad and myself) and entrecote (brother), and everything was uniformly tough, dry, chewy, and badly seasoned. It was a little bit like eating varying grades of dirty carpet. When we finally ordered dessert, it was less horrible but a little bit weird. We always share desserts so we ordered a pretty standard creme brulee, two scoops of ice cream, and then a chocolate fondue for two. The fondue came in a gigantic pot but was only 15% full, so I'm guessing they probably use the same pots for cheese, and the chocolate was nice and dark and melty. The stuff that came to dip, though, was very strange. I know typically chocolate fondue comes with an assortment of fruit and pastries, but I was expecting something like bananas and strawberries (it's the tail of the strawberry season right now) and some pastries or cake/cookie chunks. What we got was giant pieces of watermelon, and some oranges, apples, bananas, and currants. It wasn't too bad but very strange, and the cut surfaces of the fruit don't hold chocolate too well.
Overall, the experience was disappointing, too much money (nearly 100 euros including tip) for the terrible experience, and I cannot stress this enough, the WORST experience we had in an entire week of exploring Paris. If you're in the neighborhood I would go to literally any other restaurant on the street, like the crepe stand down the street with the funny old couple, or the Greek takeaway place that had a line spilling out thirty feet from the door. read more