café du palais

My companion’s salad was a mountain of delicate butter lettuce and runner beans…every leaf dressed with a tasty dressing with a very slight mustardy olive oil/vinegar dressing and garnished with slices of tomato and cucumber. Scallops had been quite thinly sliced and just slightly overcooked but the prawns were very good and the generous scattering of chopped chives was more than a garnish adding a finishing flavour to an already good dish.

The sweetbreads were beautifully and correctly prepared, soft and succulent in a properly seasoned champignon sauce, finished with a splash of white wine and a dash of cream. The mash potato was divine, clearly made for the lunch service it did not have the miserable taste of reheated mash that prevents me ordering it in most Australian restaurants. Plated on a hot plate, garnished with three cherry tomato halves the plating was directly from my treasured first edition Larousse Gastronomique published in 1938. It is true that a champignon sauce can be rather bland when there are so many other tastier varieties of mushrooms to choose from, but they are perfect when properly cooked and seasoned for the delicacy of sweetbreads. Our scraped clean plates were a testament to our enjoyment.

It has been a long time since I have watched almost every diner in a packed restaurant order dessert or for that matter a dessert table [pictured above] laden with classical choices….. a joy to behold. It should be noted that the French do not hold to the stupid rules we have in Australia about displaying food and preventing diners from breathing on them. The French classics Oeufs a la Neige came prettily, and properly plated with a mountain of meringue swished up with toffee and were the clear favourite as they were rushed by the dozens from the kitchen. Tarte d’Isabelle is a proper apple tart, Crème Brûlée which everyone now knows and add to that brilliant seasonal cheese selections and a very nice ice cream and sorbet selection. All desserts, are of course house-made and whilst we abstained were clearly good as licked clean plates returned to the kitchen.

What’s not to enjoy?