On a little street in Paris…no, this is the alley leading from the oddly-placed Hongo station to the street. Aux Delices is a multi-level affair with a semi-casual bistro down and a more formal restaurant up. It would be neat to see what the top floor does, because the price ranges of lunch options overlap a lot, but today Ponkan and Anna and I went to the casual one. Surprisingly, they were excited to get the top-level starter-main-dessert course (Y2300).
As country-style terrines go, this was a good one. Terrines come in all sorts, and without attempting to classify exhaustively, let’s say this was “one of the ones that tastes like liverwurst”, which I like despite hating cooked liver. It was also substantial, as were the pickles and salad. A good thing all around. More bread with it would be pleasant, especially Viron baguettes.
Looking back, duck confit for lunch is a good thing too, isn’t it? In this case the leg was decent – moist but perhaps slightly overbearing in the darkness of its taste. The impressive thing was the sides – nice whipped potatoes, very tasty mushroom sautee.
Stepping back for a sec, we should all stop writing “slightly” and “barely” and “just a bit” and “almost imperceptibly”. No one has some magical acuity of perception that allows them to distinguish those levels.
Please feel free to lamb-baste me for all the times I’ve used those terms.
Dessert was a surprise – you weren’t expecting to see this attempt at technique after those bistro-y dishes, were you? The apple slice is dried, the mascarpone is sweet and creamy, the pastry twist is dry and crisp…the only boring thing is the centerpiece, where the apples are as usual more stewed than caramelized.
You can’t have your tatin and eat it too, that’s what I always say, unless I get tatin at Viron, and then I’m happy.
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