3. Petit Paris

Dreadful experience
We were in this restaurant on Saturday lunchtime where we had one three course and one two course menu. I am sorry to say that the experience was below our expectations. We have been two or three times in the past year and always enjoyed it, however this time the menu seemed to have changed and the food was just not up to the standard which we expected. The service and atmosphere was good, but it really was the cooking that appears to have gone downhill. We both ordered chicken liver parfait, however when it arrived it was grainy and grey. My fiancé who has been a Chef for the last 15 years pointed out that it had been overcooked so the result was that it had split leaving the eggs scrambled and the parfait oxidised hence the greyness. It should have been pink and smooth and delicious, however it was also unseasoned, I understand that to season parfait correctly it must be tasted before it is cooked to get the balance of seasoning right, I understand that this can’t be pleasant for the Chef – but it is unavoidable if you are to serve good food. I was also astounded that in a French restaurant we were served two triangles of toasted brown or wholemeal bread with it and not Brioche or just French baguette or pain. We therefore had no option but to send it back. Instead we ordered a Moules Mariniere and Caesar salad. The Caesar salad with chicken and bacon tasted fine, although it was missing two key ingredients - shaved parmesan and anchovies and the croutons were soft, not crunchy. However the Moules were something else - most of them had not been scrubbed properly and still had the beards attached, some of them had broken shells which meant they were dead before they were cooked which is bad and dangerous practice in a professional kitchen, the mariniere sauce - a classic which should contain shallots, garlic, white wine, parsley and cream, resembled grey dishwater and had no cream added. When it was left uneaten the waitress told us that it only contained white wine, so I guess it should really be advertised as mussels cooked in white wine - not as Moules Mariniere. The haddock we ordered was edible. However the fish had not been fried enough as the flour it had been cooked in left it pasty rather than crispy on the outside, again, the sauce in which it had been cooked had split and the mussels still had their beards on. We ordered cheese which was fine, but would have been better if it had not come straight from the fridge and the celery was limp and decaying. We were very disappointed.