Dinner at Paris Cafe

We first visited Paris cafe for lunch which was good. Nice decor very varied breakfast, lunch and dinner menus. Pastries and breads to go. Service was a little slow and front greeting station was unattended a lot of the time. We saw a single come in and leave when no one was there. Food was delish and I think when they get rolling they will be okay. Everyone seemed to be in the back where the kitchen is. We noticed people coming in and waiting to be seated with no one watching the front. It being a French restaurant, we had Quiche Lorraine and a French Dip sandwich. Both were delish and we vowed to try it again.

Appetizer platter with crostini, Pruccitto wrapped dates, grilled peppers, zucchini, 

ham and salami slices, and assorted olives

    We returned for dinner last week- big mistake. While the published winter hours are 7 am till 9 pm, when we were seated at 7:45 pm we were told that the kitchen would be closing at 8. We felt rushed and ordered quickly. At 8: 20, after a server had locked up, we noticed a couple at the front door on the phone and soon a casually dressed lady went to the front, opened the door and seated the couple. Nice, but we were rushed and here they are still seating. They appeared to be friends of the lady who let them in.




    When I asked how the soup (French onion) was our rather surly server said he had been drinking it all evening from a coffee cup, I then asked him about the escargot and he said: "I don't eat snails". Whew! I really got the impression that he wanted a short and sweet order, not a several course meal. We ordered some wine, a cup of soup and a salad, an appetizer platter, scallops, and ribeye steak- rare. I'm sure he wasn't happy with that order.

Spinach salad

     My salad was good however the soup was hardly half a cup. I wish I had taken a picture of it. If he had been drinking it all evening so they were almost out it should have been 86'd.  The wine was served in extremely short portions (see photos). The platter was the best of the meal: prosciutto wrapped dates, brie, sliced ham and salami with grilled peppers and zucchini (photo of that too).

The wine was in short supply

     The scallops with rice were tasty but cold as was the steak. It was extremely fatty and hardly resembled a ribeye. If the chef left the fat sections on to make weight it should have been trimmed before cooking and cut thicker. Jeez, kitchen 101. 

Nice grilled scallops

Alleged ribeye steak

     Mr. surly said he would take the meals back to be "reheated". There was some friction there and so the lady who let the late diners in delivered them to us. I asked her if she was the owner and was told in no uncertain terms that she was a nurse and it was her husband's restaurant- not her balliwick. She was just filling in because he was sick. She didn't seem interested in hearing any complaints about the portions or the steak condition and she went over to visit with her late dining friends.

My "reheated" steak now medium well done

     The kitchen hopefully grilled a new order of scallops as she told us there was no microwave in the kitchen. Hmmmm. My steak was returned now medium well. Please see the photo.  Our server had by now disappeared and after we packed the remains (steak for my dog) we were finishing what little wine that was left. I had to ask the other server to remove our empty plates which filled the table. Our original server finally returned and plopped down our check booklet. We paid and left.

Steak cut up the next day

Steak cut up the next day

Steak cut up the next day

    






 I wish the owner's wife had been a little more into the business even if she was just filling in. I would have liked to have given her some feedback for her to at least tell her husband. It's too bad that there was such laissez-faire attitude there with all that local, valuable business potential.