Todaya's Lunch: Delices de Paris

While I do love my fair share of sandwiches overstuffed with cured, poly-syllabic meats or completely drenched in red sauce, I'm also a fan of simpler fare like a jambon baguette. I love the combination of soft, creamy butter and thinly sliced ham on a crusty baguette. I used to get these regularly at Balthazar when I worked one of my myriad jobs in the Soho area. Recently I found a place in my neighborhood that serves a pretty formidable jambon baguette - Delicies de Paris. The sandwiches run a little on the small side, since their baguettes are skinnier than I'm accustomed to, but that's probably all for the better. Both sides of bread are spread with butter. Then they lay on a couple slices of ham and Gruyere. A few halved grape tomatoes and chopped romaine lettuce are placed atop and dressed with an olive oil based vinaigrette. Tasty.

I never really noticed this place until I ran into a neighbor on 5th Avenue with a baguette tucked under his arm and inquired about its origins. 9th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues is just one of those blocks I don't traffic much. There are three gyms in the vicinity (NYSC, Curves and the Y). That's probably why I stay away.

Park Slope Gastronome #6

oh moutarde, how did we ignore you for this long? as previously noted on the park slope gastronome, we've detailed a number of disappointing brunches in our neighborhood. with recently transplanted brooklynites dave and jennifer in town from LA, we wanted to brunch at a nearby establishment that wouldn't break our hearts. the four of us wound up at moutarde, a(nother) french bistro on 5th avenue. when dan figured out where we were going, he groaned, "this place?" not like he's ever even eaten there!

we are greeted by friendly workers who whisk us away to our table in the back. as we take our seats, we are given shot glasses of freshly made fruit juice (strawberry, in this case) garnished with a chunk of canteloupe. we are already having a better experience even if the busboy spilled water on me! i ordered the wild mushroom and goat cheese omelette, as did dave and jennifer. dan could not stray from his habit of ordering french toast, so that's what he did. the trio of omelettes arrived before the french toast and the waitress was aghast and apologetic and asthamtic. just kidding about the last thing - that my have been me. dave had also ordered a side of toast, which turned out to be a basket of toast, plump butter croissants and mini chocolate croissants. thanks to dave's mysterious aversion to flaky deliciousness, dan and i got to eat the mini-cho-cros. yum!

i'm getting tired of typing so let's just wrap things up. the food lovely and the service was delightful. thank you moutarde.

Food: A
Service: A

Park Slope Gastronome #4

This past week the Park Slope Gastronome had brunch at the restaurant Belleville. Its location made for an easy choice when we were trying to figure out where to have brunch on a glorious Sunday afternoon. The walk to Cousin John's was a bit more than we wanted to flex our legs for. Cocotte stinks. A recent meal at the Mexican Sandwich Company helped me get acquainted with our bathroom and forced us to miss the Atlantic Antic.

Belleville is a French bistro, similar to the ones down the street (Moutarde) and a few neighborhoods over (Patois). There's a sprinkle of quaint, a dollop of shabby chic, a pinch of old-timeyness and steak frites on the menu. We were seated and given our menus immediately. Dan ordered the french toast, only to be told it was sold out. He then ordered the croissants, and was again told it was sold out. "We've had a busy morning" our waitress explained. Finally we both wound up ordering the waffle with eggs and bacon. Along with our meal orders, we requested water, which would not show up until about three-quarters of the way through our meal.

Our dishes arrive and we're both a bit bummed out to see our waffles are pre-syruped. Not only was it imitation maple flavor syrup but the pre-syruping also made the waffle soggy. I like my waffles crisp and I also don't like to drench it in sugar. The eggs on the other hand were really nicely scrambled. They were a golden yellow color without any browning, loose, but firm enough that they didn't have that uncooked, phlegm-like texture to them. The bacon on the other hand was way overcooked. When I bend a bacon strip, I like for it to do just that and not snap in half. Finding good bacon is an impossible mission these days. I'm convinced our meal was to be accompanied by greens and potatoes. Two of the brunch options, the smoked salmon platter and the french toast were above the line that read something along the lines of "the following come with green and potatoes." The waffle was listed under this line and I positive I did not see an asterisk listed next to it saying it was excluded. We asked our waitress about this, not because we were hungry, but because we thought we were missing a part of our meal. She didn't know her menu. She had to check. We still didn't have water by this time. A waiter came by with a pitcher and asked us if we wanted some more water. Then he noticed the lack of water glasses on our table and turned red, apologized and sent someone to get us glasses. We were never offered a refill on coffee.

p.s. The glass of orange juice we ordered was some sort of from-concentrate-crap served with ice cubes. En francais!

Food: C
Service: C-

Park Slope Gastronome #1

It was gorgeous weather on Sunday and what better way to start off the day than with a delicious brunch. Dan, his little sister Amy who was visiting for the weekend and I, decided to try Cocotte, a Frenchy place across the street that shares the same owners as Dan's beloved LouLou in Fort Greene. We decided it was a tad too breezy to eat outside, so we waited for a table inside. There was no one taking names, which should have tipped me off immediately. I have big problems with places that won't let you leave your name and number in your party and doesn't provide space for waiting. So basically, a bunch of people were huddled by the front door and you had to keep a mental track of where your place in line was.

The inside decor is a near carbon copy of LouLou, down to the vintage silverware and turbinado sugar cubes in a ceramic bowl. The food is pretty much the same as well. Our drink orders were taken soon after we sat down. Strong but not very hot coffee cost $3 a cup. I wasn't very happy about this. A bland, but overall fair Bloody Mary cost $6. It came with a long stalk of celery, top intact, so that was a nice, classic touch. The celery garnish in a Bloody Mary is just too underused these days. So we get our drinks and wait for our waiter to come by to take our food order. We wait and wait and wait some more. Nowhere to be seen. We see tables who were seated after us get their food orders in. Of course I get incensed. We finally see our server; he walks past our table no less than 4 times but not once does he pause to say he'll be right with us. When he finally shows up at tableside, he doesn't apologize for making us wait and that puts me over the top. Listen, I know servers are not paid an hourly wage and rely on tips, but it's not just about taking food orders and bringing the food to your table. I want someone to want their 15-20% tip and not just simply expect it. Amy, the one with wait experience at our table agreed. A simple gesture to acknowledge our presence would have done wonders. Oh well.

I got a ham, mushroom and cheese omelette, Dan got the french toast and Amy got the l'ocean omelette - an egg white omelette with smoked salmon and cream cheese. My food was good but nothing spectacular. A bit of dressed greens would have been a nice addition to the egg dishes. Amy's eggs were quite underdone and looked like a plate of grits.

Of course our waiter never showed up to give us the check. Once again we waited and waited and finally just figured out the bill in our heads and left. Don't think we'll be going back there any time soon.

Food: B
Service: D-
(It would have been an F if another waiter hadn't brought out food and actually came back to check in and see if everything was ok)