*This post is guest-written by me, *janet*
Menu:
Carrot Soup
French Onion Soup
Moules au Riesling
Kobe Beef Burger
Damage: $63.75
Le Marmiton is the newest addition to the itself-newly-remodeled Waterside Shopping Center at the intersection of Mindanao and Admiralty Ways. The restaurant space is equally split between a chic inside with rich mahogany walls (empty on this gorgeous Labor Day) and a charming outside seating area with cute umbrella-ed tables surrounding a lovely tree. The waitstaff is equally as chic and charming, with servers sporting genuine French accents.
We chose to eat outside, since we didn’t want to deal with the awkwardness of being the only ones inside. Here came Service Faux Pas (SFP) #1 – of all the empty tables, the host sat us right next to a Mafia Don-type man smoking the world’s largest and stinkiest cigar. Is it even legal to smoke in a restaurant? After resituating ourselves in the opposite corner, we settled down to look at the menu. The menu is printed on placemat-sized sheets of paper (that weren’t, strangely, used as placemats in the end). I have a weakness for moule-frites so there was no question that I would order the Moules au Reisling. But first – I was in a soup-craving mood and hoped the soup du jour would be something vichyssoise-ish, and asked our server what the soup was. He said, “Um, I don’t know — let me check” and ran into the restaurant (SFP #2). He came back out and said the soup was zucchini – YES! I ordered it and my mussels. Our server said, “Wait, I don’t know if we have mussels today, let me check” (SFP #3). Luckily he came back before I got too distraught and said they did. Phew. James ordered the French Onion Soup (which I noticed dotted the tops of many of the other tables), and as he is on a gourmet burger kick ordered the Kobe Beef Burger. He asked what came on it and our server said “Nothing — just mayo and bread.” OK, great – bring it on, medium rare.
Before the soups came, our server came out sheepishly and said YESTERDAY’S soup was zucchini; today’s was carrot (SFP #4). Carrot sounded yummy to me anyway so no harm done.
Our soups came, but no silverware (SFP #5). The texture of my carrot soup as perfect, smooth with just enough roughness to necessitate a couple chew-chews per spoonful. Too bad the flavor was bland and bleh. I wanted to kick it up a notch with some pepper, but for some reason our table had neither salt nor pepper shakers (SFP #6). James’ soup was equally as disappointing — a nice salty broth is so critical in French Onion Soup to counteract the mildness of the cheese and mounds of bread, and this one did not do the job.
Entree time. James’ burger was not bare as promised, but rather came with carmelized onions AND bacon (SFP Lucky Number SLevin!) on top! My mussels looked fabulous but I was missing a bowl to dump out my empty shells (SFP #8? Debatable but I say so). First, the mussels. It’s hard to go wrong with garlic, wine, and olive oil, and I did slurp up the mussels in record time. But, here again I was disappointed. It seemed like all the salt that should have been in my soup had jumped into the mussels. All I got was salt, salt, salt, and absolutely no taste of the promised Riesling. So much oil floated on top that when I dipped my fries into the broth, all I got was a fry coated in olive oil. I tried to let the dish redeem itself by using bread to sop up the sauce, but we seemed to be the only table in the restaurant who never got their bread (SFP #9). Too bad, as I had spied some yummy-looking tapenade accompanying the other patrons’ bread. Onto the burger. The meat was delicious, flavored and cooked just right and heightened by the crunchy/meaty bacon. The roll (flaky, in James’ words) was great, too – smooshing itself (literally and flavor-wise) into the background to let the Kobe beef take center stage. I suspect, however, that the deliciousness of this burger was solely due to the quality of the beef. Sorry, Le Marmiton, you no longer get the benefit of my doubt.
It comes as no surprise that we languished for 20 minutes with no check (SFP #10), only to be semi-scolded by the server who said, “Do you want the CHECK?” While we were waiting for it I overheard him telling a couple other patrons about a Chilean sea bass special of the day. What? Not that I would have ordered it but please don’t neglect to tell me the specials!!! (SFP #11, are you SERIOUS?). For $55.75 pre-tip, it was definitely not worth it, though you should stay tuned to get James’ take on it. Next time I’ll just go a couple doors down and feast on a Chipotle burrito instead.
What can I say: don’t trust the French. In culinary terms, the Waterside renovation didn’t bring me any decent flavor. To hell with Cold Stone, and to hell with the French and their $18, cheese-less burger. I’ll get around to reviewing that thing sometime in the next year.
Congrats on your first blog post ev-ar.
Now i have my first comment ev-ar! Thanks James! You are an enabler of the best sort.
[...] Our server looked like Noah Wylie. I think he was in training and this other burly dude was breathing down his neck. Poor Noah. When our soup came and Noah hesitated for a nanosecond, burly trainer server ran over with a triumphant look and said, “Would you like FRESH GROUND PEPPER [pointed look at newbie Noah] for your soup?” I said yes and he ground nice big chunks of pepper into my split peas. Oh, it was delicious! The texture was even better than my recent carrot soup, with perfect seasoning this time, and the pepper (I am also a pepper monkey) took the soup to new heights – split pea that tasted rich and meaty without even necessitating ham. Yum yum. Even with my gorgeous soup, however, I was jealous of James’ tortilla soup (kind of like how Jude Law cheated on Sienna Miller with that very normal-looking nanny). His was creamy, beautifully orange, and delicately flavored (though the tortilla strips were waaay soggy from the moment the soup was served). Mmmmm. [...]
[...] seen some bizarre server behavior in the past. In fact, my very first blog post evar was all about highlighting some serving foibles. The chica we had this night was very sweet but [...]
[...] night was not without its requisite weird moments. Foibles here, foibles there, but like Le Marmiton the place was so charming and they were so earnest that you couldn’t hate them. During soup, [...]