French reunion at Le Petit Latin: death by calories
Please note that since writing this blog post, Le Petit Latin has closed down
Back in late summer, I went to the Dordogne in France for a week with friends – my last chance to relax before I started at MegaCorp. Last weekend, three members of the Dordogne foursome found themselves in Amsterdam, so we thought we’d better have a French reunion dinner.
One of our party (aka Scary French Lady) was on some ridiculous diet (I notice a lot of people go through these phases at this time of year) which I refused to talk about because it only makes me cross. But suffice to say that Le Petit Latin’s traditional French cuisine isn’t ideal if you’re trying to lose weight…
My warm quail salad was heavy on quail and low on salad. It also appeared to be covered in sauce (creamy, meaty, French sauce) rather than dressing. In short, it was not my idea of a salad. Though I did like the quail.
Next up, I had duck confit with black truffle sauce. Again, the sauce was so rich and creamy that it failed to cut through the high fat content of the duck. There was nothing wrong with the duck, or with the sauce; they just shouldn’t have been on the same plate. Dinner was not cheap either, with main courses sitting around the €20-25 mark.
On the other hand, I couldn’t get enough of the side dishes. There was some kind of potato and blue cheese soufflé that was like a cuddle on a cold day. And a dish of ratatouille that also included winter veges like carrot and parsnip – simple but spot-hitting.
We decided to share the tart of the day for dessert (or at least, those of us who weren’t on diets did), which comprised a rather soggy pastry case, a custard filling, and fruit that had that strange gelatinous glaze on it that you still sometimes see in patisserie windows, like it’s been hair sprayed. It was served with too much Chantilly and a sauce that appeared to be made entirely from raspberry jam.
The other members of the Dordogne party had mixed feelings about their meals – both had classic scallops in cheese sauce to start, and I ‘helped’ the diet by mopping up the sauce with bread afterwards. It was tasty, but I imagine it could have overpowered the delicate scallops. It’s hard to comment on the fish main course because half of it wasn’t there; Scary French Lady asked for her sauce on the side, but the kitchen saw fit to serve it without the promised ravioli either. We couldn’t figure out why, though they had over-salted the fish to compensate the lack of sauce. Curiouser and curiouser…
I was disappointed, since Le Petit Latin had been recommended to me by a trusted chef friend. I may give it another try next time I feel in need of a cholesterol overload.
