A rave review in a French magazine recently led me to dine with three friends in an inauspicious-looking restaurant on a busy street in the Château Rouge area of the 18th arrondissement. Called Le Normandie, it looks like any old neighborhood café, but it turns out that what was a North African restaurant for a couple of decades was recently taken over by three young entrepreneurs who have updated and Frenchified the menu but have not changed the decor – neither had the previous owners, who still pop in to say hello – which explains the charming retro look of the place.
The menu is simple and limited to a fault. That evening, only three starters and two main courses were on offer. I don’t mind not having too much choice – it makes life easier for the chef and the customer (simplifies decision-making) and helps keep prices down – but only two main courses seems a bit mean, especially when neither appeals to you.
One of the starters on offer gave us a start: bird tongues with Parmesan, bacon and mushrooms. In retrospect, I’m surprised I didn’t try them just for the adventure of it, having once sampled duck tongues at a Chinese restaurant with no negative repercussions, but I guess you have to be in the mood for bird tongues. Instead, I got the country pâté with cornichons and guindillas (small pickled chilies from Basque country). It was fresh and tasty.
The other, non-tongue starter choice, smoked herring with a soft-boiled egg, potatoes and tomato salad, was had by two of my friends and pronounced satisfactory.
For the main course, I wasn’t in the mood for a flank steak, but even less so for salmon steak, so I went for the former. The meat was of good quality and cooked rare, as requested, but the polenta that came with it was dry and dull. The creamy Saint Marcellin sauce it sat on top of might better have been poured over it to give it some flavor and moisten it up a bit.
The others were content with but not excited by their salmon with puréed eggplant, baby potatoes, Savoy cabbage and veal juice.
Dessert was not in high demand from our group, but I ordered a rice pudding to share anyway. The sprinkling of chopped hazelnuts on top was a nice touch, and the pudding tasted good but didn’t go straight to my heart the way this dessert sometimes can.
I can’t explain why the French reviewer went bananas over this restaurant. It was perfectly fine, with fresh, quality ingredients and reasonable prices, but there was little creativity on show (except for those bird tongues). Perhaps she had one of those evenings when you enjoy dining with your friends so much that everything seems just wonderful.
If I lived in the neighborhood, I would be happy to pop into Le Normandie for dinner now and then, knowing that I’d get a decent meal, but I wouldn’t go out of my way again to dine there, not even for bird tongues.
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