The Customer
Is Always Wrong
Muxu.
This will be less of a review then a plea to Parisian restaurateurs: please learn to admit your mistakes and accept suggestions and criticism from customers instead of blaming them for anything that goes wrong. It will only help your business, not hinder it.
The other night I ate with four others at a restaurant I was unfamiliar with, Muxu (pronounced “mooshoo”), in Paris’s 11th arrondissement. An attractive place predominantly decorated in light wood, with colorful oversized photos and a couple of ironic crystal chandeliers, it had received good reviews, and things started off well – until one of my dinner mates noticed that the round table we were sitting at was wobbly. The waiter was apologetic and said we weren’t the first to mention it, but added that there was nothing he could do about it at the moment and that he had no other table to give us. Fair enough.
We all enjoyed our starters: a delicious
Jerusalem-artichoke soup with coffee cream and roasted pecans, tasty ravioli filled with
pumpkin and mozzarella, and a tortilla. The tortilla was not a traditional one – it was quite
eggy –but I thought it was rather good.
Things didn’t go so well for the main courses. Three of my friends had ordered the bass, one asked for the special of the day (cod), and I
ordered the pincanha (a cut of meat, usually beef) of pork. When the dishes arrived, it turned out that the waiter had gotten the fish
orders backward, bringing three daily specials and only one order of bass.
When he was told of the problem, instead of apologizing and correcting the mistake immediately, he told us we were wrong – he distinctly remembered us ordering three daily specials. Hard to believe that his memory was correct when all five of us clearly remembered what had been ordered, but he was convinced that he was right. One of my friends accepted the cod instead of the bass he had ordered – showing far more graciousness than the waiter did – while another asked that her dish be changed, which he did grudgingly.
In the end, they all liked their fish very much, but I was a bit disappointed with the pork dish. The shredded meat – topped with mashed potatoes, thin slices of carrot and ponzu sauce – was dry, and I didn’t like the sweetness the sauce gave to the dish. One of the fish eaters, however, thought it was delicious and polished it off for me.
Desserts were a bavarois with bananas and yuzu with a very good shortbread crust (chocolate, according to the menu, but it wasn’t), which went down very well, and some muxus (which means “kiss” in French Basque), Basque macaroons filled with almond paste instead of ganache or butter cream. The latter were good and not too sweet, but not very exciting.
The very next day, I went to Twinkie, a new place serving American- and British-style (as
well as French and Greek) breakfasts, for brunch with four other friends, three of them British, one French-German and all lovers of breakfast. One of the British friends is famous for the English breakfast he makes at home, certainly the best I have ever had.
Once again, things started out well. We got a table fairly quickly even though Twinkie doesn’t take reservations and was already nearly full at noon on Sunday. We were given two baskets filled with a variety of great breads,
butter and a sampler of toppings, including Nutella, wine jelly and a very sweet fruit compote.
Most of us stayed true to our roots, except our German-French friend, who joined two of the Brits in ordering the English breakfast, and the one Scotsman at the table, who would never accept anything “English.” He had the eggs Benedict. I, of course, ordered the American breakfast. Each breakfast included a hot drink, fresh fruit juice and a choice of cooking style for the eggs.
This is where disappointment set in. Three of us were expecting the extreme comfort of our national breakfasts. Mine consisted of two
soft-boiled eggs (great eggs; one was perfect, but the other was seriously undercooked); very tasty hash browns; American-style bacon, which was just all right; and, get this, one pancake. That might even be called an anti-American gesture. Give us a stack or give us nothing! Incidentally, when the young Frenchwoman sitting at the table next to ours received her American breakfast, she picked up the cruet of maple syrup and looked at it with great puzzlement. “What’s it for?” she asked her friend, who was just as clueless as she was. I couldn’t help breaking in to explain to them what to do with it.
While I wasn’t particularity unhappy with my breakfast, I didn’t think it had anything special about it. The eggs Benedict my Scottish friend
had were pretty good, but were made with the same bacon served with the American breakfast instead of Canadian bacon, and the hollandaise sauce had no lemon flavor that I could detect.
The English breakfast seemed all wrong. It was
served with a crumpet – not traditional, but who would complain about a good crumpet; unfortunately this one was positively soggy instead of crispy – along with eggs, beans, sausage (one link, cut in half) and two strips of the same American-style bacon. No black pudding, fried bread, mushrooms, toast or fried tomatoes. No excess. No mess. Everything was served neatly, with the beans and eggs in separate bowls. This didn’t look like an English breakfast to me, but whatever, as long as it’s good, right? Wrong! Don’t give British people American-style bacon. They want their own bacon, thicker, meatier and more flavorful.
We all agreed on one thing: the bread was truly excellent!
When it was time to go, we were told to go to the cash register to pay (in imitation of American diners?; this is not normal procedure in a French restaurant, where the bill is always brought your table). This meant lining up in a narrow space next to the kitchen in the hot restaurant, with waiters trying to squeeze by with plates of food. Things got even hotter when one of my friends, in response to the owner’s question, told her that the English breakfast had not been authentic. Instead of asking why, she went into a huff and argued with him, saying that the restaurant had gotten a good review in the Guardian (I just looked this up; it is not really a review, since the American writer simply describes in one paragraph what is served at Twinkie without making any judgment, pro or con; one wonders if he even ate there). The owner’s argumentativeness in turn made my friend angry, and he told her that that was the first and last time he would eat there.
Such incidents cast a pall over a meal and certainly do not create return customers. I won’t go back to Muxu even though the food was quite good (but pricey) because of the waiter’s attitude. The situation at Twinkie was a bit different – I don’t think there was bad will on the part of the owner, but she should be able to listen to what her customers have to say without arguing with them. In any case, I had already decided I wouldn’t go back because I didn’t think the food was especially good and didn’t like the crowded, noisy ambiance.
American food is all the rage in French restaurants today, and many of them actually improve on American burgers and ribs, for example. They still have a lot to learn about breakfast, however – and customer relations.
Le Muxu: 16, rue Deguerry, 75011 Paris. Métro: Parmentier. Tel.: 01 48 07 44 43. Open Tuesday-Saturday for lunch and dinner. A la carte: around €48. www.muxu-paris.com
Twinkie: 167, rue Saint Denis, 75002 Paris. Métro: Etienne-Marcel. Tel.: 01 42 36 92 58. Open Tuesday-Sunday, 10am-6pm. Breakfast: €18-€23.
Reader Paul Malecki writes: “Back in October, we enjoyed several meals at Rachel’s (25, rue du Pont aux Choux, 75003), where the Americanized menu was delightful. I note a few negative reviews of Rachel’s, but our service was good, and friendly (Americanized, of course). The food was so much better prepared that one gets in an American “brunch” place; it was more in keeping with what we expect in Europe. In the end, I suspect a restaurant meal depends more on how the staff is getting along that hour than on any other factor.”
Reader Bonnie Poppe writes: “Why would anyone eat at a place called ‘Twinkie’ — a great mystery to this American who lives in France.”
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