Food Porn Friday: Cinq Mars + Salon du Chocolat

I owe you an apology for two reasons.  First, I have been on a Food Porn hiatus.  But come on...I was on my honeymoon.  Surely you can forgive me for that.  Second, I am about to give you a Food Porn Friday that is similar in nature to what you might call "amateur."

But, I'm gonna make it up to you in the end, I promise!

Fab wanted to take me out for a "Return to Paris" dinner one night.  Since we're in it for the long haul in the 7th, we are trying to find the good spots that don't cater to hungry tourists wandering in from the Eiffel Tower.  Turning to Le Fooding, Paris's foodie guide par excellence, we selected le Cinq Mars.



Entering the dimly lit dining room, we immediately thought "cute."  A simple, vintage décor greeted us, as well as some rather loud acoustics.  After about 15 minutes, we were finally given the menu.  There were 3 servers, so if you average the reaction time out to 5 minutes, that's actually a record for many Parisian restaurants.  But I digress...

Mad props for the menu cover.

We split the country pâté.  Chunky pork spreads speak to me on an unusually high level in winter-like temperatures.  It was crazy delicious.  Encrusted with black peppercorns and mustard grains, it was like pâté on steroids.  At least we got off to a strong start.

Cornichons + pâté = crazy delicious

Then came the main dishes.  This is where we had some bad issues on a couple of levels.  I'm a sucker for beef tartare.  Beef tartare usually comes with all kinds of accompaniments: pickles, onions, worsterchire sauce, tabasco, etc.  But you know how if you order say, a salad, and it comes with waaaay too much dressing that it makes you somewhat nauseous?  Yea...that's what happened here.  Too much sauce in the tartare.

Mystery sauce.  Blech.

At least Fab had a nice dish.  Some monkfish with mushrooms and a delicious citrus sauce and purée (that's fancy speak for mashed potatoes.)  Remember how I mentioned we had a couple of issues?  Well, this was a plat du jour recommended by the waitress.  Fab took the recommendation.  The dish wasn't mentioned anywhere.  Our jaws dropped when we saw the price.  When he told the servers that they should mention the price or write it somewhere, they just shrugged.  They couldn't care less that they failed to advise us that the plat du jour was 2 times more expensive than the other dishes.  Les jerks.

At least it was a pretty monkfish.

We were pretty disappointed with Cinq Mars.  Slow, uncaring service and a way too saucy tartare for a pretty steep price tag.  Sorry Le Fooding, but I'm not seeing the magic happen on this one.  I hate giving you sad Food Porn Friday reviews, but I felt as if I should put it out there.

But do not despair!  I leave you with chocolate.  Lots and lots of chocolate.  Paris just had its annual Salon du Chocolat a few weeks ago.  Not only were there tons of samples to be tasted, chocolates to be purchased, but there were also works of art involving le chocolat.  So I leave you with glimpses for your visual pleasure.  Bon week-end food porn addicts!