Okay. We are at restaurant 300. We have a place picked out and some
folks interested in celebrating along with us. It will be our 300th
in spirit but not in number. Long ago we discovered it would be
highly unlikely or an incredible pain to celebrate things on the day
designated. Since then we have had much more fun waiting til things
made sense and celebrating then. It also typically allows us to
celebrate more…so instead of waiting to get everyone together we are
going to plan the nice dinner out and mark the numerical passing
with three weekend stops. I’m fond of the way we do things…AND a
pile of us should be dining on the lake in the near future. |
Our first stop is back as the West Side Market for a little stand that was closing the last time we attempted to patronize them. Crepes De Luxe seems to be connected to the coffee/tea shop right next door. We know we are headed to early dinner close by but having read then menu still decide on two savory and two sweet crepes. We didn’t get through all of any of them, one of which really made me sad.
The woman behind the counter was nice enough to ring all four thin
cakes together and hold off on making the sweet versions until we
had the chance to taste the savory options. All of the crepes are
formed on commercial style round griddles which look like cast iron
drum heads and the batter is spread with tiny polo mallet looking
sticks. Once set enough to flip, they get turned, topped and folded
into paper which get inserted in little cardboard sleeves which
appear to be made just for something like this French street food.
Some street foods are easy to eat…hotdogs/this or that on a stick.
Some are not…soup/these crepes. Easy to hold, but the tender pancake
is nearly impossible to lift from the sleeve and the innards all
succumb to gravity and burrow for the unreachable netherworlds. Much
more difficult than expected. |
The Spread |
The Stuff |
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La Chevre, Fine But Boring |
The Montreal, Less Boring But Not Necessarily Better |
There was nothing wrong with the savory crepes, but they were just
so-so at best. The La Chevre was filled with baby spinach, tomato
and goat cheese. I love tomatoes and goat cheese. I prefer raw
spinach to cooked but this wasn’t stewed past oblivion. There just
wasn’t enough of any of them to balance out the savory crepe batter.
Ehhh. The Montréal was a little better with very little Emmental
cheese and slices of smoked brisket. The brisket had a strong
peppery punch which stood up to the crepe but easily overpowered
everything else in the sleeve. |
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The Pear Caramel Was Really Nice |
The Citron Crème Simply Transcendent |
||
The sweet crepes were incredible improvements. The Pears Caramel
which also included walnuts was wrapped in a sweeter batter and it
may show my Americaness, but it certainly seems the whole idea of
the crepe was created for sweet applications and suffers some in
other translations. Now the one I was seriously sad to drop into the
waste receptacle was the Citron Crème, especially since again the
majority of the goodies had slid to the bottom of the whole mess. I
might have tried harder with a table or silverware or scuba gear.
Regardless the magic potion here was lemon curd and honey sweetened
mascarpone cheese. I would eat that on almost anything. If I knew
dinner was going to be such a mixed experience I would have found a
way to eat it all…and maybe another. Worth a stop…but stay sweet my
friends. |
Ratings | |||||||
Food |
Service |
Ambiance |
What's Best |
What's Worst |
Overall |
||
C | C+ | C | A | D | C- | ||
Sweetness | Savory Monotony |