Le Christine

Before I commence telling you about this delightful restaurant, let me acquaint you with a brief gastronomic history of Le Gourmand. Despite his moniker, given to him by a French waiter on our first visit to Paris, his deep love of food has limitations. When I first met him these limitations included fish, seafood, mushrooms, pork, anything that looked too much like the original animal (this category includes quail, spatchcock but thankfully not chicken) and, of course, offal. Anyone who knows us, knows the exasperation that this causes me, reared as a child on pate and oysters. Some of our more food obsessed friends share in this exasperation - one evening Le Gourmand went out for a French meal unsupervised and I received delighted messages from two of his dining companions informing me that he had eaten an oyster! The magnitude of this was reinforced the following afternoon when I was chatting to a friend from another state who brought it up as "the big news". Other progress has been made - my largest successes relate to mushrooms and pork but slow ground has been made on seafood.

This became relevant when we opened the menus at the delightfully decorated Le Christine (the signature colour, orange, was liberally splashed around). They were in French and English (I made the disappointing realisation later in the night that we had been seated in the English speaking area and most of the French diners were seated in a different part of the restaurant) and it was immediately clear that there was little in the way of first course that would be suitable for the palate of Le Gourmand. Of course the pregnancy restrictions on liver, raw fish, undercooked meat, salad meant that my menu choices were no walk in the park either, but I had at least been expecting trouble. Le Gourmand rose to the challenge and instead of selecting the safe but vanilla Salade de légumes croquants, tapenade et copeaux de parmesan, he ordered
Salade de homard et gésiers confits, coulis de vin doux. Lobster and gizzards! Do you think I'll be able to eat it? Not wanting to be brutally truthful and tarnish this golden moment (but not really looking forward to a vomitous aftermath), I smiled bravely and said I thought the gizzards would be a very small component of the dish and he would enjoy the lobster as it was a sweet, not too fishy, meat. I had opted for the slightly less flamboyant Anchois de Collioure et poivrons rôtis à l’huile d’olive.

Bravo Le Gourmand! His dish was extremely tasty and gave my anchovies and marinated red peppers a run for their money. The gizzard were in fact a large player in the dish but they were surprisingly mild. I was a little jealous. The evening had started in fine style.

We disagreed over who had the better main. My veal chop (Côte de veau épaisse, crème d’estragon, gnocchis de pommes de terre grand-mère) was beautifully sauced but the gnocchi was pan fried and a little disappointing - possibly an inevitable result after our six months in Italy. His veal stew in white sauce was also tasty (Joue de veau comme une blanquette légère, petits légumes) but I thought that the sauce lacked the punch of my veal chop. We debated these finer points with the Englishman dining alone and sitting beside us.

We were evenly placed after two courses. I opted for a safe but superb Crème brûlée aux framboise and tried not to feel too jealous when Le Gourmand ordered Soufflé au Grand Marnier - a soufflé with a shot of Grand Marnier on the side. This shot posed more trouble than originally contemplated when it transpired that this was the only flavouring in the dish and Le Gourmand poured the shot over the souffle without piercing the surface, resulting in the alcohol pouring off the top of the souffle, onto the plate below. I tried not to watch as Le Gourmand determined that the only solution to this problem, once he had pierced the surface, was to take the underlying plate and pour the liquid into the souffle for the second time. Amusing in hindsight, at the time - less amusing.

Having commenced the meal at 9pm it was quite late when we emerged onto the streets of St Germaine, well satisfied by a feast of delectable morsels.