Trapped by the Chef

I’m not sure what reminded me of an experience I had last year, but it came back to me today like the evil combination of a PTSD flashback and a nightmare.

The scene: a lovely old bistrotish-looking, wooden-beamed place on the second floor overlooking the Seine. The menu: banal looking. The amuse-gueule: a small ball of a brandade of morue – no problem, who wants those never ending huge mounds. The meal: an average piece of foie gras at double the price I paid just earlier that week and a plate of sweetbreads exuding water (always a bad sign) with an insipid sweet sauce and soggy (not crisp) fries.

OK, quick coffee and I’m outa there, or am I?

As I get up to make a hasty exit I see the chef heading me off at the pass. Having once played hockey I know how to feint, so I quickly dart towards the basement toilet.

But again on exiting the cellar, my route was blocked and I sensed he was going to insist on my telling him why I didn’t finish my main. Now for an average human being, a pleasant: “It was rotten, soggy, badly sauced and too boot, the potatoes were disgraceful” would have been easy. But not for me, who flunked Assertiveness 101 three times. Besides which, once I start an answer like this, I find the chef usually gets defensive, wants every sordid detail and I want to get out and back to pleasurable dining.

So it was time to use stratagem #2, feint to the left where the table with cards and brochure were placed which I correctly predicted he’d want to hand to me, then actually go to the right, through the door and out of the Stalag.

Sometime after this, I realized there was one more dodge I had at my disposal: to glance out the door or window, cry out sub-vocally that my bus was approaching and makes a mad dash for it as if the next one wouldn’t come until midnight.

Give you the coordinates? Nah. Instead let’s go to a fun place:

Chez Léon

40, rue Legendre, 17^th (Metro:Villiers)

T: 01.42.27.06.82

Closed weekends

Lunch menus at 24 and 32; dinner at 28 and 34 €.

©2008 John A. Talbott