Les Grandes Tables Du 104

This weekend there was some kind of festival across France with special menus in a list of restaurants (“Tous au restaurant”), where the second menu is given for free. We really wanted to go somewhere but most places were already marked as “Full” more than a week early. Last  minute I tried to reserve to some of the “Vacant” places but they were also actually full. So I reserved for one place that had a table and felt lest sympathy about. Shane and I dragged ourselves all the way to the 19th district (never been to this districts before) to find out we really don’t like the place at all, even not enough for a 21euro for two complete menus. We left and went out to look for something else. After almost loosing hope, I remembered Roy recommended me of a place in the 19th, Les Grandes Tables Du 104, we went to check it out. The restaurant was huge, located inside an art establishment holding shows and interesting stuff. It was mostly empty but we liked the look and the smell so we asked to sit. “Complete” said the waitress. Which was weird but not too much for Paris, it happened before. Well, we walked around and came back to beg for a sitting. Not taking no as an answer! After a nicer guy (could be the shift manager) went to check with the kitchen, we were allowed to sit down. Victory!

Menu of the day

I like how it's common to ask for a bottle of water and every restaurant has it's own design of it

silver ware

The bread had to be asked for, the service was quite slow and we were hungry

Entrées

Tomato cold soup with crunchy Jambon, parmesan and capers with "cappuccino" of coriander. The combination went great together, the crisp from the bacon and smoothness of the créme was very nice in the mouth, not a usual fist course.

Fresh calamar a la plancha, garlic chips, pepper from Espelette and Jambon. There were two Razor clams we tried probably first time here. This was an excellent dish maybe a little bit too salty.

The plate after, we even ate the squid ink garnish.

Plates:

Filet of goose with a garlic-citron glazing and roasted tomatoes condiment. This was succulent and excellent. We didn't know what meat it was until it was finished and still had not agreed on anything alone, we asked the waitress

Hake fish filet a la plancha, tartar of oyster and zucchini and parsley butter, dried olives. In both of the mains we had two purées one of roasted potatoes and were not sure about the yellow one, could be carrot, sweet potato or something like that, with yellow mushrooms inside. It was a nice dish though I needed more acidity to it like always. The tartar was fishy and slimy. I ate it without knowing what it was at first, thinking it has the texture of fish eyeballs.

Desserts:

Soft cake with dried black figs, créme of apples. Very nice dessert, the dense cake felt like semolina cake but it needed something fresh like ice-cream on top, in my opinion

The fig sneaking a peek

Slices of mozzarella, hazelnut chocolate and caramel. Was actually a great chocolate soup with mozzarella inside. Renovating but weird having the cheese inside, though the chocolate was great, a dish that needs a polish or a change

Yamm chocolate

And after

Our bill

What I loved about this meal is trying to discover what we eat while eating it. We only had the french menu and too proud to ask anything (Shane already told the waitress and a couple that was sitting next to us that we are culinary students). Every little thing had to be tasted carefully and understand deeply. It was an adventure and overall everything was pretty good. “My ciboulette is not cisolé good enough” said Shane justifiably and “The branoise of the courgette is a mess, we can do better then that!”, well it’s not a Michelin restaurant but with a Michelin chef (Fabrica Biasiolo) there’s still room for improvements.