Le Square Gardette - Paris, 11th Arrondissement

Back to reality, but reliving my recent holiday to Europe through my food pics.

First night in Paris was this bar/restaurant called Le Square Gardette.  Sitting at the tables on the pavement with "vin" in hand, looking at Parisian apartments glistening as the sun goes down, it was a perfect first night amongst the locals.  Then when our stomachs started rumbling we went inside.   It is an eccentrically decorated dining room with moose heads hung on the wall.  Feels like a grandma's house with old carpet and single stem flowers on the tables.

This place is further out from the centre but it is a developing hipster suburb with lots of restaurants popping up experimenting with modern French fare.  Tenne Belles is a coffee bar fave amongst Aussies for coffee in Paris which is a few blocks up from this place. 

This meal set the standard for the rest of the trip.  Like most restaurants it is a set menu.  For 41 Euro we got 3 courses which is pretty good value for what we got.  The menu is written on the day depending on what the chefs source from the markets.  The waitress had basic English skills and struggled to translate some dishes but we kind of got the gist of the main things.  If you are that keen on the exact dishes you can translate from the menu below. . .

If in the arrondissement I highly recommend this place.

I forgot to take a pic of the amouse bouche and we also got this tasty starter as a surprise before our entrée.  Forgive me it was a quite a few weeks ago but I cannot remember what this dish was.  Sashimi with zucchini noodles I think!

Below was my entrée of fresh taglitelle, with slithers of cuttlefish, shallot, egg yolk and raspberry sauce!  Amazing! 

My husbands' entrée:  Ceviche of white fish, with kiwi and popcorn and probably other things.  It was an unusual combo but tasted great.

Main of poached chicken with mango and some type of vegetable puree.  This was good but my least fave of the night, lucky it wasn't my choice lol!

 

My main of fish with ratatouille, eggplant puree and pamplemousse, which is grapefruit.  This was delicious.

 

Dessert time!  Chocolate tart with a yummy crumble.  I clearly remember this chocolate to be so creamy but not that sickly rich.  Even at the end of the meal you could scoff this and not feel ill afterwards.  Must be a really good type of cocoa.

My dessert was a meringue with tarragon Chantilly cream and grapefruit.  I left a few pieces of the "pamplemousse" (love that word) behind as it was just a bit too tangy.