New Opening
Le Blé De Paris
When French president Jacques Chirac proclaimed that after Finland, England has the worst food in Europe, he obviously hadn’t sampled Le Blé’s crêpe suzette. It’s not often a dish is so monumentally bad that it obliterates all memory of the meal that went before, but were this pathetic excuse of a pancake released to a wider public it could single-handedly destroy France’s culinary reputation. To be fair, when the patriotic politician made his less than diplomatic statement this time last year, this budding French restaurant hadn’t yet been built, let alone opened up its serving hatches, and we can only hope that the offending dessert is merely a product of teething troubles.
Le Blé’s newness means that its alcohol licence has yet to be granted – a fact which we were sympathetic to – but the truth is that a bottle of red wine from behind the substantial wooden bar would have been a welcome addition to the empty glasses that taunted us from the table. Still, with a glass or two of decent freshly squeezed orange juice on hand we pressed on with the judging.
Our starters were perfectly fine, if a little bland. My healthy dose of soft smoked salmon, capers and crisp fresh onion rings went down a treat with great rips of crunchy bread. Sadly, my friend’s avocado admiral appeared as a greasy, coleslaw-looking mixture of tiny prawns and avocado. Thankfully the creamy concoction proved a lot more appetising than it looked.
The main courses were certainly beautifully presented, with such care taken over the pretty precision that the food was lukewarm by the time it reached our mouths. The low temperature wasn’t enough to confiscate the smiles from my partner, however, proof that the mediumcooked steak was a tender choice that worked well with the salty cubes of parsley sautéed potatoes. But the peppery chargrilled Cajun chicken proved to be the plat du jour. Tangy chunks of mango in a sweet salsa were drizzled sparingly on the delicate slices of juicy meat, and were complemented by diminutive chunks of sweet potato.
And then came the suzette. The meaty-tasting pancake – one of only three choices of dessert – was suffocated by dollops of radioactive orangecoloured sauce that resembled squeezy cheese and was stuffed with mushy kiwi fruit. The saccharine sweetness killed off any potential zest. Every mouthful seemed like submission to a cruel dare; Suzette, whoever she may be, would surely have turned in her grave. The blackboard advertising the pancake as if it were a house speciality only added insult to injury. With such little choice, ice cream was selected on the other side of the table, with crunchy ice prompting further looks of disappointment from our table.
Despite the gastronomic mixed bag, the service was superb. Admittedly we were the only table to be served throughout the entire evening – although the other restaurants surrounding the Green Community’s lake didn’t look any busier – but the correct balance between attentiveness and suffocation was nonetheless achieved with prompt and polite exactness.
Thankfully for Monsieur Chirac, and despite the monochromatic photographs of cafés on the Champs Elysées and advertising reproductions for Savon de Marseille, Le Blé is about as French as Christina Aguilera in a can-can skirt – who was, by chance, murdering ‘Lady Marmalade’ as we grimaced and paid the bill.
There was not a snail in sight, and disappointingly not so much as a sniff of a frog. While Jacques provoked unprecedented wrath from chefs in at least two countries (as well as costing Paris the Olympics, it’s been suggested), Le Blé is unlikely to stir more than a nonchalant shrug from most of its patrons.
Le Blé De Paris, The Green Community (04 885 3111). Open 12 noon-10pm daily. All major credit cards accepted.
The bill (for two)
Smoked salmon Dhs25Avocado admiral Dhs25
Steak Dhs45
Cajun chicken Dhs32
Orange juice x2 Dhs30
Perrier Dhs10
Aquafina water Dhs3
Crêpe suzette Dhs15
Ice cream Dhs10
Coffee x2 Dhs20
Total (excluding service) Dhs215