SubscribeLUNCH October 2, 2008
There are companies in the United States that will sell you a kit with everything you need to open an Irish pub, from the pint glasses and the knickknacks on the wall to a broguish Irish name for the joint. Of course, the pubs don’t look like actual pubs in Ireland (there are not enough children eating crisps in front of the telly in mid-afternoon), but the North American consumer is none the wiser.
Walking into Pois Penché I can’t help but wonder if someone doesn’t offer the same service for 1940s French brasseries. White tablecloths, checkerboard wood floors, red chairs, a little brass and dark wood, some vaguely post-Impressionist art and a few uniformed waiters and we’re off to the races (although methinks the crocodile print banquettes and chandelier may be a tad too much). The Edith Piaf-era songs yodelling over the sound system help as well, but you still get the impression that this is a restaurant with no soul: a corporate reproduction unmasked by the PP logos embossed on everything in sight.
The lunch menu features the bistro classics: tartares, Niçoise salad, Lyonnaise salad, steak frites, moules frites. The pretty-expensive-for-lunch seafood platters ($80 or $150) are a little less classic for a bistro lunch as are the hamburgers and club sandwich, but it seems there is something for everyone.
I am tempted to order the lunch special boeuf bourguignon but my dining companion opts for a hamburger and peer pressure gets the best of me. Besides, in the 21st century the hamburger is increasingly popular in France having now been formally purged of its American roots. The lamb burger is topped with a healthy round of Boursin and served on a crunchy wheat bun with fries The meat is overseasoned and cooked to the limits of decency. The bun is a little too big and the whole experience is forgettable. The fries are served in a towering pewter-looking coupe that prevents me from seeing across the table. I hate that. Put the fries…beside the burger…on the plate. This isn’t Experimental Fine Dining 101.
Service is erratic but not unfriendly—although my dining companion’s request for ketchup is met with guffaws (a touch which I thought may have been the most authentic part of the Pois Pench é experience ). The wine list features a good number of by –the-glass pours including a respectable Cotes de Ventoux Domaine de Fondreche Cuvee Fayard 2006.
It doesn’t feel right to condemn a French style bistro when you’ve only had a hamburger there, so I won’t do it. But neither will I go back to Pois Pench é after two very average burgers, two glasses of wine and two coffees rang in at $90 with tip. Maybe the menus that came with the 1940s brasserie kit listed the prices in francs? I will leave the investigation to others.
Cost: See above
Brasserie Pois Penché
1230 de Maisonneuve W.
514.667.5050
http://www.lepoispenche.com/
