DINNER December 29, 2009

I don’t really eat tartare in winter. To me it is such a quintessentially warm weather dish that I gloss right over it on menus from October to April. But friends invited me to Marche 27 on this frigid December evening and since its reputation is for tartare (and for having very little else on the menu) I was more or less cornered. The restaurant looks like a high-end lunch counter: refrigerated display cases and  marble topped tables with aluminum chairs dominate the room while antiseptic white tiling rises into layers of colored tiles and finally to blackboards stretching to the ceiling.

While I was waiting I tried to warm myself up with a French onion soup. Big mistake. French onion soup is a funny dish. It’s a simple but it gets  mangled fairly consistently. Like the miso soup in a sushi restaurant, though, it’s an excellent test of a kitchen. And if it was a test Marche 27 would not only have failed but likely been expelled from school as well. I can actually smell something is off as the carcinogenic waft hits me before the bowl hits the table. The cheese is burned and has curled up into a ball as if to protect itself from further injury. It’s not gruyere nor does it have the tensility of gruyere. The broth is heavily wine and thyme flavored but not otherwise offensive, however there is very little sweetness in the onions. But the worst part is that the factory croutons have sesame seeds on them. A shitty soup by any other name…and for $9. Wow.

After the soup, I am understandably leery of allowing the kitchen to engage in any cooking for the main course, which makes eating a tartare in winter all the more palatable. There are a few non-tartare options: hamburgers, ribs, steak frites, but in my mind if I’m ever getting my hands on a Marche 27 tartare it is likely now or never. Marche 27 has a Chinese restaurant approach to tartare: pick any meat, pick any sauce and we’ll put them together. In addition to beef, tuna and salmon, they also offer, duck, venison and smoked salmon (the latter for people who are looking for a starter tartare, I guess). You can have it French style (think traditional beef tartare), Thai style (with coriander, lime and lemongrass), Italian style (parmesan and truffle oil), Japanese style (with tempura, soy and chives) or spicy (with chipotle). The Japanese tartare seemed particularly offensive and I started secretly hoping one of my dining companions would order one so I could prod it with a stick. It also struck me as odd that a tartare restaurant wouldn’t have a basic salmon tartare on the menu but I don’t think you can get there  (at least to my tastes) with the Marche 27 permutations. So I did what any sensible person would have done and ordered the beef tartare, French style with a quail egg for an extra $1.

The tartare was pretty, served simply with the quail egg in the center and little spears of French toast (where was the bread when they were putting that soup together?). It looked better that it tasted though. I like spicy food so I found it fine, but a lot of people would not have agreed as it was quite overseasoned. A Thai style salmon tartare also failed to impress, but mostly because, for my tastes,  farmed salmon is just way too fatty to serve in a tartare. A side of fries were unevenly cooked, some dark brown others almost raw, but there was a certain hominess about them that I liked nonetheless. Sadly, the homemade mayo with which they were served had an off-putting sweetness .

Our waitress was nice enough, but so young I considered asking her for ID when I ordered the wine. The art of service did not appear to come to her naturally, which is just as well as it probably means she will shuffle into another line of work (maybe if she fails her sociology mid-term). All in all a forgettable (even regrettable meal). Tartare is definitely a summer meal but I don’t think I’ll be eating too many sun soaked lunches at Marche 27 come the month of May.

Who do you think makes the best tartare in town? Have any thoughts about Marche 27? Leave a comment below and let us know what you think.

Marche 27
27 Prince Arthur W.
514.287.2725

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