![]() ![]() The leeks and their dressing were "delicious", while a Lyonnaise salad, also with poached egg, was enlivened by the most glorious, crunchy lardons. "Don't be silly," came the inevitable reply. I'm not sure how I came to be dragged into this Socratic dialogue (too much of the very decent house chardonnay, I suppose, from a list that adds just £6, £8 or £10 corkage to the bottle price charged by the vintner side of the business). "Perhaps not," I pointed out, "but it was there on the menu." "This egg can't be good for my cholesterol," she said accusingly. ![]() She began instead with one of many classic bistro dishes on a simple but hugely tempting menu, leeks vinaigrette with a poached egg. And even though, as you know," she went on, raising her voice 12.6 decibels, "I can't really be doing with the French, I like them here. I love it here madly - the feel, the food, even the beret. "I mean, no tomatoes for my tomato and onion salad. "I'm getting irritated now," said my mother. "This place is exactly as it should be in every way," enthused my wife, and we were all enraptured. But soon it became obvious that the owner, erstwhile Marco Pierre White stalwart Jean-Christophe Slovak, is a total charmer with a neat sense of self-parody ("My accent eez so strong, people assume I must be Eeenglish") and his place a recession-proof delight. "I shall say zees only once," my wife whispered, "but somehow we've strayed on to the set of 'Allo 'Allo!"Īt first glance, there is something a touch pantomimic about this cosy, flickering candlelit fin de siècle bistro, its windows covered in elegant lettering on the outside and net-curtained within, the space done out plainly but engagingly with advertising prints and blackboards. The command having been duly reissued daily for a month, eventually a family outing was greeted by a man wearing a beret and a silk cravat. ![]() It's flawless." Flawless being an adjective she ordinarily lavishes only on HM the Queen, praise comes no higher from the planet's most remorseless restaurant complainant, who once sent back a scotch because "This ice is much too cold", and who received a life ban from a Chinese joint for taking aggressive umbrage at the scarcity of lychees. There are other, cheaper ways to make absinthe, but in Switzerland they can’t be labeled absinthe."I'm not telling you again," she said a while ago of L'Absinthe, a year-old bistro near my parents' home in the heart of London's celeb-laden Primrose Hill, "you must review it. The mixture is distilled for a second time, and the green chlorophyll from the second set of herbs remains in the distillate, which is now absinthe. Next, the distillate is used to macerate another set of herbs, and this is where the petite wormwood, hyssop and Melissa and other herbs come in. Some distillers do sell the clear spirit, but it’s not widely available. The resulting clear liquid has some of the flavors of absinthe, but not all. The mixture is macerated (steeped like tea) for a few days, then distilled in giant copper kettles to remove any off flavors or impurities. A variety of herbs and spices are added including grande wormwood, an herb with a beautiful yellow flower, green anise, sweet fennel, peppermint, coriander, angelica and veronica. True absinthe is made using all-natural ingredients, beginning with a clear distillate of alcohol derived from white grapes called eau de vie. ![]()
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