Disappointement at Les Halles DC

As you all can tell, I'm a foodie. I love to eat and cook and think and live food. As that kind of person, I LOVE Anthony Bourdain. I've read all his books, have the Les Halles Cookbook, and watch his shows on tee-vee whenever I can catch them. So, I was delighted to actually be in a city and have the time to venture into a Les Halles location.

Although I doubt that I set my expectations too high, what I ended up getting was one of the sigularly most disappointing dining experiences of my life.

I walked down to the restaurant on Pennsylvania Avenue from my friend's place on Thomas Circle, thinking I'd eat a couple courses as an early dinner. Since it was 5:30 PM, there was almost no one in the restaurant, which was fine by me. The server comes over, greets me (Bonjour!), and I order a glass of Medoc to start. (Un verre de medoc, s'il vous plait!) The glass comes, and I'm already apprehensive that I'm paying 12 bucks for what looks to be a tasting serving (literally three sips, max).

I look through the menu (like I didn't know it pretty much by heart by now), and decide to get the Mini Tartare de Boeuf, prepared tableside. Hey, I love my theatrics, leave me alone.

Another waitress comes over (Bonjour!) and asks me how I'd like the tartare prepared. I responded by telling her to make it a tad on the spicy side, but other than that, to make it the way she thought was the best. It took her about 7 minutes of mixing egg with various condiments (pepper, tabasco, worcestershire, etc) with the fresh beef before she scooped the tartare and arranged it oh so prettily on a plate with some toast points and a mesclun salad.

I take a bite anticipating a little corner of heaven... Ok, not bad. Competent, but definitely not nearly in the same league as the Kobe Tartare that I had at craftSteak in Vegas several months ago. Still, nice. Then I made the mistake of taking a bite of the salad... Ok, did the garde-manger fall asleep or what? The thing must have been salted at least three times. It was so salty that it burned my mouth. I gagged on it, and then lost the use of my palate for the next 10 minutes. So much for enjoying steak tartare. I'm a little pissed at this point, but I finish the tartare and leave the rest of the salad on the plate as a mini-protest for ruining my mini-tartare.

So, fine, I feel jipped on the wine, and can't taste anything yet. Let's refresh the palate by guzzling water, wine, then eating a piece of (stale) baguette. Ok, better.

I ended up getting the Mignons de Porc, since it is one of their signature dishes, and since I've actually made it from the cookbook. I wanted to see how mine stacked up to the original. Pork comes... it's tepid? Ok waitron. You've got three tables in an empty restaurant and I get cold-ish food? Well, whatever, I'll eat it anyway. Like I said, I've made this recipe... it starts out by making garlic confit (fancy way of saying slow roasted garlic) and then rubbing two pork tenderloins with it and leaving it overnight. Instead of confit, I got burnt. Basically, the pork and the sauce just tasted burnt. The sauce itself was fine (basic brown jus-glace-whatever type thing)but I couldn't get over the burnt garlic flavor. My rendition of the recipe was sublime by comparison. I gagged on the meat, ate a couple bites of the very boring mash (gluey!), and paid the bill.

All in all, the worst $50 I've ever spent on a bill short of being gouged for bad buurgers and fries at the Mouse Trap (sorry, don't want to get sued by a certain animation and entertainment company).

Les Halles DC... maybe it's time to close your doors, since ya ain't giving a sh*t about what you're serving. I got a drop of wine, a salt lick, and piece of charcoal for 50 bucks. I will never go back. Ok, I'll try the Park Avenue location, maybe.


Les Halles, DC
1201 Pennsylvania Ave.
Washington, DC
Tel: 202.347.6848
www.leshalles.net/washington.php

Happy Eating!