Le Vagenende – Paris

Le Vagenende
142, Boulevard St-Germain
75006 Paris
01.43.26.68.18

We turned in to Le Vagenende because of their tremendous display of oysters in the front window…and we weren’t disappointed. They were absolutely wonderful. With them we drank a ’98 Meursault “Les Corbins” (Bitouzet Prieur). It was smokey but not a smoked wood taste, more like smoked salmon or trout—hard to explain really!

For main dishes we got the Cod dish, served with chopped zucchini, olives, pimento, sliced fried garlic and slicked tomatoes. Very tasty. And also the Salmon and Farfalle dish which was absolutely excellent. It had a butter sauce with slightly overcooked zucchini but that didn’t ruin it for me.

The dessert menu came…written in hilarious broken english. The Creme Brulee was written as, “Creams burned in pots with scents from Provence” and the crepes were, “Pancakes with Grand Marnier.” We got the french menu and ordered “Tartelette chocolat, ècrasè de framboises et violettes” and the “Traditionnel baba au rhum et raisins” (chocolate death dish and a rum baba) :). The Chocolate mousse cake was amazing, served in a bittersweet chocolate bowl with cocoa powder on top. Pureed raspberries with a violet essence and a strawberry garnish. The Rum Baba had a much lighter brioche than we’d experience before. It was topped with a huge dollop of semisweet cream and golden raisins. The rum had lost some of it’s kick since the sauce is served from a large bowl but maybe that’s just what they give the Americans.

All in all, a very very good meal!