Saturday 14 April 2012

La Petite Auberge

I visited La Petite Auberge recently in Upper Street Islington. They gave me a very nice table upstairs. There was no one upstairs apart from me, which I liked, but there were quite a lot of people downstairs. Upstairs I sat on a french-looking chair and looked at the french-looking, old walls with little, old, french paintings and stained glass windows.

A waiter came up with the A la Carte Menu. I chose snails with parsley, garlic and lemon zest for starters and whitebait for my main course. The snails cost £4.50, but the whitebait costs roughly 10 pounds. I chose lemonade to drink with it, which was about the same value as the snails!

The waiter came up again to take my order, a minute later my small glass of lemonade arrived and a few minutes after that my snails came too. There were six snails accompanied by some bread in a separate basket. The snails were kept in there shells, which is normal, but I like them underneath the shells already taken out, so that you don't have to take them out yourself. The snails tasted very nice with the strong garlic sauce. If you try you will just about taste the lemon zest giving it the extra flavour it needs. The texture was perfect, because it wasn't too squidgy. After I had finished the snails, I dipped the soft bread into the lovely garlic sauce.

After that the whitebait arrived. I was looking forward to the whitebait, but I was incredibly disappointed when I saw that it was covered with batter and there was half a plate full of salad next to it. The batter had taken away the salty flavour of the white bate and had replaced it with a bland flavour. However there was a large portion of it and it wasn't exactly inedible.

I think the whitebait did change my view on the restaurant and the whitebait and the lemonade were too expensive for what they were. However the service there was good, it was in a good location and the snails were of a high quality. Putting this all into consideration I will give the restaurant a 76/100.

2 comments:

  1. A very good record of the fine dining through England and I will definitively be using this guide to plan my own meals. I love you Matthew!! <3 xx

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  2. I love your uniqueness as a critic and how you are intelligent at such a tender age. Speaking as a critic myself, I can truly say you should become a restaurant critic when you are older.

    I also think you are very talented and should have your own column on a successful newspaper.

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