La Voile seems to be as unpredictable as sailing. The quality of your sailing trip depends on the wind and the water, but sadly I think my maiden voyage at La Voile was more like that of the Andrea Gail (i.e. The Perfect Storm)…
Like the crew of the Andrea Gail, I went farther than my usual fishing territory of Chinatown and South End and ventured onto Newberry Street, land of the tourist traps. My journey started out pleasantly enough with a light breeze of amuse-bouche – olive tapenade and a slice of saucisson-sec.
Sadly, instead of the ice-machine breaking, the bread oven must have blown up because the bread was awful and had clearly been sitting out all day. Shame on you, La Voile, for misrepresenting your country’s legendary bread!
The appetizer Les betteraves was the start of my trip to Flemish Cap – my luck improved with this great salad of mixed greens evenly coated with sweet honey vinaigrette. The haricots vert were a bit of a moot point – no contribution to the flavor of the salad, but can’t complain…
Le filet de rouget was my lucky catch. This fresh, tender, tastes-like-fish-but-not-too-fishy red snapper tempered with olive tapenade was to complement and enhance the flavor of the fish. The baby artichoke with tomato confit, like the storm, clearly came from above. It was divine, and I swear, if they had served a plate of just that I would have ordered two.
Tragically, Le carré joined forces with its side dishes to precipitate the perfect storm. The rack of lamb was probably cooked sous-vide but someone forgot to season it. The jus was good, but after the first bite of lamb it became abundantly clear that the lamb was placed on the jus, not cooked in it. In short, it was juicy and tender but tasted like well…lamb. The tomato provencale was the Coast Guard in The Perfect Storm – it looked scrumptious enough to rescue the lamb in peril but its mediocrity allowed it to succumb to the storm.
To round out the good, the bad, and the ugly, the side of scalloped potatoes was the rogue wave that sunk the ship. You see, with great power comes great responsibility when using cream. A little bit of cream can add a powerful degree of richness to a dish, but over-enthusiasm made the potatoes nauseating for those with taste buds and deadly for those with lactose intolerance.
La Voile is like the movie version of a book. Though it has its nice touches of authenticity, such as the fact that all the staff speak French, it also fails in its depiction of crucial undertones, as evidenced by the debacle of the lamb, a dish through which French chefs usually display their prowess. Overall, the service was irreproachable, the salad was sweetly satisfying, and the ravishing red snapper was a palate-pleaser, but the bad bread and lewd lamb gave me some bad blood…literally, since the lamb was medium rare…Frankly, everything but the bread and the lamb was at least 4 stars, but I’m docking for the shameful lamb, which I deem as offensive as bad sushi in Japan.
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