Thursday, September 11, 2008

La Cagouille

There is a famous restaurant where all the vignerons from Burgundy eat when they are in Paris. The restaurant is called La Cagouille. It is somewhere behind Montparnasse. It is not a very nice area, so I am surprised that one of the most famous seafood restaurants in Paris is situated there.

The restaurant only has seafood. The chalk board with the menu & specials of the day arrives at your table and you can choose the dinner menu or order a-la-carte, which we decided to do.

The first dish was raw sardines marinated in olive oil. So simple but yet so good. The sardines were so fresh.


The second dish was deep fried rougets. Two medium sized rougets arrived deep fried to a golden brown. The fish were cooked perfectly. When my friend opened his fish, the center of the fish was still a bit pink. Thel meat was firm and tasted very nice.


The third dish was a turbot. One of the most expensive fishes in the world to eat. I decided to splurge on this dinner. It is not often you can find turbot on the menu. The turbot was grilled perfectly. It actually was an enormous fish. I had about 500 grams of meat, which is a lot for a fish. The meat was tender, delicate and juicy.


The accompanying side dishes for both main courses were celery puree and a green salad. The celery puree was creamy and rich and the salad was for contrast, crisp and light.

The wine that accompanied our food was a 2006 Riesling from Kientzler. The Riesling had nice citrus aromas of limes and oranges. On the palate dry and fresh. It has intense lime, orange and spicey flavours with a good dry finish. Palate cleansing and very tasty. It accompanied the seafood very well.


The waiter we had was not friendly but was not mean either. The restaurant was so busy that evening, that he was just doing what he was suppose to do but did not add any emotion to it. I recommend that you call one day in advance to reserve your table. Even though the restaurant is quite large with many tables, it fills up very fast.

La Cagouille is a very interesting restaurant. When we arrived and entered the restaurant, the table in front of the door was sitting the centrist politician & leader of the Mouvement Democrate (MoDem), Francois Bayrou. When we entered the main dinning room of the restaurant, to our right was sitting the former leader of the French Communist party (PCF), Robert Hue. After we sat down, in front of us was sitting a famous French author. This restaurant is so good that it brings all people from all walks of life together, no matter what their political, social or artisitic view is; we all have one thing in common, that we think the seafood at La Cagouille is unbelievably fantastic.

La Cagouille
10 place Constantin Brancusi
75014 PARIS - FRANCE
Tél : +33 (0)1 43 22 09 01
Fax : +33 (0)1 45 38 57 29
contact@la-cagouille.fr

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