I’m old. I’m not a kid anymore so by now I should know better than to judge everything by its cover. I have learned many times in the past that I have been wrong about many things when I judge without learning, trying to or getting to know. So few months ago when Howard and I walked by what used to be Da Vincenzo, an Italian restaurant, we saw a piece of paper taped up on one of the door. It was the menu for Le P’tit. Yay I love French food. But seeing where it was I didn’t have much high expectations. If you know that area you should know that Prospect Park West isn’t much of a destination for foodies. Though it seems like things are changing with the addition of Double Windsor.

After briefly looking at the menu I thought I’ll give this place a try but I wasn’t in a hurry. Not until I started hearing and reading how frakkin’ good this place was. So it seems the owner of Le P’tit is a real Frenchman and not just some guy that wanted to open a random French restaurant. Sweet!

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I was watching an episode of “Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home” in which they made some fancy French desserts. One of the recipes involved making pate a choux, a kind of all purpose batter that you can use to make cream puffs, eclairs, gougeres, and profiteroles (among other things). It actually didn’t look to hard, so I figured “Why not?”

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l’auberge chez francois

Though I’ve eaten at tons of different restaurants featuring cuisines from around the world, I’ve never really had a meal at an old-school French restaurant (hereafter referred to as OSFR). In fact, OSFRs (once the vanguard of high cuisine in America) seem to be going the way of the dodo. I once ate at the now-closed Provence, and I was treated to a meal at Tocqueville, but at both French restaurants the vegetarian entree was risotto, which is (of course) Italian. I know that French cooking doesn’t lend itself to vegetarianism, but still. So when my parents started telling me about a great French restaurant near them in Great Falls, VA, I was intrigued. Then my friends Jeff & Eva raved about their trip to a French restaurant in… Great Falls Va. What was this place? L’Auberge Chez Francois (as Jeff points out, perhaps the most generic name for a French restaurant ever is Chez Francois) has been serving Alsatian inspired French cooking to the Washington, DC area for 50 years.

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