Another example: they totally changed what was on my entree (and unlike the pear substitution, didn't even bother to tell me about it). I was supposed to have roasted leg of lamb with a ragout of coco beans, piquillo peppers, merguez sausage, and lamb jus. Instead, I had farva beans and carrots and some sort of white thing (merguez is a red sausage flavored with sumac, paprika, cayenne or harissa, and a little bit of anise -- it's supposed to be spicy and bold in flavor). The limp, overly-anisey white thing aside, it was pretty good. The white thing was gross. (Incidentally, marguez is a fairly popular lamb sausage in France, and spicy; I ate quite a few of them when I lived in France, because they were cheap. Whatever that white thing was, it's not real merguez.)

Also, the wine menu is pretty weird, and they ended up charging a bottle of wine as four glasses (instead of as a bottle). Boo.

The wait staff was ... interesting. My waiter was funny, but a bit of an ass. He ordered our desserts - including ordering desserts for people who didn't ask for some, and then charged us for them. A few of us had the bouchons (dense chocolate cakes the shape of a cork, cocoa nibs, homemade vanilla ice cream, chocolate syrup), and they were pretty good, though the pumpkin pot de crème looked better.

But the star of the night, by far, was the creamy sweet corn soup, which was beautifully silky smooth aside from some minced pototatos, salty minced bacon (which made a wonderfully crunchy contrast), and chopped chives.

The bread and pistachio nuts they served beforehand were good, as were the sweets they included (on top of the desserts) - I got to grab the nougat, which was deeeeeeelicious.

Conclusion: Glad I went, because the soup was awesome, and the rest of it was pretty good. Would I go again? Probably not.


I would, however, go to Mon Ami Gabi again. It was cheaper than Bouchon (I spent the same at both restaurants, but at MAG, I paid for part of someone else's meal, had a cocktail, and had wine with my meal - instead of just drinking water) and waaaaaaay better food. I'm not going to do a full write up of them until I get photos of my meal from Karyn and Sarah, because my camera's battery was nearly dead by then, and none of my photos turned out.