Aha, finally the time has come – and my fist restaurant is a
bit of a shame, which after the owner’s petty comments and bad attitude on tripadvisor,
has now turned into a big name and shame!
Whenever travelling I always have a look at restaurants on
tripadvisor to see real-time opinions and reviews from “real-people”.
This French restaurant in the heart of Cuzco is rated as the
number 1 in all of Cuzco – with many people raving about the interior of the
restaurant, and claiming that you will struggle to find better French food,
even in Paris! Now that is a bold statement to make.
To me this sounded like heaven! I love proper French food,
and after traveling for between 24-18 hours, what could be more satisfying than
a little bit of lush French cuisine?
This massive expectations we walked down the cobblestone
street to Le Soleil. We were the only customers there, but thought perhaps we
were early and this might be a pro, as it is not packed yet our food would be
served a little quicker – we were starving.
The host and owner was very friendly and was happy to answer
any questions about the menu, which looked rather yummy. And lucky me there was
a veggie starter and main.
For starters we had the ginger pumpkin crème with truffle –
this was really nice, nothing spectacular and no sign of the promised truffle,
but a warming ginger flavour. Snails in butter and herb sauce – which was just
that, nothing more, nothing less (presentation was lacking though). And the Avo
Swilrs, this is avocado strips rolled and filled with cubed veggies such as tomato,
cucumber and aubergine – a little bland, and actually a pretty presented four ingredient
salad.
Mains were duck breast and I had ratatouille. The duck was
nicely cooked, but no lush sauce or veggies to compliment this; and my
ratatouille was pretty much a warm version of my starter, substituting the
cucumber for baby marrow, and the avo for carrot.
Now maybe it’s just me, but I am 100% certain that it’s not,
no-one goes to a restaurant and orders a main and expects just a chunk of protein,
or a scoop of a cooked vegetables (and this comment is not only regarding Le
Soleil – but I might as well rant about it now and get it over with).
Where is the harm in putting a portion of side veggies,
salad, potato, sauce on a plate?? That’s right – no harm, in fact only
goodness. You are ordering a meal after all. I see this “trend” sticking out it’s
ugly little head in all the more restaurants, and frankly I think it’s
ridiculous! Stop squeezing the money for your well-paying clients greedy restaurateurs!
Tisk tisk tisk!
Anyway, back to our evening at Le Soleil. For dessert we had
the chocolate fondant as someone on mention this to be the best fondant they’ve
ever eaten; and the mango, tonka bean and passion fruit mousse – the passion
fruit was super sour, you could taste nothing else, and also did not want to
take a second bite for fear of burning a hole in your aorta with the sour acid
( a little dramatic, I know), surely the chef should taste what he puts on a
plate? Unfortunately the fondant, which was supposed to be the king of the
evening turned out to be a peasant in disguise. No rich chocolate lava flowing
out when cutting open… An overcooked fondant for any restaurant is a no-no, and
especially for a French restaurant, this is the mother of all no-no’s.
So all in all it was not the worst meal I’ve ever had, but
most certainly not the best. There is not one thing that we ate that was
exceptional or even great. I think due to the fact that this place received
such amazing reviews it was an ever bigger disappointment, as we arrived with
huge expectations.
In all honesty, the people that commented on that you could
not find better French food, even in Paris – I’m having a sneaky feeling that
they’ve probably never been to Paris, and the rest of the raving reviews might
well be the owner himself, or his close friends… as we were the only table
there for the evening. Does this sound like the kind of place that is the best
in a city? Empty during the festive season? No, it does not.
Do not be fooled, give this a miss when in Cuzco.
Until we eat again…
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