M. ESCOFFIER
The velouté froid is a test dish, for only a master hand can give it the right consistency without allowing it to become pasty. The mousselines were beautifully light, each in the form of a cygnet, surrounding a central figure of a swan. The poularde Ena was the one dish in the banquet to which, because of its richness, I kissed my hand and passed it by. The combination of quails and grapes is one of M. Escoffier's happiest inspirations, and the pêches Ste Alliance is one of those delicate entremets in which Escoffier excels any other great chef of to-day, or of the past. The trou Normand is rather a violent stimulus to appetite, and consists of a liqueur-glass of old brandy. When M. Escoffier came with the coffee, to ask us what our verdict was on his dinner, our only difficulty was to find a sufficiency of complimentary adjectives.
[V]
TWO LITTLE SOHO RESTAURANTS
AU PETIT RICHE. MOULIN D'OR
There is a little restaurant in Old Compton Street, the Au Petit Riche, with the outside of which I was acquainted for some years before I put foot inside it. It so evidently kept itself to itself that I felt that my presence might be resented. It has little casemented windows in white frames, and inside the windows are muslin curtains, on a rail, hung sufficiently high to prevent anyone from looking over them. Below the windows are green tiles, and above it a stretch of little panes of bottle-glass in white frames to give additional light to the rooms inside. A little ground-glass lantern hung outside the door, and the name of the restaurant was painted over the window, but there was no bill of fare put up outside, no attempt to draw in a diner unless he had made up his mind to dine at the Au Petit Riche and nowhere else. I had been told all about the restaurant by those gallant souls who experiment at every new eating-place that springs up between Shaftesbury Avenue and Oxford Street, and though all I heard about the little place was pleasant and interested me, I felt that the Petit Riche was not anxious to make my acquaintance. But when the Petit Riche put up outside its windows an illuminated sign and its number, 44, in big figures, I felt that it had abandoned its haughty reserve and was beckoning to me, and the rest of London, to come in. And in I went, and have been going in at intervals ever since, for the little restaurant is artistic and French and amusing.