A bizarre old Chestnut

After recommendations from various friends, Mrs smog and I decided to try out Le Marron last night. We had been told that it had good French food in a quaint environment, and the menus on the website looked promising; we were also tempted by the $40 corkage charge.When I called for a reservation they said they could only fit us in at 9, which worked fine for us, but when we arrived there did seem to be quite a few empty tables. The environment is indeed a bit “different” as you can see a little from the website: it is cosy and quaint, but the tables are quite close together and separated only by very light lacy curtains so it is not a place to have private conversations. The air-con is also HK-style, so Mrs smog had dinner in her outdoor coat.

The table was set with a pate and butter and a carafe of tap water when we arrived, the latter always being a plus point for me. We were offered the December menu and then a bowl of warm bread arrived – there was a selection of rolls, sticks and sliced baguette, all of which I enjoyed (Mrs smog doesn’t eat much bread).

Taking advantage of the low corkage I asked for a bottle of red that I had brought to be opened, which was done without fuss, but it was clear that “bring your own” also means “serve your own” (no big deal).

For starters, Mrs smog selected the Alaskan King crab legs, and I took the Bellota Grade Ibérico Ham. Both of these were excellent – I had forgotten how good properly aged ham can be.

We followed that with soup: pumpkin for me and lobster bisque for Mrs smog. The pumpkin was simple and warming, but nothing special. The lobster bisque was, unfortunately, not to Mrs smog’s taste at all. It had a very intense flavour (which Mrs smog described as “burnt”, but I wasn’t so sure) and wasn’t as creamy as “bisque” is usually taken to be.

The requested refill on the bread took an age to arrive, and consisted only of sliced baguette when it did.

For main courses, Mrs smog ordered the surf and turf (done medium-well); I hoped for the venison, but it was sold out, so I went for the lamb Wellington. The surf and turf was good – a very tasty bit of beef (actually done more medium than medium-well) and fresh king prawn with a few vegetables, mashed potato, and a little gravy. The lamb Wellington (cooked in an individual pastry case not sliced from a larger joint) was fine, although the lamb was a little over-cooked for my taste.

And this is where the bizarre bit came in. I had brought a second bottle of wine which I asked them to open and it was, unfortunately, badly corked. So Mrs smog caught the eye of a waitress and asked for the wine list. To which the unexpected response was that they don’t sell wine because they don’t have a licence. Slightly dumbfounded I asked to speak to the manager and pointed out to him that I had looked at their wine list on the website. Without a word he went and got one, noting though that many of the items (including the five cheapest reds and the house red) were out of stock.

While I was looking at it, Mrs  smog said to him that she had asked the waitress for a wine list and she had said they don’t have one. He replied “we cannot sell it to you but (pointing to me) we can sell to him”. Frankly, he was lucky that both of us were in a mellow mood, otherwise this could have got a bit messy, but as far as I can tell, Le Marron has a policy of only selling wine to gweilos.

The (apparently local) couple at the next table had a discussion about this (in Cantonese with smatterings of English), and and as far as I can tell, as marketed in Chinese, Le Marron does not have a wine list – they were quite surprised that I was able to get one from the manager. When I look at the Liquor Licensing Board’s website I see that Le Marron does have a “Club Liquor Licence”, no. 5312800371, but in order to get one of those it does need to be constituted and run as a “club”, with membership procedures, membership cards and so on, which it clearly isn’t. Why it thinks it can break the rules for a gweilo, but not for a Filipina is beyond me, but it leaves a nasty taste in the mouth.

Anyway, having got a bottle of the Australian Shiraz I decided to try the chese platter offered on the dessert menu. Unfortunately the waitress was only able to describe its contents in very generic terms, but what turned up were four small table water biscuits, each with a small portion of cheese: goat’s cheese (generic log), brie, a blue, and Boursin; there were a few grapes and a decoration of celery leaf. For a French restaurant this was a bit of a disappointment, but then again it was only $40.

So that was it. Overall I would say that most of the food is competently done, although the soups and the cheese were disappointing (but quite cheap); the quality of the ingredients in the starters and mains was good. However, the service is slow at times, and not easy to get when you are tucked away behind curtains – a couple of times we had to get up to attract the waitress’s attention. And the whole wine situation is bizarre. Having an apparently race-based policy on who they will sell to is really not good, and that is the main reason that Mrs smog and I are unlikely to be going there again soon. If you decide to try it then I suggest taking your own wine (and hope that it isn’t corked).