Cafe de Paris @ Pavilion

After wrapping up a meeting with someone in Pavilion, on a potential 'side income generating' (or more like pocket change...kekeke ;D) project, I headed to Café de Paris @ Pavilion for dinner.

This French-inspired cafe, patisserie, bar and bistro looked authentic (from afar) and held even more promise as I drew closer.  The façade of the café, with its partial brown structure resembling the foot of the Eiffel Tower, gave it the 'Paris' feel!

The classic yet modern indoor dining area is both comfy and cosy.  The al fresco area exudes a Parisian ambience where you'd feel like sitting for hours, sipping on a cup of coffee and simply watch the world go by.

Browsing through the menu, the dishes on offer are distinctively French from boeuf bourguignon to ratatouille to provencale to bouillabaisse.  I settled on a light dish of Fish en Papillote @ RM37 which was an oven baked sea bass with carrots, leeks, celery, asparagus, lemon, thyme and dill.  Fish en Papillote is just a fancy name for fish wrapped and cooked in parchment paper.

The sea bass was cooked just right, succulent and flaky, and extremely light on the palate for a simple and healthy dish...I loved it!  Cooking the fish this way seals in all the juices and kept the fish moist.  When the fish first arrived at the table, it looked like it was encased in filo pastry but it wasn't...so, no, you can't eat it!  I could definitely smell the citrusy lemon and thyme fragrance in the fish.  The leeks and celery (but there were no carrots or asparagus) at the bottom of the fish were soft but a bit stringy.

This main meal was served with a choice of toasted French bread (but not sourdough) or herbed flavoured rice (and you'd need these carbs coz the fish portion was rather small).  On hindsight, I should have chosen the herbed rice as there was very little juice at the bottom of the fish (actually none by the time I finished eating the fish) to soak up with the bread.  The bread would have been a better choice if I had ordered the boeuf bourguignon (beef stew) or bouillabaisse (seafood stew).

Realising that, I requested for some butter for my untouched bread.  And the server came back with this creamy Lescure French butter, of course, mmm....not one, not two, but three, at no extra charge (although I needed and consumed only one)....that's service for you! :-)

The other main we chose was the Pasta Au Saumon @ RM33 which was penne pasta tossed in a rich cream based sauce with salmon, capers and dill.

There's nothing to complaint about when a simple, well cooked creamy pasta dish lands in front of you.

For desserts, they have quite a selection of tarts and cakes at the counter for you to choose from (chocolate palet, raspberry souffle, caramel hazelnut and amandine red fruit tarts, white chocolate and cherry brownie and berry chocolate pare).

I chose the Amandine Red Fruit Tart @ RM11 (from the cake counter) or maybe I should call it a "tartellette" since it's just a mini tart (and rather expensive at that).  It's a tart with strawberries and one blueberry in the middle (and probably some crushed almonds underneath).  I did like the slightly sweet, slightly tart, glossy berries topping but the tart shell...not so much.  The tart shell was a bit hard and looked like it had seen better days (probably would have tasted better earlier in the day).  Let's just say it didn't taste as good as it looked!

Our drinks for the evening were:

My order of Cold Almond Latte @ RM13, which was espresso, milk and ice whipped up with almond essence.  Unfortunately, it wasn't quite to my liking.  Should have stuck with the more familiar tastes of vanilla or hazelnut.

I later saw Getafix on the receipt (meaning get-a-fix, I suppose) and was wondering what it was and then realised that it was just the Fresh Watermelon Juice @ RM15 that we ordered.

#Fun Fact:
The iconic Eiffel Tower in Paris just turned 125 years old last week (it took 2 years, 2 months and 5 days to construct and was officially completed on 31 March 1889).  It hasn't always been brown...it was once painted yellow and brownish-red.

My Personal Opinion

If you're looking for some authentic classic French dishes like beef bourguignon or bouillabaisse to steak-frites, tartines and French pastries, you can find it here.

Personally, I've not eaten much French food and (so) is no authority on what's good and what's not but the Fish en Papillote that I had was delicate and beautiful....c'est manifique!  Bon Appetit!

Café de Paris
Lot C3.06.02 Level 3
Pavilion Kuala Lumpur
168 Jalan Bukit Bintang
55100 Kuala Lumpur
Tel: 03-2144 4822