Friday, September 17, 2010

L'Opera Cafe - Avignon - France - review

Name:L'Opera Cafe 

Address: 24 Place de l'Horloge
Avignon 84000
France
 
33-4-90-86-17-43 
Food:
Average price: Lunch 15.90 - 18.90 € - Dinner menu 24 - 30 €

Complimentary: Just bread, three cold, chewy loaves.


We ordered:


Tomato gazpacho and salad -$7.50Euro


I was surprised with the frequency tomato gazpacho appeared on all price-ranged French restaurant menus. The salad was limp and completely unappetising, I wouldn't be surprised if it was yesterday's. The soup was quite chunky, was all onion and no tomato and also tasted like yesterday's lunch.


Salmon and salad


Same, scraggly salad as above doused in vinegar. R liked the salmon though.


Steak with potatoes and aioli - $12.90Euro




Worst steak of R's life - chewier than leather and even harder to cut through, he had to spit some out when he got lock-jaw from trying to break it down enough to swallow. Potatoes were soggy (some undercooked) and as tasteless as the aioli.


Lemon tart



The crust was nice but the curd was too runny, too sweet and without that wonderful lemon tang. The syrup was lovely, wish there had been more, and the sorbet was wonderfully surprising with its real strawberry-ness, the only real winner of the day.


Cost: $26.40Euro - for 2 special 2-course lunch deals.


Service:  Almost self-service. The waiters seemed more suited to being doormen and bartenders, barely looking at you whilst taking your order, hurrying back inside without ever refilling your water once. On a positive note the food came out fairly quickly and was cleared just as quickly.

Atmosphere: Bustling bar-cum-daytime eatery. The inside decor is definitely suited towards a bar rather than a cafe. The black floor looked like the Metro nightclub floor, meaning fairly dirty and the chairs inside were more suited to sitting back with a drink in hand rather than hunching over a table to eat, that said the chairs outside were comfy under the incredibly orange awning.


Parking: Risky. There are even less car parks in Avignon town which is geared towards pedestrians so take the bus or train and leg it.

Website: None.

Hours:  Monday - Sunday:  from 9:00am to 1:30pm, reopens at 2:30-7:00pm or 11:30pm (turns into a bar at night).

Would I return: No.

2 comments:

  1. That's a pity... I think it's a misconception that most French food is great and desserts are excellent... a pity...

    ReplyDelete
  2. It was really cheap though, and pretty fast. Everywhere on that day was PACKED, so they did ok considering the volume of people coming in. Its true though, that was the worst steak I have ever had...but thats what you get when you try to eat cheap food!

    ReplyDelete

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