La Parisienne, Frisco. Not Authentic, and Not Good

andychalk
2 days ago
4 min read

Don't worry about burns. This candle is not real.

by Andrew Chalk

The proprietors of this fugazi French restaurant must think Dallasites will put up with anything. From the ‘French tat’ design, apparently by a designer whose closest proximity to France was Paris Texas, to the food, wine, and service, it is an underwhelming and too expensive experience.

Ironically, ‘French bistro’ is not an oversupplied category in Dallas, where there are some good examples but there could be more, given French cuisine’s place as the culinary heart of Western food culture.

We did not see a single manager during our early Saturday evening visit. Maybe that is not an important time for them? Maybe first impressions are not important?

Our first interaction was with the water server, who clasped our glasses by the top, ensuring a good transfer of germs, fecal matter, whatever he was carrying, to the vessel we would be drinking from. He was totally unaware how to hold a glass when filling it, likely not because he was a bad person, but because none of the absent managers had trained him.

Drinks

I ordered a glass of The Château Saint-Sulpice, a red Bordeaux blend. It was an awful, cheap, red wine that I did not finish. I never found out the vintage, or if it was the correct bottle, because La Parisienne does not serve wine by the glass correctly. Bring the bottle to the table so that the customer can see what they are getting. Yet a glass sells for $14 at the same time that a whole bottle sells for $15 at retail stores. With Bordeaux such a bargain right now (even with 10% tariffs) at least use the opportunity to find something interesting. The basic problem appears to be that there is nobody in the La Parisienne operation who knows anything about wine. On the 40-selection list there are virtually no vintages listed, ‘Sauvignon’ (as in Sauvignon Blanc) is spelled incorrectly (twice), and most of the selections are not French. The whole list appears to have been sold to management by the local distributor, rather than chosen by them.

Appetizers

I chose Shrimp Bisque ($13) , which the waiter delivered as ‘Lobster bisque’ until I corrected him. It was totally unseasoned and appeared to have no lemon juice added either, making it a gastronomically monotonous yellow mass. The surface had developed a skin, so apparently it had been sitting around before appearing from the kitchen. I wanted to ask for salt and pepper and hit upon a recurrent service problem. Our waiter was hard to flag down, so I had half finished it before I got him, and salt and pepper must be hard to find here as it took him a long time to return with it after that.

The preparation and presentation of this dish suggested it came in a bag for on-site reheating. Either that, or the training problems at the front of the house extend to the kitchen. Nobody had tasted the soup that was coming over the pass, or they did not know how to. Why? Do they serve customers, or beta-testers?

The Moll ordered the Kurobuta Pork Belly Lollipops ($15), a well-presented line of three cubes of pork belly rubbed with five spice and Earl Grey tea. On the palate, it was sweet, like Korean barbecue. If that is your thing you will enjoy this.

Mains

I ordered the Parisienne Gnocchi ($25), described as ‘Choux Gnocchi Glazed In Truffled Béchamel, Ham, Green Peas, Gruyère, Toasted Crumbs’. I would expect ‘truffled béchamel’ to retain the creamy tone of the mother sauce once truffled, but this one was beige. Without referring back to the menu, I thought it was mushroom soup, especially as there were mushroom slices in the dish. It tasted good, especially with the brininess of the ham, but I was puzzled about how what I had on the plate conformed to what was on the menu.

The Moll ordered Colossal Shrimp Risotto ($25) in which the risotto was correctly al dente but bland to the taste, the ‘colossal shrimp’ closer to the small end of colossal (8/12), and the charred heirloom tomatoes almost MIA.

More On Service

The other service problem was flies. First one, then two, were buzzing around our table and the best the undertrained waiter could do was tell us that the exterminator was ‘coming in next week’. To his credit he deducted the undrunk wine from the bill to compensate for the insect problem.

I later discovered additional insects buzzing around the men’s bathroom.

All In

La Parisienne, Frisco is one half of an incipient chain. The other is in Addison. The Frisco site comes across to the diner as working under an absentee owner. Food, wine, and service are all sub-standard and, as I said above, there was no manager to be seen so I could not raise these points while I was there.

In this situation, the ordinary customer has one obvious course of action -- dine elsewhere. And there are plenty of alternatives in town. The best is Lavendou in North Dallas. Closer to the center of Dallas, Knox Bistro gets a Michelin recommendation (the ante room to the stars), although I have not dined there recently. Other examples can be found as well.

FTC Disclosure: I paid for my own meal and dined anonymously.