Andrew M.
Yelp
The Marais in Paris is what I think of as a hip, trendy area. Of course if I know about it at all, it means it stopped being hip and trendy several years ago. Nestled in among the falafel stands is a dining spot named Le Loir dans la Théière (The Dormouse in the Teapot.) This has been a favorite of my wife's and mine for some time now. We are not alone. While not a terribly large place, it has a lot of tables packed cheek to jowl even by Paris standards. They are almost always full.
What draws the crowds? A lovely array of both sweet and savory tarts. whether one wants a full lunch of both savory and sweet or simply a nice sweet treat of pie with their coffee, the Dormouse has you covered.
As much as we continue to love the place, we have been disappointed on our last few visits. We are familiar enough with dining here that small tables clustered close together do not bother us, but we seem to keep getting stuck in a grotto halfway back that even a local would complain about. There are usually ten diners packed into an area that is adequate for six. And while I get that having to pull out the table to seat the patron is not unusual, it does get old after a while.
We arrived and picked out the tarts we wanted from the posted board, only to be told that they were out of both. In fact the only savory tarts that they had left were a mushroom and cheddar and something made with courgettes (zucchini). Now there are many excellent uses for Zucchini --the Arabs stuff them with meat and rice, the rest of us use them to torture our neighbors -- making them into a tart seems ill-advised. We decided to settle for the cheddar and mushroom and follow it up with a slice of lemon meringue. The savory tart was tasty, but not spectacular. They did not skimp on the mushrooms, so it had a good hearty flavor. The cheddar cheese, although a welcome taste of home to my American palette, was not the best choice as the dish had a bit of the grittiness that a melted cheddar sometimes takes on. Still, the dish would have been excellent on a cool autumn day. Sadly it was August when we ate it.
Our sweet choice came next. I should take a moment to describe the lemon meringue tart at the Dormouse. If the place has a trademark dish, this should be it. Arriving at the table it is an impressive sight -- a veritable mountain of meringue perched on top of the lemon tart. I would conservatively estimate there being six inches of meringue in the middle of the tart (not to the tip of little pointy bits, a solid layer six inches thick.) Made in the Italian style, it is thick, creamy, and sweet. Of course the real flavor of a lemon meringue comes from the lemon custard and this did not disappoint. Nicely lemony and tangy, it made a good foil for the mountainous sweet topping.
I was surprised to see dinner salads, meats, and pasta on the menu. I am not certain if this is something new or if I had just missed it before. If they are indeed new, I would urge the ownership to abandon them. If they have always been there, I would still advise the ownership to do away with them. While it is nice to have something for everyone, and an all-tart menu might turn off some diners, I think that specialization has its place, and the dormouse would be a good place to specialize. If the tart makers stuck to their knitting, then we might have been able to taste the yummy looking tarts we had wanted at 3:00 in the afternoon rather than the last leftovers of lunch.