Le Barricou--Brooklyn

718.782.7372

Living off of the Lorimer or Graham stop on the L train makes one desperate for a new restaurant. Aside from Dumont, which is transforming from neighborhood staple to neighborhood cash cow, the East Side of Williamsburg is a ghost town for decent cuisine. That is why my patience with all of the new fangled places on Grand Street (the seemingly only zone for new places in the neighborhood) is a lot bigger than it should be. Take Le Barricou, a typical French restaurant with a cozy atmosphere and authentic foosball table. A place I really, really want to do well. Unfortunately, my patience just couldn’t last.

To their defense it was Valentine’s day. And what sort of douchebag expects a restaurant to put its best foot forward on such a busy day? I do for one. If you can’t handle being busy, then you can’t handle being good, because if you’re good you’re going to be busy. Especially on Grand St in East Williamsburg when your only viable competition is Dumont. Furthermore, I don’t know the impetus for the Valentine’s Prefix, but if you decide to go the prefix route, I suggest not making it steak versus fish. And if you do make that rookie mistake, you should assume that the steak will account for 50% of the covers you do for a night, considering at least 50% of the deuces include men, steak-eating men. None-the-less, when our threesome arrived (what can I say I’m a Casanova) we had the perfect opportunity to try everything on the menu. Our first courses were out in a split second. My wife had the duck confit salad. It was basically a field of greens and duck breast and a very light dressing. It was quite ordinary and a little disappointing. Our companion had the bisque, and though advertised as lobster it was crab but still sumptuous. I had the Salmon Souffle, and it was also quite good.

I can only stress that our first courses came out quickly, making the hour and fifteen minute wait for our entrées that much more agonizing. I’m not exaggerating, one hour and fifteen minutes. I can only predict that not only did they run out the strip steak (which they did) but the skirt steak they dug up must have been bought at a grocery store, and my skirt steak was the first one to arrive from that impromptu crisis. I know I belabor this point in all of my reviews, but good service can so fuck up good food. Had the waiter come over to me and told me, in not so uncertain terms that they were out of steak and that if I wanted to eat any time soon I should change my order, then I would have. But no, they tried to pull one over on me and run to the grocery store, and then tell me upon delivering a different and significantly less expensive cut of meat that they ran out; basically assuming that I am ignorant to the world and the way that stupid people work in it.

The food was good the wait was bad. We were so sore from sitting at the bar for nearly two hours that we didn’t even stay for dessert. I did receive some icing, metaphorically speaking, and that was the attitude we received when we told our server that we didn’t want to wait just five minutes for dessert, we’d already waited two fucking hours. Alas, it’s back to Dumont for me, where even though the waiter turnover is more frequent than their specials, at least they know what they’re doing.