663554 Fri Oct 30 11:14:06 -0700 2009 10 2 Los Angeles Area 0 5143322 ...will be following as a reply to this. Fri Oct 30 11:14:06 -0700 2009 11478 Will Owen 1 5143342 lets hear it Fri Oct 30 11:17:09 -0700 2009 5143322 166707 JEN10 2 5143382 I'm trying, but it will not post. Been waiting for fifteen minutes now... Fri Oct 30 11:28:38 -0700 2009 5143342 11478 Will Owen 1 5145718 Here's Will's review: LUNCH AT SAINT AMOUR - BEYOND SUPERB We had a free day yesterday, and Mrs. O being a hopeless Hello Kitty freak wanted to see the HK exhibit at Royal/T in Culver City. I agreed, IF we could have lunch at Le Saint Amour. As she still dreams about her charcuterie plate at Angelique several years ago it was not a hard sell. Those folks have clearly come up in the world since their Angelique days, though they still seem to like oddly-shaped spaces. This is a very nice and bright one, though, and with a fine big fenced-in space outdoors beneath the trees. We had a small table at the outer edge of that, so mostly got served from the sidewalk. A glass of Muscadet for her, St. Amour for me, a basket of bread and plenty of butter arrived very quickly. The bread is rather disappointing, being a sort of semi-whole-wheat baked item sliced from a loaf, and not really interesting. Nor French, for that matter. It was however the only remotely disappointing thing we had there. Mrs. O of course had to have her Asiette de Charcuterie, and ordered the half-size cheese plate to go with it. I'd been ogling the grilled onglet with frites on the website menu, but it was not on this one, so I thought I'd give their duck confit a whirl; that's what I'd had at Angelique, for one thing, and for another I saw that it came with both frites and a salad. After a decent interval the cheese plate arrived, along with TWO salads. Mrs. O was pleasantly surprised - "I get one too?" "Oui, Madame." Well, that was about the nicest little salad I've had in these parts, all fresh wild or tame greens in a whisper of simple, light dressing. The cheese plate had four wedges, really enough to share, with grapes, a strawberry, and what I could swear were deep-fried walnuts. There was no indication as to what the cheeses were; I suppose we could have asked, but eating them was more fun. The main plates showed up fairly soon, both quite bountiful. Of the charcuterie slices there was one of of a pate en croute with pistachios, another of more coarsely chopped meats with some jelly in there, some rillettes, a few slices of saucisson sec and some paper-thin prosciutto, and cornichons on the side. My plate was wall-to-wall with a mound of perfectly crisp, perfectly greaseless matchstick frites, and two big duck legs laid with the ends of the thighs kissing and ankles crossed. A poke of the fork revealed that our host had been working on his confit since last we met: the one at Angelique had been chewy but good, whereas this was both fall-apart tender and bursting with rich flavor. The first leg I painstakingly cut meat off the bone; the second I just pushed on the meat with my fork and pulled the bones right out, and never bothered with my knife after that, except to clip the little gristly doodad off the thigh meat. My taste of crisp skin was so divine I passed the second one over; she rolled her eyes and murmured, "Heavenly." The French love fat, and certainly know how to treat it... After hunger had been well satisfied we settled back and nibbled at the meats and cheeses, some wiped straight onto the bread (which for all its faults stood up sturdily to this) and some laid over a shaving of butter. The frites showed their class by remaining crisp and tender no matter how cold they got; I guess we showed ours by not just spending the rest of the day there, although I certainly could have. It came to about $50 all told, before tax and tip. This is not our usual level of lunch tab, but it was more than matched by the level of lunch. We are saving our spare change for next time. 9725 Culver Blvd. (entrance also on Washington) Culver City, 90232 310-842-8155 Sat Oct 31 16:13:21 -0700 2009 5143322 28703 RicRios 2 5145757 Thank you! ServOrg suggested pulling it from an email, but you beat me to it. Their website BTW is www.lesaintamour.com Sat Oct 31 16:42:24 -0700 2009 5145718 11478 Will Owen 1 5149902 Hi Will Owen, Great review. :) I'm glad you enjoyed their Duck Confit, definitely a lot of flavor. :) So you didn't get to try the (in)famous, homemade Andouillette Sausage there? I was hoping to get your impressions on this dish. :) Mon Nov 02 13:12:48 -0800 2009 5143322 113442 exilekiss 2 5150731 Next time for sure. I love me some andouillettes; I especially enjoyed showing Mrs. O, chapter and verse (in Larousse Gastronomique) that they are in fact made from chitterlings and not from tripe as she had insisted. Of course the last I had was in a joint near the Clingancourt flea market in 1991... and it was just half of one of ma-in-law's. But I remember richness with a slight gamey whiff, and wishing I'd gotten that instead of my dry chicken. Mon Nov 02 17:42:50 -0800 2009 5149902 11478 Will Owen 3 5150756 Ever since this hysterical and classic Burke & Wells encounter with the Paris version of andouillette I've not been able to bring myself to place an order whenever coming across them on a menu. YMMV http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/261442 Mon Nov 02 17:53:41 -0800 2009 5150731 108169 Servorg 4 5151117 Hi Servorg, Hahahaha! (^_^) OMG. That is the most hilarious post I've read so far. Thanks for brightening up my day. :) Mon Nov 02 21:32:05 -0800 2009 5150756 113442 exilekiss 5 5151939 there were so many very funny posts back in those times, yet this one really was a work of exceptional merit. Miss McMichael and WLA's posts, unless of course they have new disguises! Tue Nov 03 08:47:37 -0800 2009 5151117 10359 carter 4 5153553 Well, if truth be known, chit'lins themselves (when prepared in the approved downhome Southern manner) do have that unmistakeable whiff, which I found much more pronounced than anything I got from the sausage. I also found them delicious, though I'd have to be in the mood... Tue Nov 03 16:50:34 -0800 2009 5150756 11478 Will Owen