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Entry tags:	restaurant review

Petit Louis
Last night a bunch of us went out to dinner at Petit Louis for Katie's birthday. I had been there once before and was not that impressed with the food, so I never understood why people were always raving about it. And based on the number of people in there on a Sunday night the love has not died down. Although I totally do not understand why.

I have one thing to say to the chef at Petit Louis--Back away from the salt shaker. Seriously I don't think I have ever had so much salt in my life. It was ridiculous. Almost everything was overly salty. The only things that didn't have too much salt pretty much were my dessert (and I was beginning to worry about that) and the butter, which was actually unsalted. I would have actually liked to have salted butter because I find unsalted butter fairly bland. At any rate they have salt cellars sitting on the table so I'm not sure why they feel the need to oversalt everything in the kitchen.

I didn't order an appetizer for myself, but I had some of the calamari that Viraj ordered. It was hands down the worst fried calamari I have ever eaten. The squid itself was rubbery, it was super greasy, and the breading was soggy. And of course it tasted like it had been dropped in a salt mine before they brought it out to the table.

For my dinner I ordered the steak frites. They did provide a nicer cut of meat than steak frites is authentically served with serving a NY strip instead of the usual hangar steak. The meat was done to my satisfaction, so at least that was good. The rest of the meal was not. The french fries were so salty I could barely stand to eat any of them. I did manage to find some at the bottom of the pile that were bearable. I also ordered a side of haricots verts. Although haricots verts is just the french word for green beans, when that is on the menu they are typically the super skinny French green beans. I love those, which is why I chose to get a side order to go with my meal. Too bad when they came out they were not really haricots verts, but instead just regular old green beans. Oh and guess what they were too salty. Why they put any salt on them at all is beyond me. They should have been served with just a touch of salted butter for flavor, but instead like the french fries they were barely edible.

For dessert I had profertiroles, which if you aren't familiar is a pastry cut in half, filled with ice cream and then topped with chocolate sauce. Mercifully it was not salty at all.

The service was very good, which is a nice change from what I often experience, but that totally doesn't make up for the horrible food. I appreciate good service at restaurants, but I don't go to restaurants merely because they have good service. I go because they have good food, and in my opinion Petit Louis certainly does not. A lot of other people in our party seemed to enjoy their food to a much greater degree than I did, but I figure two not so good meals at one restaurant are enough for me not to go back.

If you want to eat French food in Baltimore, I highly suggest going to Brasserie Tatin instead of Petit Louis. There food is a hundred times better.