Le Petit Robert

LOCATION: Kenmore Square Boston, MA
TYPE OF FOOD: French (I'm bringing out the big guns)
REVIEW: With the amount of different cuisines in the world today, there have to be some rating requirements in order to go. Chinese requires at least a three or four star rating, depending on the fanciness. Italian is more on the four side, usually due to the fact that it is more fancier than most other cuisines. As for French? Four or five. That's exactly what I was thinking on my drive to there (I was also trying to scrape the little French I know to the front of my head: "Allons-y", "Bon appetit!", um, and that song that's like, "Sa bla boom wha!").

I sat down, and debated with myself whether or not to order escargot, or snails ("Go for it." "NO, DON'T go for it!" "Why?" "I DON'T NEED A REASON WHY!" "Snotty brat..."). Eventually I decided not to. Why? I played a game with myself, and decided if the next person that came in was a male, I would order it. However a female came in, so I didn't order snails. My final order was the half roasted chicken they had. Before I got it, they gave me some bread. The bread was very, VERY warm, and slightly burned my mouth. But it was good (but which one wins: burned mouth, or taste buds?)luckily, so it wasn't too bad. After thirty to forty minutes, I was starving, and got my food.

The chicken tasted more like grilled chicken, and I couldn't cut it so I ate with my hands(cavemen, here I come! Er, not those Geico ones, those guys are creepy, even if they got their own show). The chicken still tasted pretty darn good, but it was quite salty. The vegetables that came with it contributed to the meal, and did a good job, but fell under the Side Vegetable Curse, and were just fine. When I finished I was full enough not to have any more entrees, but not full enough to stop eating, so I ordered a fruit salad. The fruit salad came with a variety of different fruits (there could have been cheese in there, I don't even know), and was very sweet. There was juice in the bottom, and I tasted it, which was just orange juice. After two hours, I got up, left the place, and walked onto to Kenmore Square, in front of the Citgo sign (long pause) (oh sorry, I was looking up those Geico cavemen).

SERVICE: The service (for the zillionth time) was nice and friendly (am I abusing those words?), and for one moment they were laughing. However their facial expression s read as, "Yay-I'm working as a waiter when I could be hanging out with my friend. I am SO thrilled." You don't really interact with them, but you don't spend some time with them (2%). Luckily I saw nothing in their mouths, and they were crowding in one corner. In fact, they looked almost TOO busy...

ATMOSPHERE: The floor was lightly covered in trash, and so was the tablecloth. There were candles on the table, and sometime into my experience, the staff dimmed the light. However the main thing was the heating lamps put in the front of the place. Guess why the bread was so hot? It had been sitting there, possibly for hours, under two heating lamps. In fact, one of them was broken, and the chef had to hit it in order for the thing to work! Ah, 250 degree bread sitting for a couple of hours. Now at your local French place!

PRICE: Three people can be fed with one-hundred dollars. Apparently this is cheap for a French restaurant (I don't go to a lot, clearly). On my scale, this is expensive, but I'm a casual eatery guy. So I can't say anything. I'll just shut up now.

RATING: Le Petit Robert is a French place sitting in good old Kenmore Square. The chicken is pretty good, and so is the fruit salad. But with "fresh" bread, uninspired staff, and dirty tablecloths, this place misses the mark. Le Petit Robert gets a four out of five.