Last night I ate dinner at the newest restaurant in Charleston, Café de Paris. It has been under construction for quite some time and finally opened this week. Last night was only their second night of operation, so it was kind of a risky move to try it out. As tacky as the Eiffel Tower mural is, they’ve managed to up the tackiness by a significant amount by outlining the tower with strands of white lights.
When I walked in, the first thing I noticed is that the place was too bright. Definitely not mood lighting. We were seated at a table right next to the bussing station, so despite the fact that there was no music playing in the restaurant, my dining companion and I were treated to the soulful buzzing of the Beverage-Air 2000. 
The place was far from full, so now that I think about it, we should have just asked for a different table.
It took me a good five minutes to figure out how to read the menu. As mentioned in the news articles about the opening of the restaurant, the menu is written in English, French, and Spanish, which, according to the owners (who lived in France for thirty-five years) is authentically French. I don’t really care whether that’s true or not. All I know is that it made the menu difficult to read.
We ordered a bottle of Chateau de la Chaize. After the waiter figured out which wine we were trying to order (he wasn’t familiar with the wine list), we got to drinking and exchanging bons mots. Our French jokes were lame, and so was the wine.
We had oysters as an appetizer, which were decent, though I didn’t really like them with the shallot vinegar that came with them. I ordered salmon tartare, which was also decent. He ordered veal. I took a couple bites of it, and it was tough. Isn’t the point of veal that it’s supposed to be tender? If I’m going to endure the guilt of eating a young animal that has been locked in a small cage, I at least want it to be tender, damn it!
The worst part of the meal was dessert. We ordered the berry flan, and it tasted like rubber or wax or something. It wasn’t cold, which was kind of gross. It was really dense and rubbery and we didn’t finish it, and it wasn’t because we were too full.
The highlight of the meal, which also came at the end, was the authentic drunk French lady who was admiring the artwork on the wall near our table. That ruled.
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