Open for 5 years, Les Deux Canailles is a small place with about 10 tables lining two sides of a rectangular room.  They offer nice pillows for back support for those sitting on the benches along the wall.  Some of the kitchen is open on one end of the room.  Background music along with interesting art on the walls gives the place a cozy feel.  Service is friendly and helpful but the cloth napkins are woefully small.  The menu offers a chef’s tasting menu or a smaller fixed price (with some choices) option.  We chose the chef’s tasting.  The wine list is quite small.  

 

While looking over the menu we were served room temperature gougères which were nice enough but would have been way better if hot out of the oven.

 

Our appetizer was confit onion that was then caramelized – a specialty of the chef.  It was served with red pepper mousse and a raw local tuna-like fish mixed with herbs, dashi, ginger, eggplant and roast garlic.  Everything had fairly intense flavors and the garlic was especially good.  A nice course.

 

Our starter was langoustine ravioli made with foie gras, mushrooms and shellfish roe.  It was served alongside a plate of tempura vegetables.  The onions, carrots and other vegetables had been fried to a nice crispiness but unfortunately it had been some time ago so they were not hot and tended to clump together.  Unlike other tempura this was greasy but still reasonably tasty.  It did make you wonder what it could have been.  The ravioli was made with very thin pasta with a really tasty filling and sauce.

 

Our fish course was sea bream and calamari.  The calamari was tender and tasty but the fish was dry.  It was adorned with cockles (which were nicely moist), olives and tomatoes.  It was accompanied by two very good sides, a crispy shrimp that was fried in a shredded potato crust and a chanterelle risotto.

 

Wagyu beef is a highlight of the restaurant and it was our meat course, but it did not live up to its reputation.  It was served with a number of vegetables (broccoli, green beans, carrots) but it was dry with lots of gristle.  It is advertised as Japanese beef but this was the worst wagyu I’ve ever had and I really question its authenticity.  Also with it were some fried mashed potatoes that were forgettable.  There were just too many things on this plate and overall too many fried options (especially served at room temperature) on the menu.  The meat was thinly cut but kept nicely rare, even though the waiter had never asked how we wanted it cooked.

 

Dessert was a fig with cherry sauce and ice cream.  Served alongside was a crepe stuffed with chestnut cream, chocolate and pear.  It was speared with what looked like a vanilla bean and whatever it was it was quite inedible, however that was not pointed out when it was served.  It was an okay dessert but a bit of a mish-mash of flavors.

 

The final treats were Madeleines, strongly flavored apricot and coconut jellies and a gooey caramel.  They redeemed themselves with the delicious caramel but it was not enough to make up for a very mixed meal.