Brutish Behavior at Bouillon Chartier

Olivier & I went to see the new Fantastic 4 movie this weekend. Well, only because the Silver Surfer was in it. Had it not been for him, the movie would not have been worth seeing.

We left the theater & decided to have dinner before heading home for a sedentary evening. We walked a few blocks & ended up at a place called Bouillon Chartier.

It sure does look quaint & French & all that, doesn’t it? Well, sure it does.

We get inside & the hostess leads us to our table. There are four chairs, so naturally, I pull out the chair next to me & proceed to throw my purse & sweater on it.

This was not a good move.

Seconds later, a tall man with white hair who resembled an angry walrus was there. He thrust my belongings at me & pushed the chair back in, mumbling something incoherently…likely cursing me & my family for at least 10 generations for committing such a foul crime & displaying such a gross lack of couth.

One thing that is typical of restaurants in Paris is sitting next to strangers. Everything is condensed & everyone is smooshed against one another. This place is larger than most, but that does nothing to alleviate the smoosh factor.

We ended up sitting right next to another couple who looked to be quite young & were speaking a language that we couldn’t understand. I was watched intently by the girl, who seemed to be quite fascinated with every move that I made. Maybe it was the way that I ate with my elbows on the table, tearing into a chicken leg with my bare hands as I shoved fries into my chattering yap in a careless & feral manner.

She must have been appalled by my lack of class, too. I’m sure I could have taken a cue from her & followed her lead by eating my bread in that dainty way that she had: stabbing it with a fork & slowly gnawing on it like a doughy popsicle.

Olivier & I ate & drank our wine. I moved the basket of bread one inch to the right. Surly Walrus the Waiter was there inside of 2 seconds to move it back. I began feeling rebellious; I moved the salt away from the center of the table, out of alignment with the pepper in a barbaric, haphazard manner.

Surly Walrus returned again. And again. At times, he took to simply looming over our table, likely to keep an eye on the unruly American that he had the misfortune of having to deal with.

Eventually, he seemed to give up. Possibly because he could see that we were nearly finished with our meal…or maybe because he had eventually given up on trying.

Either way, I win.[tags]Bouillon Chartier, American, restaurant, Paris[/tags]