Madame Monsieur

I got an email from The Short Stack (Los Angeles Magazine) that really caught my eye. It was a Black Truffle Sandwich in downtown L.A. which required placing the order a day before.

The description was enough for me and many others to want to go right away before the truffles disappeared. Here is the way it was described.

Le Black Truffle Sandwich starts with Breadbar black charcoal bread that gets doused with beurre de baratte—butter made by churning rather than centrifuge–and black truffles imported from Périgord, France (don’t worry, they’re grade Extra Tuber Melanosporum, the highest class in the game). “This sandwich is inspired by a Michelin-starred chef in Paris that is called Michel Rostang, I worked with him a little when I was in Paris,” says Madame Monsieur co-owner Alison Barber. The sandwich needs to marinate overnight, so diners must place their orders one day in advance.

I quickly organized a trip several days ago for a luncheon. Several people already had prior engagements so only 4 of us made a reservation for Saturday, Jan. 21st. They took my credit card information since they were to charge $25 for each sandwich which included a salad and potato chips.

Mertz took the Big Mobile and drove us to downtown L.A. We left at 10:15 a.m. for our 11:30 reservation. What we did not count on was the Women's Demonstration against Trump and everything else you can imagine. Downtown L.A. is confusing enough with one way streets even with a GPS. Imagine that compounded with thousands of people all over the street. There were a lot of street closures and they even continued to close streets as we drove circling and trying to get to our destination. We finally decided to park close to the restaurant and pay a whopping $15 for parking. We walked through the crowds of people.  One lady had a sign that said: "Hate ain't great", as if anyone would really think Hate is great! Oh well, everyone is entitled to voice their opinion. We were there just for the Truffle Sandwich. We've never worked so hard for food. I take that back, Sandi and I stood in line years ago for 4 hours to try the original Ramen Burger. (We didn't think it would take that long).

The restaurant was cute but tiny with just 3-4 small tables. There was a line and most of the customers were the hungry demonstrators. It was finally our turn. I ordered 1 Cannelé with caramel to try while we waited for our sandwich. I divided it among the 4 of us. We liked it though we thought the caramel was a bit too sweet.

The sandwiches arrived. Sandi took the first bite. We all asked her how it was and she said; "It's good" but the tone of her voice was not convincing. We all had a bite. First of all, there weren't too many truffles so not each bite had a truffle. That was o.k. since I do know truffles are expensive so if every bite had a truffle, the sandwich would have cost $50!  Mertz thought the truffles tasted like bananas. I tried to figure out what it tasted like. The truffle flavor was very mild; too mild. The buttered bread that was supposedly soaked in French butter which we all love did not taste very buttery. The bread was not black but almost looked like rye that was toasted and was on the dry side. The sandwich did not have much flavor at all. In fact, I commented that maybe we should have brought the truffle salt Mertz gave me. The truffle fondue at Obica last week was far better than this so called freshly shaved truffles.

With all the hype, we were all so disappointed. We all agreed that the salad and the potato chips were very good. I think we all would have been happier with a regular grilled cheese sandwich.

Madame Monsieur has many items on their menu so it is not fair to judge them on this one special item. They have Croque Monsieurs, salads and sandwiches. They are located at 512 W. 6th St. in Los Angeles.