Note: This review was written when the restaurant was still under the direction of the late Chef Taku Sekine.
When I first moved to Paris, I bemoaned the lack of exciting international cuisines (at length). But in recent years, trendy restaurants have extended themselves to engulf foreign flavors. Places like Double Dragon walk the line between fusion and full-blown Chinese, and Le Cheval d’Or, located in an old neighborhood Chinese dive in Belleville, is the latest restaurant to follow in suit. With the crackerjack team of Taku Sekine (Dersou) and Florent Ciccoli (Jones, Café du Coin), it’s no surprise that most reviewers are drooling over this spot, and while it’s almost impossible to get a reservation, I was pleased as punch to snag a coveted counter seat on a recent Saturday afternoon. But while Le Cheval d’Or was good – very good – I found myself wondering if it was really worth all the noise people were making over it.
The menu is divided into snacks (an excuse to make the appetizers really, really tiny?) and mains. My dining companion and I, armed with a few glasses of lovely orange wine, went for two of each, and after asking our server for recommendations narrowed our starters down to two.
The first, a dish of kohlrabi marinated in fermented black beans, toasted sesame oil, and chili, was reminiscent of a kimchi without quite as much funk. Rich and just spiced enough, this dish remained on our table for the entire meal – we just couldn’t get enough of the sauce. My only complaint? The size! I wish there had been more than the banchan-esque portion we were served.
Next we sampled a dish of soissons beans with sea beans and a habanero herb sauce topped with tasty chunks of what I believe was fried chicken skin. This was tasty too, though it didn’t wow me quite as much as the simpler kohlrabi… possibly because the beans were just this side of al dente and therefore just a touch undercooked, for my taste.
We ordered a “Bang Bang” Taiwanese fried chicken and were a bit confused to be served a plate of poached chicken on a bountiful bed of rice with a few veggies on the side. In looking back at the menu, I wonder if we were given the wrong dish, but either way, while the sauce was delicious and the chicken and rice perfectly cooked, it just didn’t have that to fall in with what I had been sold when reading about other reviewers’ experiences.
The saving grace, for me at least, was this dish of rice and slow-cooked pork. Served with a perfectly cooked, marinated egg and a sprinkling of pickled pearl onions, it was the dish that just kept giving – and I kept going back for more.
Part of me wonders if my experience at Cheval d’Or was my fault: did I order wrong? Should I have gone for dinner instead of lunch? But part of me also wonders if Paris is so excited to have something new and different on the dining scene that it lauds something as extraordinary that is really just quite good.
Le Cheval d’Or –21 Rue de la Villette, 75019