May 18 2008
The Merry Table
After a lovely run around Back Cove yesterday morning, Amber and I got cleaned up and headed out to run some errands in advance of my upcoming business trip to London. Lunch was in order, and I suggested we try out The Merry Table, a brand new crêperie in The Old Port (across Wharf Street from Cake). Amber studied in Tours, France for a semester in college and fell in love with crêpes. One of her regrets in leaving New York state was that there was a crêperie in Saratoga Springs, her hometown, that she would have to leave behind. No more! Portland now has its own destination for these French equivalents of a sandwich wrap.
The space appears quite small at first, with a four seat booth on the left, the bar with stools that you can see in the photo above, and three or four small round two tops on the right when you walk in. The kitchen is visible beyond the bar. Upon further investigation there are a number of additional, larger tables to the right of the kitchen. This is not a large restaurant, but I have to think they could comfortably accommodate thirty or so. There are also a handful of al fresco tables available on Wharf Street when the sun is shining.
The bar serves a modest selection of wines and beer. I would have liked to see a few more adventurous Belgian ales, but perhaps that will come later. Their selection of crépes was quite diverse. Amber and I both went with ham varieties, as it was lunch time. She opted for the Jambon Fromage and I, the Jambon Brie. We started with a red pepper bisque to split, and Amber got a nutella sucré (a sweetened, dessert crêpe) to go after lunch. Both lunch crêpes were served with a small simple salad topped with an excellent homemade vinaigrette. The soup and crêpes were excellent. While these are the French version of a sandwich wrap, they are not hand food. A fork and knife was definitely necessary.
The only disappointment was the sucré. I did not taste it myself, but Amber said it tasted quite good. It was just that it was also served fork-and-knife style, which is a bit odd for a to-go crêpe. At the corner crêperies (there are even crêpe street vendors like you see with hot dogs here in America) in France, a sucré is served wrapped in paper so it is portable and can be eaten on the go. This, and a more adventurous beer selection, were our only suggestions for improvement. At nearly $30, this was a pricy lunch, but skipping the soup, beer, and dessert would have brought the cost down by half. I’m not sure that’s inexpensive enough to make a daily lunch destination, but it’s certainly reasonable enough to make this our Saturday lunch date of choice a couple times a month. Amber and I both highly recommend this for a nice break from the typical seafood and pub fare available for lunch.
Awesome! We love crepes!
We went here today. Thanks for the rec! Ick had the brie and ham crepe and I had the special crepe with lobster, shallots, and mushrooms and a champagne-dijon sauce. Yummy.
I don’t know if your complaint about the crepes sucres was legit… I lived in France for a while, and I came to see that only in Paris and the touristy cities to the south did one EVER see a crepe “to go” – only in the tourist-frequented spots, too. It’s kind of an americanized thing. According to another article I read, the owner of The Merry Table was modeling this creperie after those of Brittany (where I lived), and if there is anything not genuine, it’s only that they don’t call the savory crepes “galettes.”
Diana,
My only complaint about the sucré was its to-go packaging. Amber and I needed to get going, so she asked for the crêpe to go. Had we been eating dessert at the restaurant, their presentation would have been perfectly acceptable. However, eating it with plastic fork and knife from a plastic box in the car was less than ideal. Thus my suggestion that they offer a to-go version like those sold in the Paris tourist trap crêperies.
It’s nice to see a good review of a new French restaurant and that it has found a niche on Wharf St. Thanks, Jason!
However I must disagree with a statement made in the review: a Crepe is not a French version of a sandwich wrap. A crepe is not a French “version” of anything but itself. A crepe is a crepe … a traditional French dish – a thin pancake-ish type thing prepared in many different ways, savory or sweet… but nothing close to the overpopularized American “wrap” which generally involves a tortilla and some lunch meat.
I just got back from Maine and had lunch here for the first time, and I LOVED this place! Food was fresh and perfect…I had the Black Forest Ham and Brie crepe, and my girlfriend had a salad, and both were great! I wish a similar place would open here in New Jersey