A Song for Madeleine

Madeleine in Bethesda

There is a chain of restaurants in the South and it is named La Madeleine. You can find them in Washington, DC (in Georgetown) and in the Greater DC area (Alexandria, Bethesda, etc), and also in Texas (in Fort Worth, then in the Dallas region - for instance in Grapevine, etc). There aren't Madeleine restaurants in NY or Philadelphia, and I think neither in Baltimore. These Madeleine restaurants are specialized in French country cuisine and they are decorated in a way suggesting old French mansions.

Dining in the library

The prices are low enough, and sometimes the personnel speaks French (for instance in the Madeleine from Bethesda, where all the personnel came from African Francophone countries). So any given weekend I liked to go to the Madeleine in Bethesda and to speak French while having a small dinner. Now, don't believe they have all gourmet delicacies, what they have is basically Quiche Lorraine, Quiche Florentine, Boeuf Bourguignon, three or four sorts of soup (Onion Soup, Country Potato Soup, the Soup du Jour undoubtedly), stuff like that, plus some nice salads and wonderful pastries. A cup of Strawberries Romanoff is de rigeur in the end.

Imagining a fireplace

When I was in Texas and I went to the Madeleine restaurant in Grapevine near Dallas, there was a very young waiter who was from Romania. I teased hom a bit, asking him the Romanian equivalent of some basic English words (like Good Morning, Good Afternoon, don't think at anything ribald), till he realized I was also from Romania, and we started to laugh together. He was studying at some college and working in the restaurant to support himself. He was very nice with me and with my colleague (who had come from India long time ago) and offered us in the end some pastries from the house.

Provision room (kind of)

(Bethesda)