I was quite excited when I first heard about Les Faux Bourgeois - an adorable, reasonably-priced bistro at 15th and Fraser - so a friend and I set a date and she made reservations.

At least she tried.

Apparently she left a message and they called her back, but it was still unclear as to a reservation had actually been made. Just in case, she decided to call them en route, and sure enough - no reservation.

Between her and the manager they managed to work something out, though, and so we carried on.

Employee: Do you have a reservation?

(was the first thing they asked as we came in the door. Our story was met with a slight scowl and a tapping of the pencil against the reservation book. The manager was fetched).

Manager: You don’t have a reservation?

(Slightly more pronounced scowl.)

Us: We don’t hava reservation but we tried to make one and we just talked to you 10 minutes ago and you said to come down!

(I wondered if there was a different manager we had spoken too, or if this one had fallen and hit his head in the time it took us to drive over.)

Manager: You need a reservation.

(More scowling.)

Finally it was agreed that we could have a table for this time ONLY as long as we were aware (how could we not be, at this point?) that next time we needed to make a reservation.  Kind of reminded me of the situation Darren found himself in at Sanafir.

I’m exchange for our promises, we were given menus and a - thankfully - non-scowling server and we dove into onion tart, cassoulet, steak frites, duck confit followed closely by a decadent creme brûlée.

Les Faux Bourgeois is a delightful little French Bistro that has all the classics for very reasonable prices. I love it, in spite of the scowling.

I’ve been back and had better service, but it’s never been great.