http://www.caferouge.co.uk/

For the next instalment of the Search we tried French restaurant chain Café Rouge. The décor was suitably Parisian and the ambience pleasant and restful. The salad (ordered as a starter) arrived as pretty much the ideal starter portion – enough to give you a solid idea of the dish but not enough to overwhelm. My initial impression was positive, although the lettuce was Cos rather than Romaine, and the croutons in particular were excellent: large, crunchy and uneven enough to look homemade rather than store-bought.

With shavings of quality parmesan and no extraneous bells and whistles (i.e. anchovies or tomatoes) to get in the way, things were looking even better. We’d ordered the chicken version, admittedly, but so many places serve a Chicken Caesar that it’s become practically the default option these days.

And then I tasted the dressing, the thing that makes or breaks any Caesar salad. Oh dear. It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t exceptional. Creamy enough, but fairly bland with no real explosion of flavour or unusual taste. In fact, it rather tasted like a low-fat version of the proper dressing.

As a result, I’d have to give the Café Rouge salad a 7/10. Better than most of the places we’ve tried thus far, but still not impressive or exceptional enough to warrant a high score. A pity, given that otherwise its simplicity was working so much in its favour.