Authentic French cuisine with authentic French snobbery: a review of Paradoxe in Crows Nest

So, a group of us nine-strong went to Paradoxe last night, where you pay $56 to choose two entrees, a main, and a dessert from a banquet menu. Now, there were two vegetarians in our group and neither the second entree or the mains had a vegetarian option. One of our vegetarians noticed this quickly and asked one of the waiters about it, who assured him it was fine and he could be accommodated. But when it came time to order, we got a different waiter. She just barely tolerated Anton's mentioning of his vegetarianness, as he'd already brought it up. But when Sam said that he also wanted a vegetarian option for his main, she spat the dummy. "TWO vegetarians?! Why didn't you tell us when you booked that there would be two vegetarians?! Who made the booking?!" Mike explained that since they didn't have a menu online he hadn't known that there were no vegetarian options, but she was clearly still indignant that we dared to bring vegetarians into her restaurant. Sam tried to placate her by saying that he could have the fish main after all* leading her to go "oh so you can eat it?! Are you sure?" as if he was just messing with her to make her life difficult.

We got through the first entree without any issues (there was an onion soup, which was fine for the vegetarians), but when we got to the second entree... "Mushrooms without bacon", she sniffed, placing Anton's plate in front of him, adding "I hope that you enjoy it" snidely. "Bon appetit!". And she walked off, neglecting to notice that poor Sam didn't have any entree at all, let alone the vegetarian one he'd requested. We called her or one of the other waiters back and got this fixed. Between the entrees and the main we were informed that unfortunately they didn't have enough creme brulee for everyone who'd ordered one, and so one of us would have to change. Then after dessert, everyone requested coffee except Rufina and I, who went for tea. The tea arrived in cute little teapots perched on top of each saucer with the teabag wrapped around the handle and already resting in the water. Rufina and I quickly made a discovery: our water was cold. We got this fixed by attracting the attention of one of the friendly waiters, then sat around talking until 11, when we were booted out because the restaurant was closing.

The actual food got mixed reviews up and down the table; I was personally impressed by my duck main and apple tart dessert, enjoyed my asparagus entree but disliked my quail one. The onion soup was apparently oversalted, the fish main was decent but nothing mindblowing, the creme brulee was more of a creme caramel. Between the entrees and main we were served this awesome citrus/ginger sorbet.

So that was my first experience eating real French food at a real French restaurant. Pity it was accompanied by real French attitude. I certainly don't think we got value for money in terms of food and service, so I would definitely not recommend it.

*His vegetarianism is based on not causing animals pain, so animals like oysters (which have no central nervous system) are fine, fish are borderline, and land animals are right out