below average food-- this place needs an actual chef. we came here for dinner last week, hopeful that marie louise would be a nice addition to the mt vernonrestaurantscene, which does not yet have a french restaurant. we sat down, and optimistically ordered a nice bottle of red wine, planning to make a nice evening of the experience. this turned out to be a mistake, as the food was practically inedible, and we cut the evening short by pleasurelessly downing our wine just to get out of the place.
appetizer: the french onion soup was extremely salty, and the onions were burnt. furthermore, the soup was overly seasoned with thyme, the cheap dried kind you find at giant, just kind of floating about in bits. there was too much cheese on it, which is really not the point of onion soup, which is supposed to be hearty, but delicate at the same time. i didn't finish it.
steak frites: the steak frites was completely ridiculous. rather than a thin, quality cut of meat, what arrived was a thick, low quality steak the size of my arm, which is not the point of steak frites. like the soup, it was extremelt salty. i never complain about food in a restaurant, but this was unacceptable. i asked the waiter if something could be done, and to his credit they took the steak back and suggested i try something else. so i ordered a tuna nicoise.
tuna nicoise: the tuna was a giant cut, too large for a tuna nicoise. it was seared at too high a temperature, so that the outside was overcooked and the inside was raw. the size of the tuna meant that it was basically tasteless. the olives in salad were low quality cocktail olives that were likewise too rough in taste and didn't compliment the salad.
in sum, the food was overpriced for what you got, no better than what you'd expect at donna's or city cafe, and even that might be generous.
this place needs, more than anything, an actual chef.