Satisfy Your Steak-Tartare Craving 24 Hours a Day at Frenchy Pigalle

According to the Internet, there are a lot of jobs for me in Niskayuna. While riding in my aunt's SUV, I find a box of maps of the Great Northeast in the cargo area. So I look for where I might live. Some of the names are so familiar (Burnt Hills, Visher Ferry, Grooms Corners) but some are foreign (East Glenville, Stanford Heights, Maywood). My mom provides detail about the towns.

At my aunt's, my mother realizes she hasn't signed the birthday card for her sister. While my aunt and I chat, she leans back in her chair, one arm held up and back holding a poised pen, baby blue eyes (I got my dad's eyes) looking over her shaded granny glasses, strands of hair straying out of their little barrettes here and there. She says, "I can't think of anything to write." Then the pen missile meets its target and in a flat 15 seconds the completed card is tossed over by way of delivery. Its message is poetic and moving, yet light; phrases lead into one another, one cleverly alludes to the picture on the card, all done in a looping artistic hand. She is a very irritating woman.

We meet my aunt's friends at her choice for the birthday luncheon, the Poughkeepsie Olive Garden. Our Atlantan CIA-student waiter chats with us, discussing roasting, braising, his marinades, how he'll make foie gras for his meat-and-potatoes father and his Wild Turkey creme brulee. All thoughts of leaving my city of great food and moving to Niskayuna fly out of my head.

On a strip of lo-rent 8th Ave. is Pigalle. Although a newcomer, it is already a canteen for young continental transplants. Primarily a tourist restaurant, it services the Days Hotel it's in, as well as Howard Johnson's up the block. Decor includes French maps, tin beer signs and antiqued mirrors. Thankfully, no cheesy musette music; instead a muted big-band sound plays in the background. On the ceiling is a circle of mod cylindrical lighting fixtures and the wavy metallic bar winds to accommodate both smokers and non.

At center, a low, dark, coarse wooden table with topiary shrubs of red and white flowers and big round loaves of dark bread with dustings of white flour adds warmth to the room. Our table is set with paper placemats like at the diner, but no horoscopes or flags of the world; these display only the menu. Faux-wicker chairs, some the two-seater variety, and Provençal floor tiling of orange and green Frenchify the former deli. Old standard dining chairs are perhaps leftovers from the previous incarnation. The wall of large French windows of blond wood will certainly swing open in summer.

We are at first seated not next to the kitchen but not far either. But even with a glass divider to buffer the clamor, the clinking and clanging is really loud. We see and snag an empty window seat from where we can watch the lunch breaks and emergency runs of the men of Engine 54.

The cocktail menu describes an interesting-sounding selection of bloody marys, but the Frenchman next to us won't partake, saying, "Bloody mary mix? Should use Clamato." The Mary's Knees cocktail is made with Grand Marnier, vodka, orange juice and lime juice. Which sounds good in theory, but tastes like nothing so much as spiked Tang. But when we ask for the bill, the waiter notices I've left most of it, and removes it from the check when I confirm I didn't care for it. The mimosa, claimed to be made with "Fresh Squeezed OJ," tastes like a can of Fresca. Cocktails are $7.50. Coffee is smoky, bitter and harsh. Herbal tea is served in a French press. Its imbiber says, "This is nice."

To the left, a croque monsieur eater raves, "This is delicious. I don't think I can finish it." A good combination?French food in American portions. The buttery smell wafts over, solving my problem of what to order. The grilled croque ($8.25) has not-salty ham, swiss that pulls into soft strings and sturdy sog-resistant crusty bread. On the side, a sea of delicate browned kettle chips with an earthy potato flavor that could never be found within a metalized polypropylene film bag. On the right, the French have their pig and cheese sandwiches with fried eggs on top. Good Lord, how is it they are not all dead. We're seated in nonsmoking, and after finishing his meal one grips his unlit cigarette.

My therapy session begins. "I think the 'First Friend' story got to me. I dreamed I had a puppy and little kids, and maintenance was doing some work, so I had to leave both doors wide open. And it was a beautiful day, so I split out to go powerboating with Diane and then we went to her place and her husband had a friend of his over and passed some beers around out front. So I said let's pick up some pizzas and some more beers and go over to my place cuz I should probably check on those kids. When I finally got home the kids and the puppy were scattered in the woods in back of the house and I was frantically trying to retrieve them. Do you think I'll really be such a bad mother?"

A careful pause. "Well. Maybe you should marry money so you could have a nanny."

I'd probably do as my parents did and bring the kids and the puppy boating. Although I remember I didn't like going fast when I was little. And once my dad tied our Great Dane puppy to the dock while he talked to someone a few yards away. I was looking at my dog and suddenly she wasn't there. She'd fallen in and didn't seem to know what hit her, as she wasn't kicking, just hanging stock-still under the water. My dad walked over, pulled her up by the leash, deposited her on the dock and strode away to resume his conversation, leaving a spluttering, hacking Deutsche Dog and a stunned three-year-old in his wake.

When we order Eggs Cocotte ($8.50), the French service with a smile rhapsodizes, "Oh it's so creamy..."; he's back in his motherland. I'm alarmed by the dish's appearance: it looks like puke on a platter. But if you close your eyes, the hunks of accompanying chicken liver are moist, pure nourishment; egg whites found under the grayish puce-colored sauce are pleasant enough and the barely cooked yolks can be used as a condiment for the meat. The cream sauce that results from the cooking is too bland, too thin, and there's too much of it.

A thick-crusted eggy onion tart ($6.25) comes with dressed frisee atop plum tomato slices crunchy with sea salt. All bitterness has been cooked out of the onions, yet they remain white without a hint of caramelization. The tart is circled by a thin stream of jewel-green huile picante. I dig this composition. A chicken caesar ($12.50) comes with a sprawling chicken breast that almost covers the plate.

From the dessert menu we request the "gateau aux pommes with camembert" ($6.50). The waiter's eyes widen as he taps his pad. "Mmm...that is really, that is really good..." Why, he's about to launch into "La Marseillaise," Vive la France! Then he comes back to the barbarians before him that might not appreciate and warns, "It is a very French dessert."

I've had good luck with the service in French places. Off-season, at a local bar in Chateauneuf-du-Pape, I asked for a Coke Lite or a limonade, and the other patrons began to laugh at me. So the bartender starts rooting around the cases in the back to see if maybe someone had left a soft drink there back in the 70s or something. So I went and told him not to bother, that I'd have vin rouge, which he had poured before I finished uttering the "g" in "rouge." Then my girlfriends asked for cheese sandwiches, but they were out of cheese, so they were about to send the bereted old man out to get cheese for the hungry girls.

At a cafe near Aix-en-Provence we were rummaging through our pocket Berlitz trying to decipher the special entree. The petite chef ran over to say, "You weel not find eet een there. Eet ees my own cree-a-shon!" And a very good cree-a-shon eet was. The main point of it being asparagus with some egginess, cheesiness and flakiness as supporting players. And if I recall correctly, mushrooms came into the picture as well, served alongside dressed greens.

Then again, there was the waiter at the Simple Simon cafe in Avignon: "What, are you British?" "American." "Even worse."

I also liked their offbeat humor. One dark night in the streets of Avignon a masked monster roared at us. To which Diane responded with her best Little Nell "Eeeek!" On a Sunday walk at a pink dawn through the still-misted town square of Montpelier, when only the flower markets were open in preparation for visiting day, our paths crossed some late-returning Saturday night revelers, one with a puppet. She came closer as the puppet wished to have a few words with me. No wonder they like Jerry Lewis.

The "gateau" consists of a molded disk of brown sugar-cooked tiny dice of apples interspersed with slippery chunks of ripe camembert, atop a sweet flaky cookie. Dribs (or are they drabs?) of good aged balsamic vinegar add a pleasant burn. The apples have a clump of rosemary sprouting from them, but I don't taste it in the fruit. It could use more spicing, but we don't leave one morsel.

The restrooms are in the Days Hotel lobby. The staff will give you the entry code for the lock. Better brush up on your heavily accented-English comprehension if you want to use the facilities. The lock combination was 125 on this day.

A small rant emanates from across the table. "I'm not going. I mean the 'big' story was mine last year." Sneer. "Xbox. And Gates was so managed you really couldn't get anything." Later she says, "I think you're on the right path." I don't feel I am on a path; I feel I am at a standstill.

We both snatch the deco cards proffered within the leatherette checkfolder. We'll remember where the place is, but the styling of the red and gold cards is irresistible.

Pigalle, while new, seems an instant old standby. Interesting items on the menu, good-sized portions and reasonable pricing. If they can fix the coffee, I'll be back. It's open 24 hours so you can satisfy your craving for steak tartare at any time of the day or night. I love New York.

Pigalle, 790 8th Ave. (48th St.), 489-CAFE.