Bistrot Bistro (May 31, 2007)

http://www.bistrotbistro.com/

Two reviewers: allu and ts

[allu]
We went to Bistrot Bistro last Thursday (May 31) for dinner. It was a very hot day, and dinner was at 7pm.

First thing WE ALL noticed: "The HEAT, MY GOD THE HEAT!"

There was no air con. No fans. Nothing. I'm from Taiwan. It's 38 degrees Celsius there. And I found the restaurant hot and stuffy. That should tell you something.

But water was immediately served, so that helped with keeping me relatively cool.

[ts] Yes, it was HOT!!!!

APPYS
Steak Tartare Baguette

[ts]
The server asked me if I wanted the spicy version, so of course I said yes!

And yeah, there was definitely a PUNCH! I usually don't like horseradish, but in this case, it wasn't very horseradish-y. I guess it had the kick but not too much superfluous horseradish taste.

[allu]
My first impression was how big the serving was! The beef tartare appeared pink and fresh. It was served with wedges of baquette and greens.

The tartare was good! Perfectly accentuated by the capers. I love capers. =)

Smoked Duck Caramelized Onion Tart

[ts] This was nice as well. Puff pastry... all flaky and such.

[allu]
The duck was very tender, the tart warm and "flaky".

I can't really remember the caramelized onion. I think maybe it lost its "onion-ness" during the caramelization process, or maybe the natural sweetness of the onion came out so strongly after caramelization that it overtook the natural onion-ness. Either way, I don't have much recollection of the onion.

Still, I enjoyed the dish as a whole. There were no pesky tendons in the duck meat, and it wasn't overseasoned or salty. Perfectly smoked.

[ts]
Other people had the goat cheese w greens. I thought it would be a salad w goat cheese. Turned out it was greens with goat cheese on crostini (or whatever the French term would be for "crostini", hehe.). I didn't get to taste it.

SIDES
Pommes Alumettes Mayo

[allu]
You have to know first that I'm partial to fries. Especially "skinny" fries (or shoestring fries). And these were all cute looking skinny fries!! Even though other people were saying that the fries were too salty, I didn't think so at all! The fries were hot and crispy, as they should be. I didn't really care for the mayo though. Usually I like dipping fries in mayo, but I think in this case I was craving for FLAVOURED mayo...maybe garlic mayo!! That would have been absolutely perfect! But it was just normal mayo, so no real attraction there. The fries were good by themselves.

[ts]
Yehey! Mayo! Fries! And so nice and nice-looking too. Haha. At first they weren't that salty. Besides, the mayo neutralized the salt on those fries. But near the end, I guess because the salt crystals have settled to the bottom, they were really salty. (Oh, they were served in a nice metallic bucket.)

Ratatouille

[allu]
This dish didn't really do anything for me. Not that I hated it... It just didn't do anything. Kind of salty, I think.

[ts]
Yeah, this was "OK", but not good. I don't remember it being salty, just so mushy.

MAINS
Boeuf Bourguignon

[allu]
The beef was so tender! But i was still kinda thrown off by how big the chunks of meat were. I think i would have enjoyed the dish more if it was served with some sort of carbohydrate, like rice, haha. Cuz all that flavour needed to be SOAKED UP by some sort of carbo, I felt. That reminds me, we didn't get any bread! The tables next to ours all got servings of bread. Where was our serving of bread?

[ts]
re bread: They have it as a menu item, so I'm not sure if they would just serve bread "for no reason." The menu item has baguette w tapenade.... maybe the other table(s) ordered that.

[allu]
In the end, I couldn't finish all my chunks of meat, because it felt like it was ALL MEAT, ALL THE TIME...

And it's not like i can dip the fries in the bourguignon, cuz the fries were already salty by themselves. I had to take "breaks" from all that meat by finding the random pieces of mushroom in the bourguinon and eating those (which were good...flavourful).

But all this time, i was still craving for OTHER ITEMS that could possibly accompany the meat... maybe vegetables? But the only veggie available was the ratatouille, which, as I said, didn't do anything for me and was too salty.

[ts]
Other people had
Chicken Lemon Herbs Butter
Lamb White Wine Citrus Spices

Didn't taste. But they seem to have been enjoyed.

[ts]
Pork Tenderloin Island Spices Coconut Banana
(Just an aside:their menu sounds all "stiff" and stilted... words and phrases ONLY... kinda funny.)

The pork was VERY tender! The "island" flavors were not bad. Tasty, but nothing too special. I don't know where the "banana" was, flavor-wise. But yeah. Pretty good.

[allu]
We didn't order any desserts, because it was simply too hot in there!

[allu]
Overall, the dinner was good. Would have been better if we had some bread and if the restaurant was air conditioned.

[ts]
All in all., I guess this would be around 7-ish/7.5-ish out of 10. Returnable.