The other night we decided to go out to dinner - despite trying to get the freezer emptied before we leave for the winter... and we had read a good review of The Blanchard, so we made a reservation there... and it was a crappy day - rained buckets pretty much the entire day- so we needed a bit of cheering up - oh and did I say the buyer's of our house reneged on the contract that morning too? So it was a day we don't want to relive anytime soon but it did actually end better than expected...
because- when I walked in the door to The Blanchard and checked in with the hostess I turned around and there was Mark! Mark- used to be our go-to guy at Socca (now gone and replaced by Hutch) for many many years- maybe close to ten... any of our friends who dined with us at BYO places regularly would have been there - and we frequently went there with wine friend groups as well.
After Socca disappeared Mark went to Deleece (which had been one of our places when the sisters who ran it were together but after they split up we never found it as good- nor the other sister's place Sola either.) Then we lost rack of him and yet - here he was! We were soooo happy to see him and caught up with where others we knew in common were now etc....
Anyway- the place is new and so it is going through some growing pains- but overall worth a return trip...
a nice open room with enough french country touches in the decor to give a frenchy feel...LOL
the menu reads excellently- hard to make choices -
we went with the escargot and the frisee salad to start - escargot could have used a bit more oomph - possibly needed more garlic - we favor classic preparation for this style food..
OK they have four choices of foie- can't beat that- we had #1 and #2 and the clear winner was the #1 with the french toast and strawberries--- think decadent peanut butter and jelly and then double it...
for the mains- I chose the rabbit and Phil had the veal- mine was excellent - Phil's needed a steak knife to be cut (a miss there)
for dessert we had a chocolate pot de creme that was kind of in between mousse and pot de creme- too grainy for a true pot de creme but not light enough for mousse--- however the flavor was good so I managed to finish it--- LOL
all in all- worth a return trip to refine our choices on a new (to us) menu... and sooo sooo sooo wonderful to catch up with Mark!
No comments:
Post a Comment