Desserts at Chefs de France

[deany]

I don't see any desserts listed on the menus at allears but I am sure they must have them. Does anyone know?

 

[tluvstink]

Yes...they have wonderful desserts. We had dinner there last Nov. But I don't recall the entire dessert menu. I had the creme brulee and it was great!

Terri

 

[taylorl25]

They have nice desserts but I can't remember what they all were. I know there was creme brulee, some sort of sorbet thing and a choux pastry covered in chocolate sauce. We got the dessert sampler so we got to taste a little of everything.

 

[Cookie Princess]

The desserts are yummy. I LOVE the ice cream puffs covered in chocolate sauce....MMMM!

 

[bluejasmine]

They are probably served ala carte so you will actually get to choose your dessert by looking at what your choices are..

 

[newholidayx2]

I looked at their menu and didnt see the desserts either
I figure we'll be taking them back to BCV after dinner anyways

 

[hmp2z]

Here is our review, and dessert pictures are below:

Our server was Emmanuel, but his nametag said “Paul.” He was nice, but kind of stand-offish: French, in a word. They were offering a five course tasting menu for $60, or $95 including wine, and we both decided to have that. I chose duck foie gras semi-cooked with Armagnac and a vinaigrette of perigord and fig chutney. This was actually a foie gras pate, which I wish I’d known, because I got my hopes up for a real foie gras. I am such a huge foie gras fanatic. It was very good, just not what I was expecting.

Next, I had scallops baked in the shell “luttee” on carrots and leeks julienne with sorrel, sliced truffles, and tarragon butter. Some of these scallops were wonderfully tender and melting, while others were a bit overdone. They were thinly sliced, which may have been why they got overdone, but it seemed to be hit or miss, as far as the quality of the preparation. The tarragon butter paired well with the scallops, and the truffles were truly decadent, huge slices just sitting on top of the scallops. In my opinion, the truffles could have been used more wisely. I’m sure it’s costly to just throw big slices of truffles into the dishes, but they really didn’t contribute much to the flavor of the scallops. The shell was very neat, because it was surrounded by puff pastry and baked – very interesting presentation.

My next dish was the grilled Bahamian lobster tail with herb butter on a puree of mint and peas, eggplant and parmesan gratin, and pistou jus. I was disappointed in this dish, because it was not memorable at all – we have much better lobster at Fulton’s. The dishes didn’t live up to those of our last trip, and Andy and I both felt underwhelmed by Bistro on this evening.

I then had the sliced duck magret with orange caramel au jus, tart of baby turnips and oyster mushrooms in aumoniere. Here again, the duck was overdone, but the sauce was very good – light and fresh tasting. It paired well with the duck, but I wish that the duck had been more tender and not so overcooked. I did not like the oyster mushrooms in a filo dough purse at all! They tasted way too woodsy for me. This wasn’t a problem with preparation, but just my personal preference. I’m not used to mushrooms having such a strong, overwhelming flavor.

For dessert, I went with the server’s suggestion and had the Chocolate Variations. This was three small chocolate dishes: a dark chocolate cake with a warm, melting, chocolate lava center – very delicious; a cocoa liqueur sorbet, which tasted too much like dark chocolate for my taste; and my favorite of the three, a mint flavored milk chocolate soup. The chocolate soup was wonderful! It wasn’t heavy at all – the mint really added a nice dimension to it. It reminded me of thick, creamy hot chocolate flavored with mint, though it was served cold, not hot. This was absolutely delicious; I could have drunk a bucket of the chocolate soup! Next time, I might come here for dessert, but we won’t rush back for a dinner here. The presentation of each dish was unique and beautiful and special, as you’ll see from the photos, but the taste was not up to par with the looks of the food.

For drinks, I had a kir royale, which I’d been wanting to try, as an aperitif, and then Emmanuel gave us each a glass of sparkling wine with dessert.

Andy had a rare seared tuna, with Jamaican pepper, a sauce of lemon confit and Banyuls vinaigrette, arugula coulis and a crunchy vegetable salad. Continuing along a recurring theme, the tuna was overcooked, not really rare. However, they must have a great saucier cooking for them, because once again, the sauce was excellent. He really enjoyed the way it paired with the tuna, though I thought it tasted too strongly of licorice. He had gotten the wine pairings, so he had a Pinot Blanc from Alsace with this dish.

His next dish was a medley of snails, some in their shells with garlic butter and parsley, and others on a watercress cream, white asparagus and sauce gribiche. This was excellent – he enjoyed the snails very much, but there were only two snails with this dish, so he wished there had been more. The shells had snail juice and garlic butter and parsley inside, which we had heard referred to on Iron Chef as “the lady’s sweat” so we got a kick out of it when Andy drank the lady’s sweat. His wine for this course was a Chardonnay.

Next, he had seared scallops with “fleur de sel,” Comte cheese mini Royans raviolis with new vegetables in chicken broth flavored with Perigord black truffles. He enjoyed the flavor of these very much, though, once again, the scallops were slightly overcooked. The wine paired with this was a Macon Villages.
His last entrée was grilled tenderloin of beef with potato Emmenthal gnocchi’s, served with mushroom jus and green asparagus. The beef was cooked perfectly, just barely seared on the outside, and very moist and tender and rare on the inside. The wine with this course was a 2000 St. Emillion, which was good, but not great – a little young still. The gnocchi were too tough for him to enjoy, but he really liked the tenderloin, which was so rare that it wiggled when he poked it with his fork.

For dessert, he had the lavender flavored crème brulee, soufflé beignet with red fruit jam, vineyard peach sorbet with cardamom. The lavender crème brulee tasted so odd – it reminded me of the lavender sachets that I got from Nice. It tasted exactly the way the sachet smelled, so the flavor was weird, but interesting. He liked the beignet, but ate all of the jam in his first bite, so his next bite didn’t have any. While we were eating our desserts, the fireworks started going off. I hadn’t counted on the service being so FRENCH – I forgot how long it takes to eat at a French restaurant. We decided to wait until tomorrow night to watch the fireworks.

Lavender flavored crème brulee, soufflé beignet with red fruit jam, vineyard peach sorbet with cardamom:

Chocolate Variations:

 

[christinou]

hmp2z, what that at Bistro or chefs?