After a wonderful day taking the KTTK tour (which I HIGHLY recommend!) and moving from ASMu to AKV Jambo, we had a dinner ADR for Bistro de Paris in Epcot.
I was excited to try this as I love French food and have heard many good things about the restaurant. At the same time, I was a bit apprehensive about the meal because I have extremely high standards when it comes to French cuisine. You see, in addition to my obsession of all things Disney, I also have a, um, strong fondness for France and anything French. Especially the food. (Surprise Surprise
) I even went so far as to live in France while working as an au pair (live-in nanny) for a French family. So in addition to just visiting and eating in the restaurants in France, I've had a lot of home cooked French meals too.
So.....can Bistro impress me?
We arrived right at our ADR time of 7:00. Bistro de Paris is located on the 2nd floor (1st if you're in France
) on the same building that houses Les Chefs de France. The check in podium is on the ground floor in a foyer area off Les Chefs. Walking in to the little foyer feels very intimate, like you're arriving for dinner at someone's home. We were taken up the spiral staircase to the dining room where we waited a few minutes before being led to a lovely window-side table in the middle of the restaurant.
Here is a shot of the place setting:
What cute napkin origami!
I was expecting a quiet, low-key place but instead found the restaurant almost packed to capacity and buzzing with people. Servers were running around in tuxedos....but more than half of the patrons are in t-shirts.
Not the ambiance I was hoping for in a signature restaurant, but I understand Bistro is inside a theme park so it would probably lose a lot of business if there was a dress code enforced.
Here's a shot of the diners that evening:
(I love the Seminoles dude, but come on....a sports team t-shirt for Bistro???)
Our server, Vincent, introduced himself after a very appropriately French wait of 5 or 10 minutes. I didn't catch much of what he said because I was too busy staring at him. That guy was cute!
I did manage to get in an order for water, sans glace s'il vous plaît (no ice please), the way it's served in France.
Mark and I knew we wanted wine at Bistro so we decided to see what food we were interested in before we settled on wine.
After making our food decisions and placing our wine order, Vincent was back with a bottle of
Chateau Greysac 2008 Medoc Bordeaux.
I usually love Bordeaux, but I just wasn't feeling this. It was very....harsh. Maybe it needed decanting? I don't know too much about wine....just what I like and don't. This was somewhat spicy and not at all smooth to me.
Mark loves a big fat super-dry red wine so he seemed to like it, but not love it. He didn't let any go to waste.
Shortly after our wine, we were delivered
Mini Baguettes and an amuse bouche - a
Seafood Gratin.
The baguettes were quite good, for American made bread. I've just come to accept the fact that no bread in the States will ever stand up to a good French baguette from a little neighborhood bakery.
The seafood gratin had a nice flavor and lots of chunks of fish and shellfish, but it was entirely too runny for a gratin, IMO. It was more like a cheesy seafood soup once you broke through the top crust.
I had ordered an appetizer (entrée in French) and it arrived fairly quickly.
It was the
Warm Goat Cheese with basil and sundried tomatoes in a crisp shell, baby mixed greens, balsamic vinaigrette.
This dish was a play on a common French cafe salad called Chevre Chaud (Warm Goat Cheese). It is a very basic salad of greens and vinaigrette topped with disks of goat cheese that are usually breaded and pan-fried.
Bistro's version had a fun presentation and it tasted good too. The pastry shell was light and crisp. The goat cheese was tart and delicately perfumed with the basil and sun-dried tomato it was mixed with. I liked the salad of frisée lettuce - it was simple and light. You couldn't really mix the two things together though. You had to eat them as two separate items. It was a tasty dish nonetheless.
Our entrees (plat principal in French) came out too soon for my tastes as I was not yet finished with my appetizer.
Mark went for the
Sea Bass roasted with poppy seeds, gnocchi sautéed with artichoke and sunchoke, champagne beurrre blanc.
I had a taste of this and thought it was quite good. The bass was moist and tender, cooked just right. I think the airy gnocchi were the best part though. I would have been happy with a bowl of those!
I chose the
Rack of Lamb, roasted with thyme, ratatouille, thin onion tart with rosemary and eggplant caviar baked with parmesan.
The presentation on this dish is a lot of fun - the server rolls the meat out on a cart and carves the lamb chops tableside, so you get a lot of looks from other patrons.
There wasn't enough space for the cart right next to our table, so Vincent had to do the carving from an aisle over:
I had decided to be really French that evening and order my Lamb Rare:
I was expecting American rare, not French rare (practically still moving), but I was game for it. Vincent kept asking me if I wanted it cooked more, insisting that it would be no trouble to make it more of a medium if it was too undercooked for me. No need to worry my dear....I know, and usually like, how you Frenchies eat your meat!
Well the Lamb was very tasty. It was extremely rare, but I think it was fairly high quality meat and it showed. The texture was like...meat butter. The flavor was good and I enjoyed it a lot. I don't think I would ever cook anything that rare at home, but it made me feel like I was back in France.
Unfortunately, the other items on the plate left a lot to be desired. The ratatouille was extremely overcooked and a pretty tasteless vegetable mush. The onion tart wasn't great either. A hit and miss on the Lamb Dish.
I knew I had to try dessert and had been eying the Grand Marnier souffles for weeks. When I ordered it, Vincent informed me that it took at least 20 minutes to cook. Mark and I really wanted to see Illuminations so I decided to skip the souffles and go with something else that could be made quicker. I settled on the
Warm Chocolate and Almond Cake - crispy feuilletine and white chocolate mousse with praline sauce.
This was a delicious dessert. The cake was perfectly cooked with a molten center and a delicate almond-cocoa flavor. The praline sauce was delicious poured over the cake and the mousse was light and sweet. The little stick of berries was a great accompaniment to balance out the earthy tones of almond and chocolate with sweet, crisp fruit.
We settled up our bill and said bonsoir to Vincent just in time to watch Illuminations from the bridge between the IG and France. It was super cold so not many people were out and we were able to get a prime viewing spot five minutes before showtime.
So...did Bistro impress me? Sadly, it did not. It was a good meal, I enjoyed it and would return one day, but it's not on my 'favorites' list. I really would like to try one of their French Regional Lunches during the F & W festival and see how those are.
Grade:
B
on finding items of food you enjoyed eating!
) The restaurant was not at capacity, maybe because we had 8:30 reservations, but it was not loud while we were there. It was a VERY romantic evening for us and we kept saying it was like a scene from a movie. The food was fantastic and one of the best French restaurants we have visited. We still have many other restaurants at WDW and the surrounding resorts we have not tried but at this point, Bistro is our 2nd favorite behind Victoria & Albert's. Enjoying your trip report. Keep it going!
