I have yet another solid French food place recommendation for you! This time, it is the oldie but goodie - Le Bistrot du Sommelier that used to be at Prinsep Street. They have moved to the new place which is slightly bigger at the culturally rich Armenian Street.
Just some bread and duck rilette ($10) to start off the meal. The baguette's really crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. Goes really well with the duck rilette that has just the right hint of duck and all the goodness of a meat jam. MEAT JAM!
We visited this restaurant as a special treat for a colleague's birthday lunch. We actually sat upstairs at the Rilette Bar, which is the more casual area with a slightly smaller main course menu. Didn't really affect us, and in fact it was rather quiet and cosy in the two-storey shophouse.
It's a long rectangular shophouse. The staff was really friendly.
Here's the menu for your consideration. As you can see there are only 5 items in the 'hot food' section. 7 in the sides, and 5 in the salads.
They also have this 'dim sum style' menu for you to buy their cheeses and ham and meat jams home. I thought this was rather amusing. And now i know where to grab some french-styled snacks should I have a party next time!
For the hot foods, we started with the very delicious baked Vacherin Mt. D'Or cheese with white wine ($48). It is a whole tub of cheese that came out all melty and piping hot. It was served with a different type of bread. It was so addictive that we kept eating the bread and cheese!
Next, the rather strange salade d'endive ($18) served with Belgium endives and walnut dressing. It was tart and the green apple slices rather refreshing, but on a whole it was an odd salad that you can definitely skip.
Go for gold instead. In this case, it will be the highlight of lunch - a 600g Angus Beef Rib Eye pepper steak ($108). It had so many instagram likes when I posted it, simply because it just looks amazing.
It tastes equally amazing as well. The steak was medium rare and soft and pink inside, with the right amount of peripheral fats at the side. The crunchy pepper corn adds just the right amount of kick to the already flavourful steak which oozes beef beef beef. It was soft yet with enough bite to chomp down and feel like a carnivore. Really, if there are 4 of you, this steak is super worth it ($27 per pax for 150g!). The tomato salad was really yummy as well because the tomatoes are refreshing and salty-sweet, very juicy and fresh.
We actually also ordered the pork cheeks, but had to cancel after all that bread, cheese and meat. We went to the desserts instead. We ordered two - the Pear Charlotte ($22) first, which I've never had before.
In case you don't know what is a Charlotte, Wikipedia says this:
A charlotte is a type of dessert that can be served hot or cold. It can also be known as an "ice-box cake". Bread, sponge cake or biscuits/cookies are used to line a mold, which is then filled with a fruit puree or custard. It can also be made using layers of breadcrumbs.
Classically, stale bread dipped in butter was used as the lining, but sponge cake or ladyfingers may be used today.
In this version of the Charlotte, it is served with preserved pears and sits on lemon vanilla sauce. The sponge fingers were really nice, and reminds me of the old-school small cakes made with egg and flour that looks like a jelly form.. (I am pretty sure you don't know what I am referring to).
I do feel however it is not worth the $22 - because we could have gotten TWO profiteroles with it.
Let me explain why the Profiteroles ($14) are so good. I always had this impression that it's made up of 5 tiny profiteroles, but turns out that it's 2 big ones instead. It's crunchy biscuit with a scoop of vanilla ice cream inside, drizzled generously with superior chocolate sauce and almond flakes. It was just the right mix of textures between cold, warm, crunchy, soft, and was not too sweet but a great ending to a good meal.
Le Bistro du Sommelier
53 Armenian Street, Singapore 179940
+65 63331982
Mon - Sat: 18:00 - 23:00
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