Le P…
February 8, 2007
Two French bistros, a few blocks apart, worlds different.
Le Pichet looks exactly like we dream a French bistro should – charming setting, adorable little pitchers of wine, a chalkboard. Le P’tit Bistro, on the other hand, is what you really get in France. It’s not a precious, pretty, perfect kind of place. It’s small, simple, a little sparse. It feels like someone forgot to tell them that they’re in Belltown. The food is the kind of thing you’d find in a hole in the wall in France, too. Delicious dressings and sauces, but then everything gets a little pile of canned corn and sliced tomatoes.
I’m not sure which of the two I like better, but by chance I got to eat at both of them in the past week.
We had a “business” lunch at Le Pichet with Anna from Citysearch. I had the (French) onion soup, Anna had a salad with quail and avocados, and Adam had a salad with eggs and a hard boiled egg. It looked more interesting than it sounds. My soup was good and solid, but on scale of French onion soup it fell a little short. The toast was a little insubstantial, the broth not quite salty enough, the onions not quite carmelized enough, and the cheese not quite rich enough. Good not great. The quail, on the other hand, was great. I didn’t try Adam’s food.
My soup
Anna’s quail
Adam’s apple (and egg) salad
We went to Le P’tit Bistro for dinner. We started with chevre chaud – simple but tasty – and mussels. I had the duck in wonderful a green peppercorn sauce, with yams and apples. And more canned corn and tomatoes, of course, which doesn’t do much for me. The duck was succulent, the sauce wonderful. The apples were good but the yams undercooked.After we’d ordered, my wife noticed there was a whole side of the menu devoted to crepes, savory and sweet. This seems like the kind of place that would do crepes right. Worth a trip back to find out.
Chevre chaud
The mussels
The duck
