Crepes Suzette, January 6, 2012

Last Friday night, I had the pleasure of dining at Les Halles (also known as that Anthony Bordain restaurant) to celebrate a friend’s birthday. I had read online many customers complaining about the speed of the service, but as I was dining with about half a dozen Greeks, speed was not an issue for us. Spending only three hours at dinner seemed like a quick bite to eat compared to some of the long dinners we have all sat through at church.

We started the dinner out with a bottle of the house red wine. Unfortunately, the hostess took away the bottle before I could snap a picture of it. Usually house wine is served in a carafe or unlabeled bottle, but quite awesomely, this bottle had its own Les Halles label. It was a very nice bottle of red wine. As my wine tenancies tend to lean towards wino than connoisseur, anything that is worth more then three dollars and not found at Trader Joe’s is A-OK by me.

As a table, we ordered three appetizers to start. The first was escargot, also known as snails floating in green stuff. They were good. I am not really sure what they are meant to taste like. Chicken? It was comparable to eating a tiny oyster. It really didn’t have that much taste to me. Next, I tried the goat cheese on top of beets. It was good. I can’t really say that I am a fan of beets, but certainly can’t pass up cheese of any kind. The final appetizer was my favorite, roasted brie with honey and cracked black pepper atop a crunchy bread. I have had brie with honey before and forgotten how unbelievable the two taste together. It is something I am going to keep in mind next time I have a party and need a delicious appetizer to serve.

For my main course, I had trouble making a decision. I had read that the steak-frites were not to be missed, so that helped narrow down my selection. However, I had two problems. First, I don’t really know the difference between the cuts of steak. Second, I was hoping to not spend an outrageous amount of money. I finally went with the skirt stake, based simply on its accompanying topping of blue cheese dressing. I have made a blue cheese topping for steak before, and the flavors compliment each other perfectly. I was not disappointed by my choice.

For desert, I again thought of being conservative. But by that point in the meal, I deiced to go for broke and order the Crepe Suzette, crepes flambeed table side in Grand Mariner. They were sweet and orangey, with just a bit of tang from the alchohol.

  Overall, I would recommend Les Halles. The restaurant is beautiful decorated  in the style of Belle Epoch France, complete with gilded mirrors and wood everywhere. I spent more money then I had planned on. But in the company of good people and good food, I felt it was money well spent.