Wednesday 8 February 2012

DineOut Vancouver 2012: MISTRAL FRENCH BISTRO - KITSLANO VANCOUVER

I never really hype about Dine Out Vancouver. To be honest, I think Dine Out Vancouver are not the "special deals" that they advertise themselves to be. As the years pass, while my food expectations have gone up, I feel the quality of Dine Out participants to significantly decrease.

Mistral French Bistro is the first Dine Out restaurant I went to this year ( I went to a total of 2, reviews to come soon). I have been eyeing this restaurant for a while to satisfy my escargot craving after Le Crocodile (escargots were not part of the Dine Out menu, but I was still excited to scope out the restaurant nonetheless). My girlfriend and I went for dinner after a long tiring day at school and as soon as we walked in, the both of us fell in love with the romantic decor and charming male french servers.


Miss Dimply ordered- Provencal Tomato Cream Soup - Pistrou Foam, Topenade Crouton
Daube de Boeuf - Beef cheeks in red wine stew, olives, carrots, mushrooms and pear onions, served with fresh spaghetti
Fresh pineapple in mint sirop, raspberry sorbet

I ordered - Soya and black pepper marinated Albacore Tuna - in Dijon-sesame crust, cucumber and celery salad, lemon-dijon dressing
Duck leg confit - duck jus with orange, green beans, Gratin Dauphinois
Giant macaron - Tiramisu cream


Both with added Gin and Tonics on the side


 
 

AMBIANCE | Mistral French Bistro itself is petite, delicate and cozy. Soft natural paintings and warm cream and golden flecks certainly creates a very sensual feel. That is, only when we first walked in. After about half an hour, the restaurant was filling up, people were lining out the door, the restaurant became irritably crowded. I had looked at pictures of the restaurant prior to going and I can almost guarantee they put in more tables and chairs. Dine Out Restaurants are constantly fully booked, reservations are to be made 2-3 weeks in advance - putting in a few extra tables are expected. There was a clear problem getting out of my seat and to the washroom, let alone the high noise level. I was almost yelling back and forth to have a conversation - not my definition of French fine dining.

FOOD | After less than 5 minutes of ordering, our appies came! Immediately after we were finished, the entrée came right away! I was famished so I was happy the food came at such a efficient pace. It is not a surprise that Dine Out sets are pre-made and re-heated, but perhaps I would appreciate a little white lie that made my dish was made timely with thought. Nonetheless, the food was pleasant - nothing out of the ordinary, but still very much enjoyed.
One critical critique (haha) that I must say, the bread was absolutely terrible. The dough was not only cold, but hard as rock. I could not cut it open or tear it with my hands without great difficulty. I took about one bite and decided to dip the rest into Miss Dimply's cream soup. Which by the way, Miss Dimply loaded the cream soup with Tabasco sauce, and as much as I cannot handle spicy foods, I'd say the soup is much more flavorful and outstanding.




Final thoughts, Mistral French Bistro is a wonderful and thoughtful restaurant. I will not judge the quality of the food and service from Dine Out session, because I definitely see a great potential in them. I will definitely return to try their main menu - especially escargots and French onion soup. Will keep you posted!


2585 West Broadway, Vancouver
604-733-0046
Mistral French Bistro on Urbanspoon

2 comments:

  1. wasn't the duck confit soooo amazing? It was the highlight of my night!

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  2. I've never been to Mistral before my Dine Out experience, but I was convinced that they added tables/chairs too! It was so crowded in there, it was crazy. I didn't even mention how they kept lying about "Oh the table's gonna be ready in just a sec. They're just about to leave." And they kept saying that for half an hour. Then when we finally got seated, they said "Oh we're so sorry about that, we actually had to tell the previous table they HAD to leave because you guys were waiting." So they managed to make us unhappy by having us wait for half an hour, and make the previous diners unhappy by telling them they had to leave due to the restaurant's own crappy management.

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