French Disaster...

Bistro St. Tropez

2400 Market Street, 4th Floor

Philadelphia, PA 19103

www.bistrosttropez.com/ 

It’s a rare occasion that we get to eat French food, which is a shame because my fiancé and I both really enjoy it. We know of a few really good French restaurants, so its hard to kind of branch out when we want to try a new place, but I am interested to see what else is out there, so we tend to try new ones every so often. For restaurant week, I decided to take my fiancé to a place called Bistro St. Tropez. It was supposed to have a nice view too, but unfortunately that’s about the only thing that was worth looking at the whole meal.

The meal started poorly, but not really because of anyone's fault at the restaurant. The people sitting next to us were incredible snobby and annoying, and our seats were right next to them. The restaurant week menu started with a complimentary glass of gazpacho for the menu and then we were able to select our first course, main and dessert from there. The gazpacho unfortunately was a little watery, and it tasted a little bit like straight tomato sauce. The flavor was not very good, and it really wasn’t a great start to our meal. 

My fiancé had ordered the escargot for her appetizer and I had ordered the pate. The presentation was definitely bad for mine. My fiance's escargot was plated nicely, but the taste was a little bland. The snails weren’t cooked as nicely as I have come to expect, and the butter sauce that they were served really wasn’t very tasty. The earthiness I have come to expect from escargot seemed to be missing, which was pretty disappointing. That being said, the pate was pathetic. The texture was actually pretty gross, and it was extremely grainy. It wasn’t a congealed item as it should be, but rather a bunch of small little individual pieces that were barely hanging together. The only thing I liked about this dish was the mustard. The tiny pieces of white bread served on the side were a joke.

We thought we were in trouble after this course, and it really didn’t get much better. The duck confit I had on top of my cassoulet was overcooked, but somehow the skin wasn’t crispy. It really didn’t make any sense. It was the driest duck I have ever tasted. The cassoulet was just weird. I definitely wouldn’t call it a stew, but more like cooked white beans with a breadcrumb crust. The beans weren’t quite broken down enough, as they were still in the phase between undercooked and tender. The "stew" was really dry as well. The whole dish seemed as though most of the moisture had been sucked out of it. The flavor was very lacking. Even though my fiance's salmon was plated beautifully, it didn’t taste quite as good as it looked. The salmon was not hot when it came out, which was a big mistake. The goat cheese and pistachio filling inside the phyllo was a bit clumsy and didn’t really seem to go together very well. The only thing I kind of liked on the plate was the curried carrot sauce. I liked the contrast of the curry and the sweetness from the carrots. 

We thought dessert would be a disaster as well, but it turned out to be the best part of the meal. That really isn’t saying much, but the desserts were at least bearable. My tart tatin was again lacking moisture, but the flavor was decent. The puffed pastry round was flimsy though, and I definitely would have liked it to be much crisper. Also, the apples were not sweet at all. I would have liked them to at least have a little bit of sweetness to them. My fiance's double layer chocolate mousse cake was again dry, and it was very sloppily plated. The sauce ran all over the plate, and the flavor of the cake simply wasn’t very good.

Half a pint for Bistro St. Tropez. I had high hopes of finding a hidden gem here, but all I really found was a bill I wanted to ask for a refund for. From now on I will stick to my favorite French spots in the city and maybe wait a little while to try a new one. Steer clear of this one! Cheers!