In a nutshell:

A nice bistro by the park with an open air area as well, serves awesome European food that I found to be one of the best non 5 star restaurant in town.

Address & other details:  le bistro du parc

Restaurant website: Le bistro du parc

Meal for 2: Rs. 2500 onwards

Cuisine type : Vegetarian & Nonvegetarian

Disclaimer: All restaurants / eateries reviewed by YUMMRAJ were visited by YUMMRAJ himself & he has paid for the full Bill & tips also. http://www.yummraj.com does not have even one featured / sponsored reviews. YUMMRAJ believes in going to a restaurant in anonymity, as a normal guest, experience everything & give a honest account of the same to you.

I rate all the food items & then give a final overall rating which is a simple average of the individual item ratings. What the ratings stand for: 5 = Excellent, 4 = Very Good, 3 = Good, 2 = Fair, 1 = Disaster.

Short Description – in case u r in a hurry:

I had heard of this place from friends. Also had received a press note about this place. So decided to do a Christmas Brunch here – The French way.

The restaurant was ‘created’ by a Food connoisseur Naïna de Bois-Juzan from Paris whose father is French & mother Indian. The restaurant has a French Chef. Food is made from organic local produce & menu keeps changing from time to time. For more info on the restaurant (their story), pls click here –  Le bistro 

Locating the restaurant is a disaster unless one is used to the place. Our story of finding the location is written in Italics below. U might ignore that part if in a hurry.

The restaurant is right near Moolchand crossing – On one side is the BRT & perpendicular to it is the super busy circular road. In both, if u miss a turn, u drive for kilometers for a u turn.

We were following google map, reached near the restaurant, asked around. No one understood what we were saying. We then calle dteh restaurant – they answered , gave some directions & cut the call. We searched around some more & again called – short reply, phone disconnected. I called a third time, 20 minutes after we reached moolchand crossing & wanted directions, this time in not a polite manner. I was offered help – They sent someone to a nearby spot to show us the way. That worked.  

I was feeling bad later in the day that I was harsh / rude (on the phone) on a Christmas Day on someone away from home, working. So apologize here in front of all my readers, hoping that whoever spoke to me reads this.

 

All that story apart, my genuine request to the Management – Pls have someone in the restaurant who is well versed with roads around. Pls make it a habit to send people to receive guests to Nizam’s shop (that is easy to find). Or, put up a few big boards showing directions to the restaurant.

The bistro has two floors – a cozy ground floor with a bar as well & a slightly bigger first floor with 3 sides open. To beat the Delhi cold there were adequate heating systems & some desi angeethis as well.

I loved the amazing framed photos on the wall – slice of life, India.

Peppy, non obstrusive music was being played.

The person serving us was really good. He helped us make choices & made himself likeable thru his warmth.

Each food item, it seemed,  was cooked from scratch (of course leaving apart the marination, brining etc). Massive attention was paid to plating of the food & the details of its taste, flavor, texture. We were pleasantly shocked to find that everything that we ordered was perfect.  Individual brilliance & ‘cooking with care & passion’ was showing up.

Food was not industrialized. It was as if some artist was painting on canvas one after another rather than a machine churning out printouts of a beautiful picture.

Detailed Description – In case u have the Time to NJOY reading:

The brunch concept here was good – we cud choose from a wide list of items and the dish wud b cooked & served at our table.

As we sat for the brunch, we were served Bread baked ‘in house’. It had a bit sourish tinge. It was served cold. Butter was freezing. A bit of warming the bread & the butter b4 serving wud hv helped.

Loved the intrinsic taste of the bread but cud not keep munching on cold bread and super solid butter. Requested our server to get it warmed. The guy came bk and said kitchen is busy. So can’t warm bread.

Wud not say I was not irritated at that but as the food started coming in, everything else dissappeared …………… all chota mota things maaf.

For drink my co-diner had Mulled wine (for the uninitiated – mulled wine is wine cooked with spices & served warm). It was full of flavor – a sniff was good enough to kick off a good time.

Cinnamon flavor was particularly noticeable. The drink was perfectly warm for a smooth sip. It was a lil bit sweet & that is what I loved. It was just right for the 5 degrees Delhi chill. Rate it 4.25/5

I ordered Spinach, apple and yoghurt juice – The spinach gave color and base. Apple gave a lot of flavor and some bit of taste, yoghurt gave tartness, base and taste. We cud feel the skin of apple in the mouth. Liked it very much & rate it 4/5

We then ordered egg florentine with spinach & smoked salmon. We checked with our server about the presence of spinach while we were ordering. He said ‘yes’. What came, had no spinach. A different person had got the dish to the table for us. We asked him ‘what is this’. He said it was ‘eggs Benedict’ with salmon.

No regrets. No regrets at all. It was a class apart. It was one of the best eggs Benedict / florentine / fusion I have ever had, b it in India or abroad. Coz mostly I hv had this in large hotels in breakfast – mass produced stuff vs made to order from scratch.

The top layer was burnt during baking. Perfect amount of browning. The bread at the base was super duper crisp & very easy to cut with knife. The yolk of the organic egg was in perfect texture – not too liquidy that it wud flow out at the stroke of a knife, not too hard that a benedict loses its feel. Exceeded expectations on all counts. Rate it 4.75/5

The next dish we ordered was Chicken liver parfait with chutney . It was Smooth, but had a texture. Intense in taste. Creamy, full of flavours and just too good. Served with Melba toast. Rate it 4.5/5

The next item was from a Christmas special menu – Rustic Onion tart with artichoke and Parmesan mousse. The artichoke hearts were so good – loved those. The onion at the base was sweet and yumm. Herbs threw in super flavours.

What a super crisp & Layery tart. YUMMRAJ was bowled over by this veggie dish. Parmesan mousse was divine. It was served warm. Rate this dish 4.75/5

We moved on to organic Duck breast with gratin. Awesome. The meat was super juicy inside, charred and crisp outside. The juices were oozing out of the meat as my knife was slitting the meat.

The sauce had juices that had come out while cooking the duck. Loved it.

The gratin was perfect as well. A bit burnt on the top and soft, creamy inside, full of flavor.

Rate this dish 4.75/5

The next dish was Beef tartare. The server explianed that this beef preparation was made with raw beef & there was another version (steak frites) which was made by cooking the raw minced beef. We chose the first option.

Must admit that the first two spoons of it on the tastebuds was an expression full of surprise & intrigue. Slowly it started growing on us. In a while we were just loving it.

What stood out other than the meat was the mustard – it had a hint of pungency and fermented feel like in home made mustard sauce. Rate it 4.25/5

The next dish we had was Beef steak. Perfect medium rare steak with no additional twists to it.

The steak came with crisp YUMM fries. The potato used was sweet & salt was sprinkled from top. A bite into the potato spoke to the taste buds parallely – some buds got the sweetness, others got the salt.

Rate the steak 4.25/5

For dessert we ordered ‘home made’ Carrot cake after the server told us that it was made by the Chef’s mother!!!! We were already going ga ga about the Chef’s creation & got super excited to hear this.

The carrot cake was very moist. We cud see grated carrot in the cake. The carrot pieces seen were not micro thin though. This cake was quite nothing like a cake with the same name that u get in any other commercial establishment in Delhi. The texture, the taste we just too good.

There was an icing on top made with cream cheese & walnuts sprinkled on top. Th eicing was not hard like it usually is in most carrot cakes in delhi NCR. It was sweet, had a tinge of salt but was not too sweet.

Respect……………

This dish was beyond rating.

Last dish we had that afternoon was Crepe aumoniere with champagne sabayon.

For the uninitiated, in French, the word aumônière means “giving money to someone in need”. An Aumoniere represents a small purse (the pastry) with coins inside (the filling). To make an aumônière, you typically place a sweet or savory preparation in the middle of a crêpe, which you then close so that it has the shape of a small purse. Eating an aumônière is about creating excitement and suspense of what you are about to discover inside.

The aumoniere thus looked like a potli made into that shape from a flat, super thin crepe. The aumoniere was slightly crispt towards the ends. Indise, there were fruits like fresh grapes, plum, fig, pineapple . This was served with sabayon – a YUMM sauce made from champagne. Extremely nice. Rate it 4.5/5.

Overall rating of food at Le bistro du parc averages out to 4.4/5.

Do I still need to tell u that I will revisit as many times……….. What r u thinking…write in..