L'entrecote

After a week full of deadlines, I was ready to reward myself tremendously. Had a huge huge craving for steak and fries, so asked Lynn out for a date at Les Bouchons. But when I called up for reservations, I was informed that only outdoor seats are available, and they are smoking seats at that. No way I'm settling for that. Brawn's Steakhouse was full too, so I went to google and search for "steak frites Singapore". Surprise surprise, other than Les Bouchons, this little French bistro at Duxton Hill popped up on the results. We looked through the reviews and thought we could give it a try. No reservations allowed. The restaurant is pretty hard to locate, because we confused Duxton Hill with Duxton Road. Our arrival there before 7pm met with a still empty restaurant so I guess timing is important. The restaurant did fill up quite quickly through the night.

The tables here are extremely tightly spaced. We are about 2 inches away from the next table on either side of us. And because of the tight space, the waiters have to carry the tables out for guests to be seated on the bench side of the table. Previous reviews said no chance of having an intimate conversation here. We found it ok because it was quite noisy with all the people in the bistro, people can't really hear you anyway. Besides, we were seated between some Americans and some French, so I doubt they fully understand our Singlish.

Upon being seated, we were immediately served a sweet wine. I think it's part of the main course set. They don't serve ice water, so we ordered a bottle of still water to share. The unique thing about this bistro is this: They only have ONE main course, and that is of course, steak and unlimited supply of fries, plus a walnut salad on the side for $29. They do have a variety of appetizers and desserts. We ordered a half-dozen escargots and foie gras. The next question was then how well we want our meat to be done. The server then wrote MR (medium rare) and M (medium) on the table cover (made of paper) at the respective sides of the table.

The appetizers arrived pretty quickly. No shells on the escargots again. I know we had two bad experiences with shell-less ones, but I told Lynn, let's give it one last shot. You know what they say about the third try's a charm. This was by far one of the best escargots I've had. The texture was great, not overly chewy like a few we had. And the garlic butter flavor permeated the snails completely. So I can finally conclude that its not the shell that makes the escargots good, its the chef. Thank you L'entrecote for dispelling our former belief.

The foie gras arrived and we were both disappointed. To be fair, no where in the menu did it mention pan-fried. We had both made the assumption that it will be. So when we were served cold foie gras, our hearts sank a little. Because it wasn't pan-fried, it wasn't quite as soft and melt-in-your-mouth as we wanted. The rich flavor of the foie gras was better appreciated if we ate it plain, instead of with the bread and caramelized onions it was served with. Lynn pointed out that it felt more like a slab of butter that we were spreading on bread than actually eating foie gras. Lol.

The walnut salad was served next, which I found a little too tangy to my liking but finished nonetheless. I did enjoy the generous sprinkling of whole walnuts in the salad though. We were then served half our steaks sliced thickly and smothered with their special butter sauce, with a generous serving of french fries. The other half of our steak were kept on candle warmers - pretty thoughtful, since too big a slab usually end up cold by the time you're halfway through (although Lynn thinks it didn't help keep warm at all). The meat was tender, in fact, I found it overly tender. I'm not sure if its because I haven't had tenderloins for too long and had been mainly eating ribeye steaks. The meat itself had almost no flavor, and needed the special sauce to be tasty. The fries, well, they actually tastes like McDonald's fries, which is pretty good. It's just not special like Les Bouchons'. When we were midway through our meat, the second half of our steaks were served onto our plates.

After we cleared our mains, we were given the dessert menu. When we asked for recommendations, I also asked whether we could get extra fries. The server gave us a stunned look, repeated my question dumbly, asked me if we got any while we were still eating our mains - to which I replied no, I only had my first plate, and then said he will check. I was a little surprised. We can't be the first people ever to ask for that right??!! If so, how embarrassing that so many Caucasian men who are supposed to have big appetites didn't ask for extra, and these two Chinese girls did... He eventually came back with a plate of fries for us, and we ordered a dessert of Floating Island. I then saw another server going round with extra fries asking whether the people next to us wanted any. Hey... why didn't I get that offer??

The Floating Island was served with caramel decorations which both of us thoroughly enjoyed. The creamy sauce was nicer than the one from Hippopotamus, less sweet and cloying. But with such a carbo-laden meal, we were both of course, completely stuffed by the time we left.

Foie gras served with toast and caramelized onions

Yummylicious escargots

Very normal bread that wasn't even warm

Tangy walnut salad

Steak frites

Zoom in of the steak, smothered in sauce

Floating island with its decadent caramel decorations

I subsequently found out from a French colleague that L'entrecote means "piece of meat". Hm... I didn't think the meat was the best part of it. If anything, it was the escargots and floating island that saved the day. We had initially went because we thought $29 for steak and fries sounded pretty reasonable. But with everything else, the price added up quite a bit and we could have gone and treated ourselves to Morton's.