| rev:text
| - For the prices on the menu, I expected so much more. This place is passed off as French cuisine. The website states: "Cafe en Passant features French classical cuisine...", but the menu is more multi-cultural than New York City. Some choices, par example, Escargots, Bruschetta, Paella, Wiener Schnitzel, etc.. I wish I was joking. They pipe in French music, and cover the walls with cheesy French posters, and the few French dishes they serve, they somehow manage to mess up.
Upon arriving, they bring bread to the table, but no bread plates. We had to ask for them. Then they collected our wine glasses before we had a chance to order our wine. The waiter (I won't specify who, because I don't want to get anyone in trouble), inserted multi-syllabic words here and there, out of context, and over-enunciated every one, in order to appear more refined perhaps. They ended up sounding like Kevin Malone from The Office.
Strike 1.
The presentation of the food is beautiful, but that's really the only perk. The taste is another story. On the website for the cafe, the menu appears extensive, however the menu we received at the restaurant was missing almost half of the selection we'd seen online. We ended up having to order a few things off-menu that we'd been looking-forward too. At least the kitchen accommodated us...sort of.
I had seen this on the online menu:
"Bocconcini Salad:
Ripe Tomatoes on greens with soft bocconcini, basil and Italian Dressing."
It wasn't on the actual menu, so I asked if the kitchen could still do it. They said yes, and this is what I got:
Unripe slices of Beefsteak tomatoes, with 4 or 5 slices of the small size bocconcini layered between them, served on top of what I recognized as their garden salad (carrots, cucumber, radicchio, and lettuce mix), no basil at all. And the best part? The entire layered tower of tomato and cheese was completely covered in what looked like hollandaise sauce, and tasted like pureed raw onion and mayo. There was so much of this terrible sauce, that you couldn't taste the tomato anymore. It over-powered the whole thing, and drowned the lettuce to the point where it was unbearable. It reminded me more of the cuisine I had experience when traveling through Germany. Everything covered in mayo. :(
Strike 2.
Then the entree. The NY steak on the online menu was priced at $22.95. On the actual menu, closer to $30. Some of our dinner party was not amused.
I, and another girl at my table (who was actually from France, and not impressed with the masquerade) ordered the Cajun Seafood.
"Cajun Seafood...$21.95
Trio of fresh mussels, scallops and jumbo shrimp blended with Cajun tomato rice."
Here's what we got: Over-cooked scallops, and regular sized shrimp (also over-cooked), and empty mussel shells served on wild rice in tomato sauce with steamed veggies on the side, and no Cajun anything. I asked the server where the mussels were, and he/she had to check with the kitchen to find out where they'd hidden them. I soon found them mixed in with the rice. I'm pretty confident they didn't intend that, as my dish was served with a small seafood fork for removing the mussels from their shells. I actually couldn't eat the mussels in the end. They tasted horrible. As in, they were likely past their prime. I've got a lot of experience preparing mussels, and these were not right. Shockingly, I found a few broken shell fragments among the rice, which killed my appetite completely. The most disappointing aspect of the dish was the fact that it wasn't Cajun. There was absolutely no Cajun flavour or spice. How can you call something Cajun if there's no spice at all??
Strike 3.
When I go out for a costly meal, I expect good food. But beyond that, I expect creative flavour combinations and original creations. Every dish on the menu was predictable. Lamb with mint sauce? Seafood with dill? What a concept! - as Larry David would say. Boring.
One of the girls at our table who had recommended the place was apologetic, but said that they did really good desserts. We opted not to risk it.
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