Everyone’s been so busy I had to remind the boys that it’s been a while since we’ve had our regular after work group dinner. We’ve done our fair share of steakhouses (we love our meat!), so for a change, we thought we’d try French. We headed to Bistro Papillon in the CBD on the Monday night.
We came here straight after work and were the second table at this dimly lit, quaint little restaurant. The super friendly waiter quickly served us, pointed us to the specials printed on a separate piece of paper, and handed us the menus. We cracked open a red wine for the table and ordered our entrees and mains shortly.
Full gallery of the environment, menus and food of Bistro Papillon:
For entrees, we got the Escargots ($15), Goat’s Cheese Salad ($16), Chicken Liver Parfait ($16), Flambeed Green Prawns ($19) and some Baguette ($6); for mains, I ordered the Roasted Quail Breasts ($36) with a side garden salad included, and the others got Braised Lamb Shank with Couscous ($35), Beef Fillet with Bearnaise Sauce ($38) with ratatouille side included, and the Grilled Hanger Steak ($35). The entrees took about 15 minutes to reach the table, and they made sure to serve us all at once. The mains arrived in 25 minutes or so after in the same manner as the restaurant got busier when other diners started to trickle in.
I’ve never associated French with big portions so I had very low expectations of the quantity, but 5 pieces of tiny quail breasts was probably too small a main dish even for someone with a mini appetite, let alone an epic glutton like me. But Richard was right; quails are tiny and realistically they wouldn’t serve 20 pieces on a plate at a fancier restaurant. It really was an unfortunate choice of a main for me tonight. Thankfully, at least the quality wasn’t disappointing; the dish was enjoyed — for a brief moment. I thought the beef fillet was a little small as well, but Yuzhong loaded up on baguette beforehand so he was all right.
Dessert time! The boys got the Creme Brulee ($13) and Apple Tarte Tatin ($15). I was very tempted to get the imported French cheese degustation platter but decided against it.
The top of the creme brulee responded with a crisp sound when Richard hit it with a spoon. It was perfectly caramelised!
We overstayed our 2-hour allocated table time by over half an hour, but the staff wasn’t upset with us probably because there wasn’t a queue on the weeknight. While it was a pleasant night overall, I left very hungry and had to have a second dinner at home. I wish I had chosen different dishes, but French restaurants or fine dining won’t be priority on Vickie’s list, methinks!
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