Went to L’Express Thursday night. What a great place. Classic food, great wine list, as unstuffy as can be, very reasonable prices, kitchen open until 2am. Absurdly appealing menu: I could have picked any four or five dishes at random and been happy. To convert CDN to USD, knock off 25% and round up.
Lovely cool Morgon ($62), goes with everything.
Every table gets a big jar of cornichons and a pot of mustard.
Warm beet salad ($11.75). Hit the spot, I wanted a little veg before getting into the offal. Damn, some of these photos looked a lot better on my phone.
My dining companion’s lobster bisque ($13.45). Best I’ve ever had. Deep, dark, funky essence of lobster with some sweet chunks of meat mixed in.
Torchon of foie gras ($24.75). Perfect. My one minor quibble about the meal, the brioche could have been crisper. A glass of late-harvest Gaillac was a fine pairing.
My dining companion’s chicken with morels ($26.55). Every element was perfect.
Boudin noir ($23.50). Fantastic. Thank god for air conditioning. About this time there was a thunderstorm going on outside.
I’d been planning to get the kidney or liver but my appetite was flagging, so I went for the grilled sea bass on ratatouille ($29.50). Perfect. Got a great natty Jura white ($96).
Baba au rhum ($10.25). Perfect.
“Ile flottante au caramel” ($10.65): a little puddle of creme anglaise topped and a big, fluffy meringue topped with a crunchy caramel shell and surrounded by almond-caramel thingies.
Finished with a shot of Okanagan vielle prune ($12). By the time we walked out the thunderstorm had passed and it had cooled off a bit.
Really great place. It’s hard to beat perfection.