Dessert at Le Bec Fin

SDC12817 copy, originally uploaded by hideyourarms/bigguybigcity.

Posh lunch day rolled around on Monday this week (tomorrow is set to be an epic day of tourism around the city), and I decided to go to another of Philly’s premier French restuarants, Le Bec Fin. Their lunch menu is either the express option at $15.23 (salad/soup and burger & fries), three courses for $35, or a 7 course degustation menu for $55.

I was allowed to sit in the grown up room instead of the bar, despite bring the average age down in the dining room by about 40 years, and wearing a t-shirt, but I was wearing a jacket so that probably swayed it. The dining room is really nice, chandeliers, soft lighting, leather chairs, actual silver silverware (even the butter dish and it’s dome lid were silver), so clearly, this is a classy joint.

They don’t do cocktails, and I don’t do wine, so I just had a coke instead. Bread choice was between baguette and raisin bread, I opted for raisin, it was okay, but not amazing, it was bread.

My first course, which they accurately called an ‘entree’ (in America an ‘entree’ is usually the second course…), was a duck terrine with grape infused mustard (it basically tasted like barbecue sauce), with some ‘rustic’ toast. I’d struggle to get excited about a terrine, but it was nice, not too fatty.

My main course was a fairly boring choice (there’s lots of choice throughout the menu), rib-eye and fries with a red wine sauce. It was a perfectly cooked steak, crispy fries, and the sauce was spot on too, so whilst it wasn’t exactly adventurous, it was damn good.

There was at least 10 choices for dessert, which is pretty impressive. If I paid a little extra I could have had a sampler of 3 desserts (again my choice), but I decided to stick with just the one, and picked this chocolate-laden gateaux. It was very tasty, but I have a bone to pick with them. You see that yellow layer in the middle? They claimed it was creme brulee. No. It’s custard. It’s a layer in the cake. You could call it creme anglais if you want to fancy it up a bit, but it most certainly was not creme brulee.

Anyway, that petty gripe aside, Le Bec Fin was very nice, there was a table of people behind me having the degustation menu, and that looked great too, some interesting dishes (such as a mushroom cappuccino). I’d say I’d go again, but there’s so many restaurants in Philly that I don’t intend to go in any of them more than once.