The French Corner

As I mentioned in my previous blog. Hubby and I tried this restaurant called The French Corner. I have read somewhere that this restaurant is owned by Chef Billy King of The Manor Hotel in Baguio. I've stayed in that hotel before and the food was good.



We've always drove by this French restaurant in West gate, Filivest, Alabang many times and we were always apprehensive of what it might be like. At one point, hubby asked me what French food has he eaten? Well, french fries? Croissant? Escargot? I was stumped for more fancy dishes.

We might as well try it since we see it all the time. Not very many people dine there. We thought maybe it's either the food is bad or the place is hellishly expensive.

So begins our first "French" culinary experience.

The facade is not very friendly and a bit cold and imposing. We forge ahead anyway. We were seated in a nice candlelit table in the middle of the restaurant. Most diners were expatriates and yuppies. Our waiters were very attentive and cordial.

We were given french bread and fancy dinner rolls with the most delicious dipping sauce ever! I sweetly asked the waiter what was in the dipping sauce, he gladly complied: balsamic vinegar, olive oil, garlic, red and green bell peppers, shallots, tomatoes, Parmesan cheese and black olives (I could taste a tiny bit of sugar in there) everything was diced in perfect tiny little pieces. Oh my gosh, they should bottle this and sell it to the masses!

For starters, we ordered the Grilled Seafood Salad which has grilled prawns, squid, salmon, sole, shitake mushrooms and eggplant in ginger vinaigrette flavored with saffron. Sounds very delicious. It was! The seafood was grilled to perfection. The vinaigrette was very balanced in terms of sweetness and tartness, a perfect compliment to the salad.



I ordered the cheese, spinach and mushroom souffle because I've never had it. It was very rich and quite salty. Not good, but not bad either. Their serving is quite generous. The cream sauce was served on the side and a bit too thick. The souffle itself was not "puffy" enough and a bit overdone.



For main course, hubby ordered the Salmon in Filo Pastry. The salmon is wrapped, lumpia style in filo pastry, baked and served with a spinach sauce and Caesar's salad. The salmon, according hubby was not the best but it was nicely done. The spinach sauce was a bit bland. The Caesar's salad was just your average kind. The lettuce was a little but wilted maybe because they placed a cold salad on a hot plate, duh.



I ordered the Organic Pasta and Escargot. It's made with a French herb pasta and escargot sauteed in olive oil and garlic with red wine sauce and cafe de Paris-butter. Very French sounding. This dish is just plain awful. The sauce was way too salty, there was no "herb" in the pasta, the escargot was tough. Awful, awful, awful. I refuse to pay P400 for it. I told the waiter that I would like to return the dish for it was too salty. They calmly and cordially told me that they will replace it with a new one. I politely refused. Who knows? They might put spit in my food :-)



To appease me, they offered a dessert of my choice. I ordered the Mango Marscapone. It's similar to tiramisu but with mango layers instead of lady fingers, no espresso and with cornflakes and whipped cream on top. This one is a definite winner. The mangoes were very sweet and the marscapone was just right. This dessert is pre-made and chilled in margarita glasses so I hoped it didn't have any nasty things in it because I returned the pasta.



As I was enjoying the dessert, I could see that the chef came out of the kitchen and was looking at me and was probably wondering why I made such a big fuss on the pasta. Oh my, I told hubby, I think he's mad. No one wants to hear that their food sucks, specially a foreign chef! Maybe they thought I was a restaurant critic or something for I was jotting down notes and taking pictures so I was spared from the chef's wrath. Har har har.

We would still go back to this restaurant if only for the bread dipping sauce, salad and dessert. It's a hit and miss type of restaurant. Not everything is good. The service, however is excellent. Average price for dinner for two is P2,300 (UD$48) with drinks and a shared dessert.

Bon appetit!