I feel full of shame that I hadn’t gone to Bistrot La Minette earlier. I’ve passed by it dozens of times. It’s right across the street from Beau Monde. I always saw it and said to myself, hmm, I wonder if that place is any good. I just had no idea that it was an authentic French bistro and that it would be so darn good. Maybe I was afraid of French food. I just don’t know. But I’ve finally righted my wrong. So they do a prix fixe on sundays, $29(!) for four courses, and the menu changes weekly. And man, it was stupendous.
There are some cute tables outside and when you go in, it immediately feels like you’re in Paris. It really is quite transformative. What do we start with? Baguette! So good and served with the most delicious salted butter.
Here’s the amuse bouche – rillet on a little mini crostini.
Our first official course was the Soupe Parmentier. It was a winter root vegetable soup with fried leeks, butter-roasted chestnuts, and parsley oil. This was so velvety smooth and rooty. It definitely is made with roots, but nothing was overly bitter. The chestnuts were so good! I wish there had been more of them!
Next up was the Grillé au Cantal. It was a hunk of breaded and fried Cantal cheese with cauliflower and haricots verts in a lemon vinaigrette. It was like cheese tempura! It was a bit on the overly crunchy side, but who doesn’t like fried cheese!
The main entree was the Bœuf Bourguignon. You know what this is, it’s a beef stew with mushrooms, lardons, pearl onions, and potatoes dauphine. This stew had an intense flavor and the meat was tender and juicy. My favorite thing about this were the potatoes dauphine! They like deep fried mashed potato balls! So the puffed outside is a little crispity but the potato on the inside is whipped and creamy. It was so awesome.
And finally, for dessert, the Tarte au Citron et son Sorbet Cassis. It was a super duper lemony tart with a cassis sorbet. The whole thing was great, especially the cassis sorbet. It was so much food! And it was all delicious! We were both absolutely crazy about it. The service was also excellent, from our extremely blond server. He would have looked extremely at home in a Russian figure skating program. Early on when we first got there, which was like early bird time, it was pretty much deserted. But later in the night, we were happy to see lots more people show up. And you should show up too!

After many thwarted attempts, I finally got a chance to brunch at Cafe La Maude in Northern Liberties. It’s down a few steps from the ever popular Honey’s, but it’s a completely different experience. It’s cute on the outside, and it’s probably even cuter when it’s warm and the front windows are open and there are tables outside.  But omg, the inside is just so sickeningly cute and awesome. I mean, seriously. It’s so amazing and well-done and beautifully designed it makes me want to cry. If I could dream of a kitchen and dining room, it would look like Cafe La Maude. I would also be filthy rich in order to be able to afford it.
It’s totally european chic and cool on the inside. Grey subway tiles! I love it! It’s a cafe so the menu is fairly small, consisting of some breakfast items, sandwiches, and salads. There’s also pastries and coffees. The fare is french-lebanese, so you’ll see a nice mix of middle-eastern and french favorites. Really though, can I just say again how attractive this place is?
Here is the Saumon Fume. It is an open-faced sandwich with smoked salmon, cream cheese, tomatoes, red onions, green olives, and an overflow of arugula. This sandwich was enjoyed quite a bit, until J bit into an olive pit and almost broke a tooth. That kind of put a downer on it. Also, he asked for an egg to be added on but there was no such egg! Oops. But otherwise, a good sandwich.
I got the Halloumi Press. It was a grilled halloumi cheese sandwich on baguette with roasted tomatoes, green olives, mesclun greens and an arugula basil aioli. I fell in love with halloumi cheese ever since having it at Kanella so I really enjoyed this sandwich. This halloumi was actually quite salty though, so don’t expect anything bland. We also tried an oj/lemonade mix drink that had a slightly odd taste to it. Not odd bad, just odd. I felt like it was flowery, like a honeysuckle taste? In any case, we liked it! The service was ok. We had to wait quite awhile for the food, and people that were seated after us got their food before us, which wasn’t that cool. But the atmosphere is too great to let that bother you. It’s definitely a place to just hang out and linger with friends. I’ll wait for my sandwich if I can just soak in how lovely this place is. If only I could go home and my home was this lovely!

Potlucks do not have to be about beanie weanies and salsa dip. They can be gourmet as well! M and E hosted a high class gourmet pot luck, and somehow, I was invited. Some lovely champange cocktails. Way to start this thing off!
This beet dip is just about the most beautiful color in the world. And it tasted just as beautiful. Who said dip couldn’t be healthy? Especially when it’s served with cucumbers.
M’s mom and P made these ganderi kebabs made with ground chicken, herbs and spices. It was served with a mango chutney and these chicken balls were a hit!
We talked about how beautiful the beet dip was but look how beautiful this cold squash soup is! It looked great and tasted just as great. It wasn’t just the food that looked attractive. M outdid herself with the tableware and decorations.
Onto the real gourmet stuff! Coq au vin! Made with a pressure cooker and all! It was super moist and tender.
Rabbits are adorable but they’re also incredibly tasty. This was a rabbit stew with prunes. This was definitely my favorite meat dish of the night.
Some gorgeously stuffed chicken.
Don’t worry, it wasn’t all just meat. There was also this pesto pasta that D brought. She made the pasta by hand!
There was even this brussel sprout salad. And it was amazing. It was vegetarian for the most part, except for the large hunks of ham.
To keep it gourmet as well as local, M made some eggless eggnog using Snap liquor. Dangerously delicious snapnog!
Tiramisu from wegmans!
Me and gourmet cooking don’t go well together, so I took the easy way out and brought a mocha cake from the korean bakery. Everybody loved this because well, it’s freakin delicious. Thanks to M and E for hosting another fantastic dinner!