Restaurant Review: Le Cirque

As you may know I went to Le Cirque for Restaurant Week. I hate to say it because Le Cirque is one of my favorite restaurants, but I wasn’t very impressed. I know…how is that possible? To be honest, I don’t think it’s because the food was that bad, but because I went into it with such high expectations.

To Le Cirque’s credit, I could have made wiser course selections. I started with the escargot, ordered the duck for the entrée and finished with crème brûlée for dessert. With the exception of my dessert choice I really went out on a limb, and I wish I had stuck with my old reliables.

Luckily I was with @jerpdavis, who not only eats everything, but just wants me to be happy. When I wasn’t enjoying the escargot we traded appetizers, so I ended up having the pasta instead, which was quite good, but quite “regular.”

When I wasn’t enjoying the duck, @jerpdavis arranged for me to try the chicken instead, which turned out to be delicious (crispy skin - delectable).

Very different from me, @jerpdavis enjoyed everything he tried at Le Cirque. About the escargot he says, "In a departure from true French fashion, the escargot was coupled with delicious Gruyere gnocchi. Served in a red wine sauce, this dish was an excellent change of pace from the typical snails in garlicky oil that you usually get.”

And about his pork steak entrée he says, “The pork steak was tender, beautifully cooked and had the textural assistance of some nuts (pine nuts maybe?). Delicious food all in all, but not the triumph I remembered from my first visit. “

@jerpdavis’ assessments leave me confused about what went wrong. Do I have a hard time with just how much the ingredients in these options were honored?  I usually really enjoy duck, but this dish was particularly “ducky.” It also wasn’t a duck breast – it was completely dark meat, which I didn’t expect or really enjoy.

As for the escargot, I was hoping the escargot itself would be a little more masked since I was still wrapping my head around what I was eating, but it was very straightforward, and I think that was difficult for me. I digress.

For dessert we both hit home runs. My crème brûlée was as delicious as I remembered from my first Le Cirque visit, and @jerpdavis’ chocolate cannelloni was exquisite.

Overall the experience at Le Cirque was OK. The space is truly gorgeous - a perfect balance of playful and elegant. @jerpdavis describes, “Delicious food all in all, but not the triumph I remembered from our first visit. Perhaps it was an off night, or perhaps our culinary exploits in the years since first trying Le Crique have rendered me a more discerning critic. Regardless, an excellent Restaurant Week value in a beautifully bourgeois room with beautifully bourgeois people eating beautifully bourgeois food."

On that note, the staff couldn’t have taken better care of us. We were able to take our time, all necessary adjustments were accommodated and they even placed our wine bottle label on a postcard for us to take home as a souvenir.