Provence By Antoine (Concord, Sydney)

Earlier this year I had a lovely dinner in Concord when I dined at Antoine's Grill. The steaks we had there were really very good and of a quality I would not have expected in a suburban restaurant.

A few months ago I heard of news that Antoine had decided to expand and opened a French bistro in another part of Concord. I made a mental note to check it out one day soon.

Well, the 'soon' occurred a weekend ago. Provence by Antoine is located on Mortlake Street and is in my opinion the quieter part of Concord. I was surprised to see a French bistro located in a small corner of this quiet part of the suburb.

We were early, we got there around noon before the rest of the bistro was filled up with fully booked tables!

Roasted garlic and mixed herb baguette. Served on a rustic board allowing us to cut to our desired size. Nice!

Finger bombed!

Confit pork belly, served crisp, apple and sweet onion puree, Granny Smith apple and celeriac remoulade. The serving was a lot larger than A anticipated but she clearly enjoyed the dish.

Yamba giant prawns, salmon and scallop mousse with herbs, beautifully grilled from the wood fired oven. The prawns were succulent and sweet and good enough to eat shells and all. Yum!

Croque Monsieur - C had this from the kiddies menu and the little princess said she found the dish to be delicious! I believed her! :)

Cafe Lyon (Lindfield, Sydney)

A couple of weeks ago my close friends organised a birthday dinner catch up and it ended up being French themed. This time it was at Cafe Lyon located in the north shore in Lindfield.

When you read this post, you will notice that I have 2 back to back French dinners posted. Lol! Not planned this way, but sometimes these things happen. :)

Cafe Lyon had a nice French feel to their decor. Touches of Paris could be seen in carafes placed around various shelves and posters which were French themed.

We were seated at the first floor and I was thankful for the great lighting. Food bloggers paradise! Yay!

We decided to go for the 3 course menu which was priced at $65 for 3 courses. Pretty good value I say!

Our entrees were:

Zucchini Flowers, French Goats Cheese, Baby Artichoke & Salted Walnut Salad. The verdict from my friend was it was delicious.

Crispy Pork Belly, Boudin Noir, Wilted Spinach & Lentils De Puy. Two of us had this entree and the pork belly was truly crispy with the delicious crackling. The addition of the lentils did bring a rather interesting element to the dish. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Our mains were:

Ocean Trout, French Onion Purée, Petit Pois a la Francais, Bacon and Champagne Velouté. The trout looked deliciously crispy and I was told it was delicious.

Vincent (Woollahra, Sydney)

I do enjoy a good French meal every now and then. This one was in Woollahra, a suburb I don't frequent much. But after hearing quite positive reviews about it, it was time to visit.

I was surprised to discover Vincent is actually located in a boutique hotel. The only way into the restaurant is through the main doors of the hotel.

As I sat down, I looked around to try and gain an impression of the surrounds. It did feel quite French, which is good. I also had a peek at their cheese fridge, is that even the right word? Hmmm....

We started with entrees.

Seared scallops and leek, soubise, and vadouvan spice. The scallops were perfectly cooked, the leeks were beautifully charred and had a nice smokey flavour. A rather delicious entree.

Baked cantal soufflé with fine herbs. We had to try this as it was highly recommended by the waitress. It was light, fluffy, and super cheesy. A classic French dish.

Our mains were:

Steak frites with 'beurre Vincent'. It was plated interestingly enough on a metallic dish over the top of a small gas burner. The small fire was for the butter to slowly melt over the grilled steak which was to my surprise not a complete piece of steak but neatly sliced. The steak was medium rare with a touch of pink.

Chez Dre (South Melbourne, Melbourne)

Recently while I was in Melbourne, I had the opportunity to meet up with my friend AK for lunch and a couple of my work mates joined us. I had not been to Chez Dre before but having heard about it I obviously did some research on the web. What perked my interest were the cakes and macarons!

It was a lovely cafe tucked away in a quiet lane off Clarendon Street. And as it was a lovely sunny afternoon we sat outside basking in the sunny warmth. I love that it had an al fresco area.

We had the following:

Croque Monsieur - smoked ham, emmental cheese grilled sandwich with bechamel sauce. MC said it was lovely!

Antoine's Grill (Concord, Sydney)

Wow! I cannot believe this will be my 250th post. 3 years on, my blog is still very much alive! Here goes...

I felt like a good piece of steak and when it came time to organising a catch up with some dear friends of mine, I started looking at restaurants which offered quality steak.

Antoine's Grill caught my eye. A French restaurant located in Concord that had a rather nice menu was our choice. Antoine Moscovitz is the chef with a CV filled with having worked under Alain Ducasse, was private chef to the House of Roderer Cristal Champagne, and in Australia had worked at Salt and Bather's Pavilion. Not too bad I say!

Majors Bay Road in Concord is certainly getting busier and busier. And it looks like there are a couple of other restaurants I should bookmark to check out.

When we stepped into Antoine's Grill, I had a sense of being in an European restaurant. The front of house and wait team all had French accents, bar 1 Aussie lad. The tables were square and made of roughly hued wood. Quite rustic but not out of place.

We were seated at a table which looked out to the front and would be considered a private little nook. And little bits of decor accented the French theme.

We started off with an appetiser and entrees:

Toasted sourdough with aged olive oil and balsamic vinegar. The crustiness of the French style bread came through.

Confit diver scallops, green papaya and pickled asparagus, served with beetroot and sweet leek, and preserved Calypso mangoes. I cannot resist scallops and these were perfectly cooked. Succulent, sweet and beautifully offset by the julienned green papaya and asparagus. In terms of balance of portions, I felt there was a lot more of the beetroot puree than was necessary but the colours sure popped on my plate!

Crispy pork belly, sweet capsicum puree caramelised apple, lemon myrtle honey glaze. It went down a treat, NF finished off the plate and throughly enjoyed the dish.

Our mains were:

200g Eye fillet with green peppercorn sauce. The beef was from Darling Downs in Queensland and was 200 days naturally pasture fed. It definitely had a creamy, buttery texture. I had it medium rare and it was beautifully cooked. A very good piece of steak indeed! I forgot to take a picture of the middle of the fillet to display its lovely colour, sorry!

Felix Bistro and Bar (Sydney CBD)

The dangers of being so behind with my blog posts is that I can literally forget what I actually ate at a dining venue. If I didn't have my trusted camera with my precious pics to refer to, I seriously think I would have had a form of amnesia.

But the memories have come flooding back after browsing through the pics. A lunch I had a few weeks ago at Felix Bar and Bistro was rather enjoyable. It was to farewell an ex-colleague of mine who was relocating to Canberra. What a better way to do this than to find a nice restaurant near enough to the office for a lovely meal.

We chose Felix because both of us had not been here before. Out came my camera and my taste buds.

For entree, we shared the Chicken liver pate, dressed puy lentils and walnut toast. We loved it, especially since we both love pâtés. The waiter was kind enough to offer us more of the walnut toast which by the way was perfect for the pâté.

For mains I had the Char-grilled pork neck, red cabbage, currants, Granny Smith apples and mustard jus.

JJ had the Duck confit, cassoulet style white beans, pork belly and garlic sausage.

The food is classically French with robust flavours. My pork was tender and the red cabbage thrown into the mix provided a nice texture to the tender meat which was full of flavour.. According to JJ her duck was delicious. The fact that we finished every morsel from our plates is testament to how much we enjoyed our meal!!

Pastis (New York City)

Pastis is a French bistro located in the Meatpacking District. That day was coincidentally French food themed. We had breakfast at Balthazar and now dinner at Pastis. The place was full but I am no longer surprised by that. It had a nice vibe when I walked in, very French!

When I looked at the menu, I immediately saw something that perked my interest. What is it about a steak frites that catches my eye every time? Tonight only half the group of ladies attended dinner. The main reason being there was a show that they were going to attend that started about 10.30 pm and would end around 2.00 am so they decided to take a nanna nap before the show. Clever move for them.

I was not attending the show so here I am perusing the menu to work out what I wanted. I did finally decided on Steak Frites with Bernaise and so did NC. I think we both were looking forward to a good piece of steak and some fries.

MA decided to go for the homemade Fennel Ravioli with Spinach, Parmesan and Butter Sauce. She was initially unsure how the dish would turn out but ultimately it was her most favourite dish of the trip so far. She really did enjoy it!

Balthazar (New York City)

One morning, in lieu of breakfast at the hotel, Sami organised a group breakfast at Balthazar. I was very happy when I found out that we would be dining at Balthazar (just before departing for the US trip). It is a very well known French bistro and I was looking forward to some French style breakfast.

Balthazar is on Spring Street and is about 6 blocks away from our hotel. Unfortunately there was some scaffolding in the bistro front so I couldn't get a decent front photo. But when I walked in, it did feel like I was in Paris. The decor and the vibe was very Parisian. The waiters were attired in a French manner and the place was busy for a weekday.

We were given a list of breakfast options and I chose the Brioche French Toast with Applewood Smoked Bacon. Other options available were for example Homemade Granola with Fresh Fruit & Yoghurt, Roasted Pepper and Caramelised Onion Quiche.