Super friendly and kind staff, but certain dishes can be hit or miss. But shoutout to this…read morerestaurant for being open on Christmas Eve - glad to have had a reservation and had peace of mind of not having to go looking for food on Christmas Eve.
The hits of this meal were the oysters, onion soup, duck confit, and mont blanc dessert.
The oysters are super fresh, slightly sea water tasting, but overall delicious. You can see them chucking the oysters in the front of the store. The onion soup had the iconic cheese top, with a great cheese pull. The onions were very caramelized, and the broth was a good balance of slightly sweet and very savory.
The duck confit was super tender and had a delicious lightly sweet sauce drizzled on top -- almost reminiscent of char siu glaze. Definitely my favorite item of the night. They bring out a glass case of desserts you can pick from and explain each one, which is nice. Loved the richness of the chestnut cream on the mont blanc, and the cream inside was super light and airy. And not to mention, none of it was super sweet, which is great!
The misses of this meal (not necessarily bad, just probably wouldn't get again) were the bread, fish, and suffren (unfortunately ironic considering the name of the restaurant).
The complimentary bread was stale and really hard to chew. But hey it's complimentary, so won't complain too much. The fish was firm and not tender - I think it may have been overcooked. The sauce was too salty for our liking. Again, not bad, but just wouldn't get again.
The suffren was a huge portion, so I'll give them that. There's plenty of variety, including various sausages, ham hock, and sauerkraut. One of the sausages was quite dry and mushy, and way too salty, while the other one was chewy, snappy, and delicious. The ham hock was on the saltier end as well, but tender and fell of the bone, so snaps to that. The sauerkraut wasn't that crunchy and was instead a bit mushy. Definitely some hits and some misses within this particular dish.
Once again, thankful to all the staff working for being super kind and friendly on Christmas Eve!