nice warm bread to soothe the weary soul.

i googled petit salut and found out that the meaning was small welcome? hmm.. wierd. anyways, bistro petit salut is supposedly the cheaper version (bistro-style) of the high and mighty au petit salut, now situated a stone throw’s away from dempsey. its like.. if you can’t afford au petit salut but still want to claim to have gone to some petit salut, head down to chip bee gardens near holland village for the “cheaper” experience.

anyways, restaurants in chip bee gardens are all pretty atas, but try to dress down their decorations and ambience to make it more mentally accessible to the masses, what with their simple deck chairs and wooden tables set for alfresco dining, bistro-style ambience that doesn’t attempt to create much of an otherworldly experience. still, by virtue of its location, you get the sense of a hidden find, where you can chillax in the shade watching the world go by amidst the baking hot sun. sounds pretty good to me. lets get to the food. for lunch, there’s typically two choices – the $25 set meal that’s available in the menu and a $38 special set menu that scribbled on the boards. seeing words like black truffle, wagyu beef and ‘blanc manger‘ i opted for the latter, whilst my friend opted for the former. (which was kinda annoying for me because it became a point of comparison, especially since i felt that his appetizer and dessert was more worth it. -_-)

 asparagus salad with summer black truffle vinaigrette

this appetizer left me really quite confused honestly, because i couldn’t figure out where/what the black truffle was and neither could i suss out the taste of what i assumed was the black truffle, because the leafy, asparagus taste dominated the dish. to its credit, the dish felt refreshing and light and you could see the effort gone into shredding the asparagus till it looked like celery bits but in my opinion, i don’t get the dish. the flavors whilst refreshing, were nothing exciting or new and i couldn’t understand the combination of truffle and asparagus. =( maybe i am quite noob at this food tasting stuff. haha

grilled wagyu rump steak served with shallots and garlic confit with french fries

now after that not-too-satisfying appetizer, i was craving for some good main course. upon seeing the dish, i quickly realised i had ordered the classic entrecote with pomme frittes dish (essentially, steak that is cut into strips and doused with generous gravy and paired with shoe-string french fries) , but using asian ingredients (wagyu beef). the flavor of the steak was delicious and interestingly complex — by this i mean the flavors evolved in your mouth, usually starting with an “attack” phase when you first taste the dish, then an “evolution” followed by an “aftertaste”. to me, tasting food is akin to tasting wine and hence u see such similar process.

the disappointing part however where the french fries, which were slightly lacking in flavor though nice and crunchy. i mean, i’ve tasted much better fries so this was surprisingly lackluster. furthermore, the fries didn’t exactly pair well with the beef, hence feeling more like an afterthought carbs component to the meal. that makes me sad, because i believe everything on a plate happens for a reason. =(

home made pineapple “blanc manger” roasted almond pudding with fresh mint coulis

so i googled “blanc manger” and turned up with a reference of blancmange, a sweet dessert commonly made with milk or cream and sugar thickened with gelatin, cornstarch and often flavored with almonds. honestly, this sounds just like panna cotta. and tastes very similar to it besides the roasted almond flavor. yet again, the flavors of the dessert was complex, with hints of milk, ground almond (like your typical almond-tea chinese dessert). it was refreshing, and balanced well with the pineapple. that being said, the fact that the dessert resembled panna cotta and that it didn’t seem too difficult to make made me a little annoyed, considering my friend’s strawberry shortcake looked much better than this. lol. maybe again i dunno the goods.

all in all, an interesting but not exactly completely satisfying experience. to me, it felt like this wasn’t exactly authentic french but more like contemporary french with asian influences. it was a hit and miss to me, but definitely the food here was of some standard. 6.5/10

bistro petit salut | 44 Jalan Merah Saga, #01-54 Chip Bee Gardens | french, bistro, desserts