Le Gigot

February 12th-

I was in the mood for steak, a French bistro, and leaving the boring upper west side, so I made resies at a recommended restaurant in the village. I can't for the life of me remember who gave me the recommendation though. Did I read it in NY Mag? Was it on Gwenyth Paltrow's blog? Did someone I know go there? I decided I didn't care where the recommendation came from, because I was curious, so off to Le Gigot we did go.

It's a small restaurant with a very homey, warm feeling to it, and our server was very friendly. After we sat down, we were served warm bread and butter, which seemed like no big deal to me until I tasted the bread. I didn't know if this was magical bread, or if I was just really, really hungry, but it was definitely out of the ordinary, good bread......and I am not one of those bread fans. To me, bread is just something that holds a sauce of some sort, which is completely unnecessary to me at home, where I don't have to be polite, so I just eat the sauce with a spoon, passing up the bread entirely. So, if I say bread is good, you should believe me.

For our first course, we ordered the escargot.....beautiful, delicious, great texture and flavor......could have eaten twelve more. Then we split the duck confit with scalloped potatoes and the steak au poivres with frites. I never know if I am going to like duck or not when I order it. It is always a risk, but when I do like it, I love it. This time my risk paid off. It was my favorite of the two entrees. I'm not saying the steak wasn't good. It was awesome, in fact. Cooked perfectly, it had that slight char taste from the grill, and the sauce was quite delicious and complementary. I also preferred the scalloped potatoes to the frites, but that just goes without saying for me, since I look at the frites the same way I typically look at bread. It is only there as a vessel to carry the Bearnaise sauce to my mouth. I didn't eat many of the frites, because we had mustard instead of Bearnaise, and mustard, as you know, just cannot replace Bearnaise sauce.....ever.

All in all, it was a great meal in a pleasant setting with good service. I would definitely go back to Gigot again.