L’ecole – Restaurant of the French Culinary Institute

A few weekends ago, my darling friend HB snagged a free Sunday of mine to take me out for my birthday brunch.  (Yeah, our schedules are crazy right now, so it’s been really hard to coordinate – although by the time this posts, it’ll be December, and honestly, this brunch took place in early November… yes, I’m running far, far behind!)  L’ecole, the restaurant of the French Culinary Institute, was chosen as our location – a great place for a starting off point since we wound up walking around and shopping afterwards… instead of studying… 😉 

The space was bright and airy, and I really like when brunch places let you make reservations.  Here is the fruit salad that BB chose as her starter – brunch is prix fixe, pick two from the menu, one appetizer and one entree, for about $20.  Not a bad deal, right?  Look how huge this fruit salad appetizer is!!!  BB had trouble eating everything because it was so much food. 

SpB started with shrimp and grits.  I only took a picture because she was next to me and because the lighting was so nice.  I know she liked it and I heard no complaints. 

This was SpB’s main course – eggs benedict.  The potatoes on the side look fabulous!  I recall SpB also really liking this dish.  But nothing specific about it…

As for me, well, I decided to go all out and eat lots of red meat.  Why?  Well you know I’m borderline anemic.  I was experiencing more issues with blood-loss (don’t be gross, because that’s not what I mean), and I was just hungering for a big slab of meat. 

So I started off with the beef tartare, which came topped with a quail egg. 

Mmm… this was only alright unfortunately.  There wasn’t enough bread/crisps so I wound up just eating it straight, which is tasty, but I prefer spreading it on something.  There wasn’t enough of a textural contrast, and I would have liked to be able to add capers/onions/peppers/etc. or at least had more of that in there to give it crunch and pop.  I mean, it was sufficient, but not the best I’ve ever had.  Back to the drawing board, kiddies…

And for my main course (and quite a number of us chose to get this – I just didn’t take pictures of everyone’s food), I went with steak and eggs.  Here lay my biggest problem… which was that I requested a poached egg, as did AB.  Both of us received plates that looked like the above. 

That is not a poached egg. 

The eggs on SpB’s eggs benedict?  Those are poached eggs.  What I received, and what AB received – both are fried eggs.  Not bad eggs, per se, but they are still not poached eggs.  Eh.  Whatever.  The Bearnaise was lovely (delicious – I finished it!), and the steak was properly cooked, the fries perfect shoestrings of crispness. 

Of course, if the biggest problem I experienced was not receiving an egg cooked the way I wanted… that’s not a big problem at all!  (Well, for me, since I love raw egg yolks, but that’s personal preference.  I would have ordered a sunny side up egg had I not just made the discovery that when people ask you how you want your eggs, you can ask for poached… lol don’t ask me why I never realized that before and just ordered sunny side up all the time!) 

I enjoyed the meal greatly, as did all of my dining companions.  We will definitely be back – the ability to make reservations, the inexpensive price, and of course, the yummy food definitely all led us to that conclusion.  (Plus it’s conveniently located near a lot of good shopping.) 

Yvo says: Definitely recommended.  Inexpensive yummy brunch… that takes reservations… sign me up!  We also got cocktails that were pretty good, too – not too alcoholic but not too light, either, with fruity notes (various mimosas – mango, peach, and lychee, I believe).  Mmm!
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