€€€€

Escargot Bistro comments Add Yours

• Arthur Robertscu - Bucharest 26 April 2010
  @Crina Ion: WELCOME TO ROMANIA!!!TAXI!!!
• Crina Ion - Bucharest 23 March 2010
  Bucharest foodies: this is NOT the place you have been waiting for.Went there on a Saturday evening (usually busiest of the week):-no fresh snails. And not because they were all eaten by the clients, but because they probably never bothered to buy any after this your review was published. And I checked: Carrefour, Metro or Cora had been open that day. I asked when they will have snails (any snails: fresh, frozen or at least rotten). I wasn't given any straight answer. Probably they were waiting for the next rain to pick the snails.- onion soup: there are worse in Bucharest, but this one had nothing outstanding.And it was cold. And it was the last one. That was on a Saturday, when the trade is busiest in the evening. I was the lucky one, the 5 (five) customers after me weren't.- sea food salad (2 portions): one had calamari rings (only a couple), the other didn't have any at all; there were some frozen mussels (only a few), and all these were hiding under a ton of lettuce and crab sticks (you know which one I'm talking about, the ones you find in any supermarket, frozen. They must have bought it in the same place they got the two calamari rings from)- the duck: again, nothing remarkable. Only the lack of taste. Simply mediocre. I could say something about the cabbage accompanying it, but I do not want to be mean - the beef. Asked for medium rare, came well done. For some reason there were two slices, one on top of the other, to make it look like a decent piece of steak. Being Romanian, I was somehow accustomed with well done steaks, although I don't like it. To top all that, the duck liver on the steak was disgusting, this one being not well done, but overcooked. On the plus side, the only good thing about this dish was the baked potato.- the apple pie: looked very nice, but there was no taste. Very gritty.- the creme brulee: somehow edible. I didn't try it myself, but my companion made visible efforts to eat it (he is a nice guy, he doesn't like to upset anybody). I also think it was the largest dish on the menu, except the seafood salad.- the atmosphere: OK, except we left there with a sore throat: the music was too loud. And it was disco music (the owner thought that, since it was Saturday, we were heading to some club, so he wanted to prepare us)- the wines: the selection of wines in "La Mama" is better. Or at least, more honest. This selection was not honest at all: bad wine with posh name and elaborate label (the Romanian wines, I couldn't say anything about the foreign wines, as I didn't know or taste them)- the staff: excellent. If it hadn't been for the nice girl, we would have left the place just after the starters- the chef (the cook, actually): at nine o'clock the place was pretty busy, and one would expect a chef to be in the kitchen, slavering for the patrons/ customers and for his glory. But most of the time he spent it at the bar, at the tables with the customers, anywhere else but the kitchen. That explains the food.What is French about this place? The name, the blackboards (with the menu written on them) and the size of the dishes. The only thing that "Escargot" oozes is the Romanian manner of doing things.And yes, we did bring a lot of money. Thank God (and you) for tipping us.P.S. When I booked the table, I was told that the restaurant was organizing a "Soiree Rouge". The chef was supposed to prepare red food (sauces, fruits, etc), and in return, the customers were supposed to have something red with/ on them (clothes, shoes, ties, etc). Only we and another couple of poor sods respected that; on the other side, there was nothing red about the food... except for the shirts of the staff.