Dijon Bistro
Dijon Bistro, Ithaca, NY
http://www.dijonbistro.com/Menu.html
Price: $$$
Cuisine: French
General
Recommendation: Pretty good but don’t worry if you don’t get there for a while. Probably best for a date or with a group of
3-5 friends. You’ve had better
everything elsewhere but for a small town, it’s a nice change of pace.
Everybody’s been talking about Dijon lately. It’s new- it opened in November, 2006 and
apparently people are just starting to go there and the common view is that
it’s quite good. We went on Saturday
night around 8:00- there were 4 of us and we didn’t have reservations. It’s a small-ish restaurant so we had to wait
for about a half hour for a table and since they appear to only have a beer and
wine license, we ordered a bottle of white while we waited. I recommend reservations as there is not
really an appropriate waiting area for you to stand around in.
The Food:
In general, the food was good. The size of the courses was large- you do not
need to order as much food as we did- and the entrees were all very good
sized. Some of the things we ordered did
not taste like the classic versions of what we were expecting but overall, the
quality of the food was nice- it wasn’t heavy like some French food can be and
we certainly were served plenty of food. We probably could have stopped at just the appetizers- none of us were
really hungry enough for our entrees- so we didn’t order dessert. The menu looked pretty good for dessert,
however.
Here are details on our order:
First Course: Mussels, Frites, Steak Tartare, &
Pate. For some reason, our waiter
felt that because we had some white wine in our glasses when we sat down, he
insisted we order mussels and frites to start with. So we did. There were a lot of mussels- more than enough for the 4 of us- and there
were plenty of frites as well. Though
according to the menu the mussels come prepared in the standard way, these had
a tremendous amount of parsley that really overtook the plate. More wine and garlic and much less parsley would
have improved this dish. So ordering the
frites was somewhat of a waste since we didn’t really enjoy dipping them in the
sauce. The steak tartare was large and,
as usual in restaurants, came with very few toasts- however the bus boy
immediately brought us more when we asked which was nice. The steak tartare itself had much more of a
pickle-y taste and less of the dijon and egg mixture that I’m used to which was
unfortunate- I probably wouldn’t order it again. The pate, however, was a good choice. It was a decent sized piece and it wasn’t too
creamy. I recommend the pate when you
go- but be sure to order some toasts or extra bread- it didn’t come with
anything to spread it on other than the starter bread you get which was kind of
odd.
Second Course:
Chicken Pot Pie, Braised Short Ribs, & Hangar Steak. I really have no complaints about this
course. All the entrees were huge (the
pot pie was more than twice the size of a regular one) and it seemed like everyone
in the restaurant was carrying out food to-go when they left- we did as
well. The Short Ribs were a special on
Saturday night- you can view their nightly specials online- and they were quite
good. The steak was prepared well and
the pot pie wasn’t too heavy.
Drinks:
As I mentioned earlier, it looks like Dijon only has it’s
beer and wine license. Their wine list
isn’t longer than a page but they do offer a nice variety of wines at
reasonable prices. We were pleasantly
pleased by the suggestion our server made for our red wine based on what the
group had ordered for dinner and enjoyed the white wine we started with as
well. Another interesting thing to note
with regard to drinks is that the water was flavored with fresh lemon which was
a nice and pleasant surprise. More
restaurants should do that.
The Service:
This is probably what will make or break Dijon. I wish it were not true, but they did manage
to break two of The 5 Basic Rules. There
were no bread plates. Interestingly
enough, however, instead of leaving us with a bread basket, the server brought
over butter (in a tiny cast iron pan which was cute) and then placed a slice of
bread on the paper-covered table in front of us. This helped me know that it was apparently
okay to put my bread on the table. Unfortunately, there was no butter knife so all four of us had to use
our knives to get the butter out of the tiny butter pan. They also neglected our wine glasses the
entire dinner. This rule is half broken
because the bus boy (who was excellent- quiet, quick and helpful), kept our
water glasses full the entire time. But
we did pour our own wine throughout the dinner.
In addition to breaking two of The Rules, the service, though
friendly, was somewhat awkward. Our
waiter was friendly but a little too involved in the conversations at our table
when he was around which some people may like but we thought was sort of
strange and uncomfortable. I was also
kind of annoyed that the mussels were sort of forced on us and would tell
people to order mussels if they want to try them but don’t let their waiter
talk them into ordering anything there. I was pleased when he offered to recommend a bottle of wine- I thought
that was nice and doesn’t often happen in restaurants when it should. As far as timing goes, I think the food came
out in a reasonable amount of time. I
suppose our appetizers took a bit long but it wasn’t a major issue.
The Atmosphere:
There isn’t really much to the atmosphere at Dijon. This is probably one of the main reasons I’m not more excited about the place overall. It’s meant to be a French Bistro and so the floors
have black and white tiles, the tables have white table cloths with dark
colored chairs and there are roosters everywhere. In fact, the rooster theme is so prevalent
throughout the restaurant (there was even a little puff rooster on my pot pie),
I was surprised that the name of the restaurant didn’t have something to do
with roosters. Other than that, there’s
not much too the place. It’s in a dumpy
little strip mall and is fairly narrow and short in size. It’s an open room so it’s certainly not what
I would consider intimate by any means. The lighting could be a tad bit darker and that might help but that
would also be hard to do in such an open space. It’s not a place to go in a large group- they only have smaller-sized
tables- and though some of these tables can be pushed together to accommodate
groups, the acoustics and atmosphere would probably mean that group would take
over the entire restaurant. I think the
idea of Dijon is nice and it certainly is a nice option for a small town like
Ithaca, but both the service and atmosphere could use some work.
