September 2, 2020
Time to treat ourselves to a really wonderful dinner at Bistro Vendome! They have one of the best patios in the metro area and are now using more of it, so we got a table all the way across the lower level atrium. This being a Bistro, the meals are not overly complicated, but the dishes are amazing!
Here’s the scene, looking across to the red awning of Bistro Vendome’s normal patio. This doesn’t begin to capture the complete atmosphere here!
Here’s the start of the meal, with Martin’s Heirloom Panzanella in the front and Bill’s Laitue au Beurre across the table. Both were amazing demonstrations of perfectly balanced, delicately herbed and spiced dressings with perfect ingredients.
The Panzanella is on a layer of really crispy, crunch croutons, with the heirloom tomatoes, yellow bell pepper, bits of a great roquefort and more perfect late summer veggies.
The Laitue as Beurre featured absolutely wonderful butter lettuce and pickled shallots, with a lemon thyme vinaigrette.
Martin’s Coquille Noir. You can see the simply amazing, dark, dark crust on the 3 scallops. On the right is the grilled Olathe corn polenta, which fully captured the air of late summer! surrounding the dish is the amazingly rich and full tomatillo coulis and on top of the scallops was the delightful bright and fresh contrast of the summer salad which had celery, corn, peaches and lime it it. A truly perfect dish!
Bill’s Steak Frites with Roquefort mousse. The three dipping sauces are from top to bottom:
At the top is the Bernaise, an exquisitely well done one!
In the middle is the Roquefort mousse, which was Bill’s favorite. It’s a really neat treatment of a really big, huge cheese. It lightens it up so it doesn’t just take over everything.
At the bottom is the lemon aioli for the amazing frites which are dipped in an herbed champaign gastrique before they’re fried.
The steak was a perfectly executed bistro style flat iron cut.