Saturday, December 4, 2010

Lunch 12/3/10—

I am trying a new place for me in center city Philadelphia inside the Philadelphia Marketplace Design Center on the 4^th floor. The only negative about the location is that the building is extremely large and it was quite a walk from the front door on Market Street to the actual restaurant.

This restaurant is called Bistro St. Tropez. I was attracted to the restaurant because I had purchased a $50 certificate for the restaurant for $25 from Open Table Spotlight. Our reservation was for 12:00 and we were seated promptly. The ambiance of the restaurant was a bit eclectic and I wasn’t sure what type of statement they were trying for with the décor, but as I said previously, I am a “foodie” and more concerned about that.

I ordered a cup of asparagus soup which was $4.95. The cup was a bit small for the price, but it did come with 2 small homemade rolls which were outstanding. The asparagus soup was nicely pureed and quite tasty. I had the Filet Tip sandwich which was served with wild mushrooms, caramelized onions, truffle oil and melted brie on a toasted sesame seed roll. I’m not one who usually likes the roll toasted, but it was not overly toasted and actually supported the sandwich nicely. My only thought about the sandwich is that the brie cheese is a bit out of place on this sandwich and would have most likely tasted better with a cheddar, but the brie was the cheese that came with the sandwich. Overall the sandwich was very good and a decent buy at $10.25.

My luncheon companions had the following: Lobster Bisque soup (very tasty, but overly priced at $7.95 for the same portion of soup as the asparagus) followed b y a Turkey Burger. The Turkey Burger was done to perfection and was served on the same type of roll that my sandwich was served on. The Turkey Burger ($9) was served with mushrooms and gorgonzola cheese. Both sandwiches came with homemade chips which were average due to some of them not being very fresh. My other companion had a cheeseburger with the same type of roll. He ordered brie cheese with his and also had the chips as well along with a a very tiny salad with Caesar dressing. I should say all 3 sandwiches had the tiny salad served with them.

Although we were fairly content at this point, we did order one dessert because I wanted to make sure we were definitely over the $50 mark since I had to spend at least that amount for my certificate.

I ordered the Tart Tatin ($7.50) which was a warmed French apple tart with Bassett’s vanilla ice cream. This dessert was tasty although the tart itself was not warmed as described. A tad bit pricey in my opinion for the size of the dessert.
Our bill with tax was just over $60 so if you do the math and consider I spent $25 for the coupon, our lunch was essentially $35 plus tip. I of course always tip on the higher amount and left our waitress a $12 tip on the check so overall cost of the lunch was $47 for 3 people in Center City.
Overall, I would give this restaurant a 3 brownie rating!!