This image, for me, exudes the idea of relaxation and calmness while having some fantastic food and drinks and that's exactly what happened for my friend and I at Petite Boucherie.  We stopped by here the other night and found the vibe to be extremely chill and the food to be incredible.

To start, I ordered the Salade Meli-Melo ($15) which was absolutely fantastic.  I am such a fan of burrata and when I saw this on the menu, I immediately went for it.  I mean, who doesn't love burrata?  Anyways, the combination of the tomatoes and the pesto was delicious.  There was so much flavor packed in this salad - I highly recommend it!

My friend ordered the beet salad (sorry, but I forgot the name of it exactly because my own salad was just so much better) which he really enjoyed.  We both polished off our salads pretty quickly because they were just so fantastic.

For my main entree, I got the Moules Frites ($26) which was delicious.  I wasn't that hungry especially after that salad I had to I opted for a dish that I knew wouldn't be too filling especially since the amount of mussels in each mussel is minuscule.

I absolutely loved the fries - they were cooked (or fried) to perfection and was a nice complement to the mussels.

The entree that my friend ordered was absolutely delicious.  He got the Linguine Neri ($25) and even though I only had a bit of it, I can still remember how yummy it tasted.  There was also a large amount of seafood in it - Petite Boucherie was not stingy in that regard!  Honestly, I would have opted for this dish as well if it wasn't because I wasn't terribly hungry.  However, when I visit again, I will be sure to order this dish or try something new!

As you can clearly tell, we were at the restaurant for a while because by the time we ordered dessert, night had fallen and it was a struggle taking a nice photo of the dessert!

We decided to go for the Apple Tartine which was nice but nothing too special.  It was basically half an apple sliced and then baked with some cinnamon seasoning and then placed on top of a crust.  Then there was that nice dollop of ice cream which added a nice touch.

Overall, I would definitely go back because the food is fantastic and the service is impeccable.  They also have a very decent selection of wine that I urge you to check out when you visit.

Overall Verdict on Petite Boucherie: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

I N F O R M A T I O N   O N   R E S T A U R A N T   M E N T I O N E D
Petite Boucherie

14 Christopher St
New York, NY 10014
b/t Grove St & Waverly Pl
(646) 756-4145

Website | Yelp

WHAT ABOUT YOU? WOULD YOU BE ADDING THIS FANTASTIC FRENCH BISTRO ON YOUR LIST OF PLACES TO CHECK OUT? LET ME KNOW IN THE COMMENTS!   - Stephanie

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French Epi | NYC

My friend and I found a Pulsd deal featuring French Epi which sounded really good.  I believe it was about $99 for an appetizer to share, 2 entrees and a dessert to share plus a bottle of wine.  Overall, it was a decent deal.  We were both surprised to find that when we arrived, there was absolutely no one there.  But hey, at least we'll have attentive service, right?  Not. 🙄

To start, we got the Grilled Giant Octopus ($16).  The octopus itself was delicious - perfectly grilled and very tender.  The one part that we thought was a bit odd was the mushy peas.  It was stated in the description for this dish but it was very bland and quite random, to be honest.  Why mushy peas?  My friend hoped that it was actually avocado LOL but alas.

My friend ordered the 8oz beef tenderloin ($32) 🥩 which looked quite nice.  He said it was overall not too bad but he has had better steak elsewhere.  As for the veggie sides, he said it was decent.  Overall, it was just a steak and nothing too amazing to write about.

We were both clearly in a steak mood 🥩 that day because I also ordered the steak but got the 12oz ribeye ($30).  Once my friend saw the comparison between his 8oz steak and my 12oz one, he was supremely jealous that he didn't order the ribeye as well.  As far as ribeye steaks goes, this one was decent.  It was tender and relatively flavorful.  I did notice that it did require a bit of bordelaise sauce which, for me, indicates that the steak itself wasn't that high of a quality.  

For dessert, we shared a souffle - I forget what kind specifically because that was how unmemorable this dessert was.  We also waited almost 45 minutes just for the dessert and when it finally arrived, it was ice cold.  🙄 It was as if they were waiting for the dessert to thaw as much as possible before serving because there was still a chunk inside that was frozen.  We were honestly so surprised by it but because we waited for so long, we didn't feel like waiting any longer to send it back to the kitchen.  

Overall, while the food itself was decent, the service (after waiting almost 45 mins) was very lacking especially when we were one of maybe two or three parties in the entire restaurant by the time we left.  

Overall Verdict on French Epi: 🌟🌟

I N F O R M A T I O N   O N   R E S T A U R A N T   M E N T I O N E D
French Epi

123 Greenpoint Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11222
b/t Franklin St & Manhattan Ave
 (718) 389-3029

Website | Yelp

WHAT ABOUT YOU? HAVE YOU HAVE BEEN HERE? WERE YOU AS DISAPPOINTED AS WE WERE?  LET ME KNOW IN THE COMMENTS!   - Stephanie

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Voltaire | NYC

For those who don't know me, I LOVE BRUNCH.  I mean, I really, really love brunch .  If I had to pick a meal and eat only that for the rest of my life, I would go for brunch.  So when my friend and I made plans for brunch, I was all amped up for it.  

We decided to go to Voltaire because she wanted somewhere close to her gym and this place was a good in-between for the both of us.  What we didn't take into account that day was that it was the World Cup Finals and that Voltaire was a French diner/brunch place... So after much squeezing and saying "excuse me's" to everyone in that tiny bar upfront where the very large TV was located, we were able to be seated in the back where it was essentially empty (actually, we were the only ones seated LOL).  The waitress did tell us that because of the crowd, the expected wait time for the food to arrive would take longer and service in general would be a bit slow.  Totally cool with that.

The first thing we ordered were some Beignets with Seasonal Jam to share.  They came pipping hot and absolutely scrumptious!  It was perfectly fried and because we were absolutely starving, we pretty much devoured all four really quickly.  The mixed berry jam was a bit tart and worked really well with the sweetness of the beignets.  The beignets were $7 which for four relatively large pieces was reasonable for me.

Before our mains arrived, the kitchen made an error with the table next to us and voila, we managed to snag an "on the house" order of biscuits.  These biscuits were shaped a little odd since they were rectangle and looked like toasts as opposed to the norm.  Regardless of their shapes, these were delicious.  They were paired with honey butter which was a match made in heaven.  We also devoured these pretty quickly or, at least, we wanted to but then we were interrupted with our actual main entrees.  According to the menu, these biscuits, if you had ordered them, were only $2.
T W O  D O L L A R S!! For two large biscuits!  I believe the word for that is a "steal".

For my main, I ordered the Country Biscuits with Gravy which was $12.  Honestly, the size of that biscuit is no joke (closer photo below).  It was covered with sausage gravy and topped with a few pieces of sage.  While delicious, I had two issues with this particular entree.

1. I found the gravy to biscuit ratio to be lacking.  The biscuit was ginormous yet the amount of sausage gravy, while a lot at first glance, didn't even come close to actually guaranteeing a bite of gravy per bite of biscuit. And because I ended carrying the rest to-go (we were both stuffed by this point), when I reheated it the day after, I found that the biscuit felt a bit dry because the gravy was essentially all gone.  Certainly not enough for the amount of biscuit I had left.
2. There was a distinct lack of seasoning in the gravy specifically salt.  Or perhaps I just tend to enjoy my food on the saltier side but I can wholeheartedly say that the gravy was missing a bit of salt for my palate.

So while I found my main dish to be delicious, there were definitely a few things that could have been tweaked to really make that entree stand out.  Regardless though, I found the biscuit to be delicious and perfectly flaky.

On my friend's end, she ordered the Pork Belly Biscuit Benedict though at this point, she was more than a little "biscuit" out since neither of us were expecting that surprise side of biscuits.  She did find her dish to be enjoyable and ended up focusing on eating everything but the biscuit.  I also took a bite of the pork belly and thought it was perfectly seasoned.

The collared greens in her benedict were pickled and reminded me of the Chinese-style suan cai which is essentially picked cabbage and typically used as a topping for noodle soups or buns, etc. But the flavor for the collared greens resembled really closely to the Chinese-style that I am used to.  Her entree was $14 which was also really reasonable for the amount of food given.

Oh, and while we were eating our entrees, the waiter came by with a complimentary order of beignets.    HOW AWESOME WAS THAT?!  It might have something to do with the fact that the French won but either way, we were thrilled to have another order despite being completely stuffed.  I ended up bringing them to-go and nommed them at work the next day.   The service was amazing despite the raucous crowd so I'm sure it would only be even better on a day when the World Cup Final was not playing.

And one more small thing.  I was debating about including this or not but I decided to include it just so it's comprehensive but I did find a relatively large piece of hard plastic in my main entree.  However, I found that at the really end and by that point, my friend and I decided not to mention it to the waitress/waiter because we had already received a complimentary order of biscuits AND beignets.  So we just left it at that.

Overall Verdict on Voltaire: 🌟🌟🌟1/2

I N F O R M A T I O N   O N   R E S T A U R A N T   M E N T I O N E D
Voltaire

138 Smith St
Brooklyn, NY 11201
b/t Dean St & Bergen St

(347) 799-1888

Website | Yelp

IF YOU HAVE BEEN TO VOLTAIRE, LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THOUGHT ABOUT IT.   - Stephanie

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