Not totally convinced by City Bistro

It is not always easy to get a table on short notice in Stavanger. I noticed that when I tried to book a table for a Thursday evening and I started calling on Thursday afternoon. But when I called City Bistro it was not a problem getting a table. In my impression City Bistro is first of all a good choice near Christmas when they serve stuff like smalahove (see this pictures) and lutefisk (cod in lye…don’t ask). The place is located a bit outside Stavanger so it is not a place that you just run into…but it is only like 10 minutes walk outside downtown Stavanger.

We went there at about 7 pm and the place was empty when we came there. I had a Kir Royal as usual to start with and all the others joined in as most had not tried it before. The Kir Royal was very good by the way…I should have paid attention to the champagne that was being used.

We decided to go for the pre-set 4 course menu…aka “Asparagus menu”. Each year when the asparagus are on the market they make a big fuzz about this at City Bistro. I have never really had a thing for asparagus so I had really never had the urge to visit the place due to this. Before we got the first dish we got a small appetizer. We got a soup and can you take a wild guess which soup? Asparagus of course :-) The soup was good and it was great to get started as we were getting hungry. The first dish we got was scallops, creamed chevre and asparagus. Scallops are pretty standard at restaurants and to be honest I’m getting a bit tired of this as a starter. Before I continue I also have to mention that I had just come home from Thailand when I went to City Bistro and I was coming down with a cold and I was a bit jetlagged so maybe this is influencing this review. The menu that we got had 4 wine recommendations but we got another wine. The young lady that had served us Kir Royal in the bar was also the waitress and she was very quiet and she had a hard time getting the attention when presenting the wine.

The next dish was trout served with asparagus flan, vanilla and lemongrass sauce. The trout was good but I have to admit that it was a bit strange to get this flan as a side dish. But it OK and I guess it is good to get some unusual combinations from time to time. The main dish of the evening was chicken breast with white asparagus, potatoes and truffle hollandaise. The main dish was a bit larger compared to the main dish you get when you have a 7/8 course dinner. The chicken was good.

I guess the strangest dish of the evening was the dessert. This was the asparagus menu so the dessert was asparagus ice cream with liquorish syrup, strawberry and rhubarb salad. The ice cream didn’t taste that much asparagus but at least it sounded very exotic. The food was 565 Kroner (95$) per person and the wine package was 375 Kroner per person(60$).

Conclusion: I think I was influenced by my cold because this was not a very exciting meal in my opinion. Or maybe my taste buds were still in shock after having lots of good food in Thailand :-). City Bistro is not in the same league as places like Jans, Craigs, NB Sørensen etc but I will probably try it out again in the future…at least towards Christmas time when I can get smalahove.





Regards
Gard
http://gardkarlsen.com/ - trip reports and pictures