The first time I went to Dijon, I walked in without making reservations. This was a grave mistake because even though all the tables were empty, they said that all were reserved. Next week I made reservations. After being seated next to the noisy kitchen, we ordered our food. To start, I got the escargot (I don’t think it’s on the menu anymore). The presentation was very interesting, with some being encased in a mini bread bowl and others floating in a sea of berries and butter. Initially, I though it was a dessert. However, a few bites in, I discovered that the berries worked very well with the dish. Their tartness cut the fat in the butter. Unfortunately, the bread was stale and hard. Though the presentation was novel, they need fresher bread. I had this with a glass of Cotes du Rhone, which was pretty mediocre, but I got it by the glass so I shouldn’t have expected much.
In addition, we still hadn’t received our bread, so I asked the waiter for some. When he came back, he threw a few stale slices right on the table, gave us a bowl of whipped butter, and left. I looked around the room to see if anyone else was treated this way and they were! I don’t know if they’re trying to be environmentally conscious, or if they’re just cheap, but they dump your bread right on the table instead of giving you a basket.
Next, I got a glass of Bordeaux for my second course, the crispy duck leg confit with pumpkin and bleu cheese risotto, toasted walnuts, and fried sage. The risotto was very mute, with the bleu cheese present in a few clumps around the dish and the pumpkin flavor barely noticeable. It was a texture with little taste. The duck confit was crispy on the outside and overcooked on the inside. Even though the wine helped it a bit, it still wasn’t a very good dish, which was disappointing since I love duck, risotto, pumpkin, and bleu cheese.
Even though I didn’t have a good experience my first time there, I wanted to give Dijon a second chance. I got the boeuf bourguignon and brought it home. This was incredibly dry and flavorless. It felt like chewing on rubber with none of that characteristic rich sauce that I have come to know and love from the dish. It is usually braised in burgundy, but this was just a stew with a thin broth. When I looked at the receipt, it said “beef stew”, so I’m a bit confused what they were even trying to do here.
Still, I wanted to give Dijon a third chance. A friend had been talking about mac and cheese all day, so that’s what I was in the mood for. I got their roasted free range chicken with truffled macaroni and cheese and carrots vichy to go. When I got there to pick up my food, they said it would take a bit longer than originally anticipated. To make up for this, they gave me a complementary glass of wine. The dish itself was fantastic. The pasta was al dente with that earthy taste from the truffle oil and generous slices of black truffles mixed throughout the mac. Also fantastic, the roast chicken had a crispy, yet moist skin that paved the way to the tender and moist chicken underneath. Both components were intensely flavorful.
The last time I got food from Dijon was again take-out. This time I also got lucky, ordering the chicken liver mousse with garlic toasts. They had a great liver taste, but were very creamy and were textured like a mousse. Accompanying the livers were garlic crostini, which were a bit too crispy and thick for my taste. However, the all paled in comparison to their crispy skin salmon over ragout of white beans, chorizo sausage, tomato confit, and grain mustard-cream sauce. It had perfect black crispy skin, as the name would suggest, but was wonderfully moist on the inside. What I expect from perfectly cooked salmon is that texture where the fillet is divided into flakes and each one readily yields to the fork. That was how this was done. The sauce was also great and it reminded me of a mustard cream sauce I make myself. I think the mustard we use is also the same, Maille old style (http://www.maille.us/pages/product.aspx?pid=10). It worked very well with the salmon, making it an incredibly rich dish. As if this weren’t enough, a white bean ragout with chorizo was mixed into the soup of mustardy cream. The dish was very flavorful and definitely the best I have had at Dijon.
As a whole, I like the menu at Dijon, but they lack the skill to make many of the items that they list. The only ones I really like were the chicken and the salmon dishes. I will probably keep going back to Dijon because those two were so good and I want to see what else they can do well. The fact that they offer take-out is very appealing since it gives me a better option to choose from when no one feels like going out to eat. Whenever I do get take-out, the service is great and the food stays hot all the way home. So I would say, go out to Dijon, but be careful what you order since their dishes vary greatly in quality.
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