Le Figue - 19 Sep 2009

There were rave reviews about this new restaurant which took over Whitebate and Kale (at Camden). I tried their pastries and thought the garlic bread was normal, valrhona chocolate cake was too dry though could taste the bits of chocolate, and the chicken and mushroom pie was good. So alright, shall give the restaurant a shot!

We tried the set lunch, and ordered an ala carte of classic french onion soup with gruyere cheese toast. The soup was more of a consomme though with chockful of onion but I preferred the rustic and robust base. The cheese toast wasn't impressive.


Next was the suckling piglet rillettes, green apple salad, wild aragula and balsamic syrup. The pork rillettes were bland, tasteless, there were no salad, except a few shreds of green apple, few leaves of aragula and 3 drops of reduced balsamic vinegar. Sigh....

The green asparagus soup with shaving of asparagus and milk foam was average, still not good enough to make up for the previous 2 dishes.

The roasted spring chicken, cream of spinach leaf, confit of coco bean. The chicken was tender and flavourful. However, the spinach wasn't creamed, they were still leafy, stuffed into a ball under the chicken and there were no coco bean taste at all. This dish was ordinary.

Now comes the beautifully displayed pan seared red mullet, yam mousseline, glazed green pea and julienne mint leaves. The fish tasted like it was cooked hours ago, it was tough, the skin wasn't crispy but slightly soggy. The yam mousseline did not go right with me, it tasted very thick and milky... which reminded me of concentrated milk powder mixed with a little water.

The dessert of chocolate bar and strawberry sorbet was a surprise as it was the only dish nice out of the whole meal. The base was actually chocolate brownie like cake with dark chocolate ganache, topped with sourish strawberry sorbet and a thin slice of nutty biscotti. The only thing about this dish was that the biscotti could be more crispy.

Overall, the lunch experience was disappointing and the portions were measly. But it was $28++ so I shan't comment too much about food portions. Perhaps we shouldn't have ordered the set lunch which I was told changes every week, or was it just our luck?

Try Au Petit Salut set lunch next time for better food, service and ambience. Portions are bigger too.