Aquitaine Bis
A taste of Paris in Chestnut Hill
Dining Out by Robert Nadeau
DINING OUT |
Aquitaine Bis
(617) 734-8400
11 Boylston Street (Chestnut Hill Mall), Chestnut Hill
Open daily, 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m. and 5:30-10 p.m.
AE, MC, Visa
Beer and wine
Parking in supermarket lot
Sidewalk-level access
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Used to be, this kind of Parisian food was the big deal in every American city.
North Italian food overtook it in the public mind, and then half the chefs and
their bankers wanted to do this Asian-fusion thing, all creating the
opportunity for a French-food revival, which made the South End's Aquitaine one
of the surprise success stories of recent years. Now Aquitaine has expanded to
the Chestnut Hill Mall, replacing an Italian caffè with what the sign
calls "bar à vin bistrot salon de thé." I count that as three
separate kinds of eating places in Paris. And I think the wine bar is too
expensive and not portioned properly, and the tea service is all wrong, but the
bistro -- place of quick hot meals -- is so compelling that the others don't
matter. It doesn't matter if the plaints of Edith Piaf are followed by the
plaints of Cesaria Evora. It doesn't matter if this poetry stands amid the
prose of Star Market/Shaw's and the Chestnut Hill Cinema. Just keep those steak
frites ($21) coming.
Steak and fried potatoes is what bistro food is supposed to be all about, and
Aquitaine Bis does a super job. The steak is tasty hanger steak, cut into
little scallops, the better to hold a rich, brown truffle-enriched sauce. (I
have to take the truffle part on faith: one of us in seven never smells the
musky aroma of truffles, and I'm in that minority). The frites are classic
French fries, highly salted and with a potato flavor you just don't get at
McDonald's. A salad of cress and homemade garlic mayonnaise (now there's a
sauce you never see anymore in restaurants) completes the large platter.
If you treat Aquitaine Bis as a sit-down restaurant, then dinner begins with
complimentary gougères (cheese puffs is a prosaic translation). Sliced
French bread and sweet butter in a ramekin, no olive oil. Rather modest,
appetizing appetizers like a lobster bisque ($9) that isn't overspiced or
creamed, a thin soup with real lobster meat and flavor. Or gravlax ($9), made
from excellent salmon, arranged around a superb little potato salad made with
onions and waxy Finn potatoes. (Ignore those pretentious dots of basil oil
around the perimeter.) Or mussels à l'Aquitaine ($8) with a bland cream
sauce of onions and a little pepper.
An onion-and-Gruyère tart ($7) is more intense, with flavors of bacon
and cheese, an excellent crust, and a bit of salad. Pair it with Belgian endive
salad ($8) made with roasted walnuts and some apple, dressed with (I'd guess) a
thinned mayonnaise that makes every bite delicious.
Now you're ready for steak frites, or the more serious fillet au poivre ($26),
a wedge-shaped bone-in steak with a single mini-leek on top, a rich pepper
sauce, and a cake of potato slices. Or the "seared and sliced duck steak"
($22), long slices of duck breast with a sweet-sour lingonberry sauce, on a
smoke-flavored creamy purée of lentils, with a few strings of carrot. If
you want more vegetables, ask for a side order of haricots verts ($7).
Or, in the key of seafood, roast sea bass ($23) -- yes, the Chilean kind, salty
flaking white fish on a perfect barley risotto, with a red-wine reduction sauce
(really okay on the fish, but even better with the barley). Or seared sea
scallops ($21) -- three large, sweet ones, done almost as nicely as the
scallops at Legal Sea Foods nearby, but here with sautéed cucumbers.
From the blackboard of "plats du jour," the Saturday-night special was salmon
en croute ($19), a reheated slice of a huge pastry enclosing salmon and a layer
of white seafood mousse in another outstanding pastry shell, garnished with
fresh chervil and a cilantro cream sauce that unfortunately loses the flavor of
the herb. (It seems to need an acid medium like salsa to hold the aroma.) I'm
also fonder of fresh-cooked salmon dishes.
Now the wine part. The list is good, but few bottles are under $30, and there
aren't enough half-bottles or wines by the glass. The 1998 Menetou-Salmon
(Fournier, $28) was surprisingly full-bodied for an upper Loire wine usually
comparable to Sancerre, but it's worth the difference for the 1998 chablis
(Trembley, $31), which has the classic steely dryness of real chablis. Servers
offer still and sparkling Vittel mineral water ($6), but there's nothing wrong
with tap water in Chestnut Hill, and they refill frequently. Although tea ($2)
is served as hot water in a porcelain pot with a bag on the side -- an
arrangement that guarantees it won't brew -- the decaf ($2.50) and even decaf
espresso ($3) are entirely credible.
And that's important, because the desserts are the part of the salon de
thé that Aquitaine Bis gets wonderfully right. The fave from the South
End is warm chocolate pudding cake ($8), which is at once crusty, creamy, hot,
and all-chocolate. But don't miss the caramelized banana bread pudding ($7),
cut like a slice of pie, with a caramel sauce and fried banana slices on top.
Chocolate mousse ($6) restores the honor of the dessert: it's not overly
bitter, but very chocolatey and rich, with a little crème fraîche
to cut the bite. A lemon tart ($7) is very tart indeed, like a flat Key-lime
pie studded with raspberries. Apple tart ($7) is tarte tatin, the Norman answer
to upside-down cake, with a lightly caramelized top.
Service at Aquitaine Bis was excellent on two Saturday nights, and it certainly
has filled right up with a combination of suburban epicures happy to save a car
trip to the South End and shopper types who've given the mall newcomer a chance
and feel they've discovered something. This is not a neighborhood to be daunted
by the wine prices, but customers may demand more Piaf and less thundering
French rock in the background. The Peter Niemitz-designed bistro atmosphere is
supported by some random metal rails, Impressionist advertising posters, artsy
photographs of Provence taken by chef/owner Seth Woods, yellow stucco, wood
floors, and even a Gallic sense of clutter. Codes have eased on raw-milk
cheeses, but not on having one's poodle under the table at dinner. Seeing-eye
poodles only.
Robert Nadeau can be reached at RobtNadeau@aol.com.