Benoit

I was excited to find out infamous French Chef, Alain Ducasse’s restaurant Benoit was on the restaurant week list. Looking at the brightly lit photos online and hearing about his trek to culinary flame, naturally flares up my expectations. Located in Midtown, against the Broadway lights, the bright red light becomes subtle and merely blends in.

Towards the back of the restaurant. We always get the corners for some odd reason 🙂

Lighting is more orange compared to other photos I have seen online- maybe lunch vs dinner.

Another shot

Complimentary cheese puffs and bread- Cheddar Cheese puff that were cold and tasted a little bit like the mini cracker Goldfish- probably because of the saltiness

Butter squash soup- Too much salt and pepper- can taste the vegetable stock more than the squash. Managed to finish the whole bowl of soup but was wishing would end soon. Not a good sign.

Cheese Souffle- Light sponge cake textured cheese- there is a faint cheese taste. A bit bland.

Cod- Salty and a bit slimy kind of texture…

Short ribs- Dry and not marinated enough. Can barely taste the red wine of the sauce. The portion was big but it tasted like they put it in a crock pot and was cooking a lot of this. It was really salty. Sweet mashed potato was good and carrot was sweet.

Souffle – Cold and disappointing. I miss the souffle at this French restaurant in Tribeca. Vanilla ice cream was good.

Lemon Tart- Hard and Sour.

Benoit has raving reviews; so I suspect they might have skimped out on the Restaurant week menu. The place was packed when we went on Thursday. I think Benoit is catered to more traditional styled cuisine and perhaps for stronger taste palate- that’s why we found everything salty. But who knows, I just knew I was severely disappointed to not experience any of Alain Ducasse’s culinary genuis. We didn’t even finish our desserts. It will take some time before we can go there again if we decide to give it another shot.