Cru

There's a really nice restaurant located down the block from work that has a lunch special.  3 courses for $24.  Nice!  While browsing through the menu posted outside the restaurant I was actually looking at the dinner menu and I was super excited.  3 choices from this menu for $24!  I'm in!

But when I got seated and was handed the menu I saw that the lunch menu is a lot more limited:

OK, not as nice as the dinner menu but I can work with this.

For my first course I got the soup which was a Tomato Bisque:

Topped with some parsley cream, croutons, and a drizzle of olive oil.  This turned out a lot better than I thought!  I was nervous about the tartness of the tomatoes but the chef offset the tart flavours with smoked paprika which gave it a smokey spicy quality to counter the tart tomatoes.  Very flavourful and balanced.  The crunchy croutons also added that extra textural element to the soup.  Very nice.

For my second course I ordered the duck confit:

Topped with a bacon vinaigrette sitting on top of a goat cheese cabbage hash.  I think the chef did a really good job with this one.  The natural fattiness of the duck leg was controlled really well with most of it rendered out.  The meat was super tender with the leg bone sliding right out when I gave it a gentle pull.  The duck skin was crisped up nicely.  After my own failure with cooking duck before - I know this can be tricky and the chef nailed all the elements that makes a good duck confit dish.  The bacon vinaigrette was interesting.  The only thing I had issue was the goat cheese cabbage hash.  In my mind I imagined the pairing to be great together but when I tasted it - it just did not work out perfectly as I thought it would.  I don't know how to describe it - it was just off somehow.

Dessert: Chocolate Cardamon Panna Cotta served with stewed dried fruit and shortbread cookies.

Panna Cotta is on my list of things to learn.  I see it being served a lot on TV and from the recipes I've seen it's super easy.  The combination of cardamon with the chocolate was really nice.  It gives the panna cotta that extra spiciness (not hot, more like cinnamon/nutmeg type of spiciness).  The only issue I had was the texture of the Panna Cotta had a bit of a grainy quality.  Maybe from ground up cardamon?  Not sure.

Overall I really enjoyed my lunch at Cru.  It's not something I want to do everyday, but I'm willing to spend a bit more once in awhile for the sake of my food blog readers!