RESTAURANT WEEK: MISTRAL

I often approach Restaurant Week with a wary attitude. After having both worked behind the scenes during Restaurant Week and gone to a number of Restaurant Weeks in both New York and Boston, my tummy has learned to keep my expectations low, and to allow myself to be pleasantly surprised. There's actually a lot of debate going on right now, about the usefulness of Restaurant Week and whether the tradition should be continued, but I'm not gonna discuss that too much. You can just check out the discussion board on Chowhound if you're curious. Oh wait, I was just on chowhound and found a posting written by someone who sounds just like me, except certainly less creative and adventureous in trying to find dining options. But I digress. This year, I was able to find out about restaurant week well in advance, and snagged reservations at two restaurants that I had wanted to try for some time. The first is Mistral, and we had reservations at 6pm last Monday.

I was quite proud of myself for getting reservations at Mistral, especially considering their average entree costs more than our entire restaurant week dinner. And I was actually pretty surprised they were offering dinner at all, since restaurants of this price point tend to offer only lunch. So despite our early reservation (which may have turned to be to our advantage anyway), I was looking foward to dinner at Mistral.

When we arrived, Kjell and Huong had not appeared, so we waited in the the little lounge area where I ordered a very nice glass of Viognier. When Huong and Kjell did arrive, we didn't even have to go up to the host stand to notify them, they came and led us immediately to our table. The dining room was actually much smaller than I had expected but it lent a cozy atmosphere to the place. Most of the tables were already full when we arrived, and we started look around at all the diners, trying to figure out what we should order.

Our waiter arrived promptly to take our drink orders. Actually, he was quite attentive and efficient. Shockingly enough, throughout our entire meal, I would experience better service than I'd had at most restaurants in Boston, and this was Restaurant Week! So for my meal, I decided to order the Chilled Summer Corn Soup with Maine Crab, Avocado and Jalapeno Oil for my appetizer, the Seared Scallops with Ragout of Sweet Corn and Summer Chantrelles and the Stone Fruit Cobbler. I was also pretty satisfied with the selection of appetizers and entrees, 3 of each. Oh and also, the waiter was very gracious, and didn't come with the condescending "you're only eating here cause it's Restaurant Week and you can't afford to eat her normally" type attitude.

First we were given this nice loaf of sourdough bread. To be honest, I was surprised that they'd even bother with the bread during Restaurant Week.
And here's my bowl of summer corn soup. I really like this, though Huong found it too sweet for her tastes. The mixtures of textures from the crab to the avocado to the soup were so pleasing. I didn't really notice the jalapeno oil, but that was a minor thing. I was also happy that they even bothered to put crab on the soup and didn't skimp on portions at all.
And here are my scallops. I was happy to find a generous portions of 4 plump scallops on my plate plus there were a generous number of the chantrelles and I just love those. I could tell that all our entrees had been sitting under a heatlamp for a while. It just had a bit of that dried out look on the surface. But I was happy to find that my scallops hadn't suffered too much. They were still moist and tasty. Tom's sirloin did not fare as well. He'd ordered it medium and it arrived well done. He ate it anyway, and I had far too much food and gave him two of my scallops. Lastly, I had the stone fruit cobbler. I'll forgive restaurants for desserts during restaurant week. I realize that it's the easiest place to skimp and simplify. But I still enjoyed my cobbler. I mainly finished the fruit beneath the crust. The topping was just a bit too sweet for me.
All in all, I must say that this was the best Restaurant Week meal I've ever experienced. Service was great and we didn't feel that rushed. True, the appetizers, entrees and desserts came out pretty quickly, one after another, and true, the porter (the guy who actually brings the food to you, not the waiter) was kind of abrupt and not so fluid in how he served us, but in reality, everything was superbly done. They actually bothered to crumb the table several times, and when Huong got up to use the restroom, someone folded her napkin. And I like those small details. For me, the best service is that which you don't notice. One that doesn't intrude upon your meal or dining experience, and at Mistral, they did that very well. Without a doubt, I would go back for a non-Restaurant Week meal, albiet, for a very special occasion.