Les Faux Bourgeois

The night before taking off to Bangkok, V introduced me to Les Faux Bourgeois, a busy and popular French bistro located on Kingsway. The ambience is low key and casual, a great place to kick back and socialize with friends after a long week. The bistro offers lower price point than Pied a Terre bistro on Cambie, but both offering traditional rustic French dishes. It is always very busy during the dinner rush and reservations should be made in advance.

We started off sharing the tarte flambée Alsacienne ($10), caramelized onion puff pastry tart, lardon, ricotta, and creme fraiche with a side of a small arugula salad. I dug my fork into the crispy layers of the puff pastry, making sure all the ingredients were on each bite. It was a successful marriage of sweet and savoury, balanced out by the creaminess of the ricotta and subtleness of creme fraiche. I really enjoyed it and might even try out a version of my own back in my kitchen one day.

V ordered the medium rare hanger steak and (a mountain of) frites with red wine shallot jus ($17). The fries had the two most important elements, very crispy and well seasoned. As I happily dipped them in the garlic aioli, I almost forgot about my own entree. The steak was tender and juicy. As you can see, they were not stingy on the jus and there was plenty left for the fries. I most likely will come back and order this dish again with the green peppercorn cream sauce next time.

Several days ago, I saw a picture of T W's picture the duck breast she cooked up her hubbie on Facebook, I couldn't get that craving out of my mind. So when I saw the special of duck breast l'orange with roast potatoes and braised red cabbage ($23) written on the board, I knew it was my calling. The roast potatoes were crispy and tasty. The duck breast was firm, yet tender, although I may have preferred the skin to be just a bit more crispy. The orange sauce was a bit too sweet, and I kept stealing V's steak and frites which were more salty. I wasn't a fan of the braised cabbage, and left most of it just because I found the cabbage taste to linger a little longer than I wanted. By the time we were done dinner, I was stuffed to the brim and had no more room left for desserts. If anything, I think those fries were my dessert.

Despite the bistro's casual atmosphere and lower price point, nonetheless, I was happy that they didn't take away professional service and quality of food we received. Thanks for taking me V!

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