[Bordeaux] L'Oiseau Bleu

[naf]

In Bordeaux, many restaurants we would like to try, they do not open for Saturday lunch and only serve dinner. L’Oiseau Bleu has a lot of positive reviews, we decided to give it a try.

According to the waiter, the original restaurant used to be in Cours Verdun and moved some time ago to this new address in 127 Avenue Thiers in the right bank. The new restaurant has a new outdoor terrace for summer.

We called to let the restaurant know that our train was half an hour late, when we arrived, the waiter quickly led us to the only empty table. The business lunch looks good with a fish tartare, pork belly and Saint Honore dessert, but since we had some pork belly the night before, we ordered the “creative menu” which we could choose dishes from the main menu.

We started with a beet cream and some chips.

Amuse bouche: an airy lentil and cèpes cream. Quite good, pity that it was too salty.

I had a rabbit farci with squash with raisin jelly with a reduced juice. It was a surprise that the rabbit was nearly raw, but was quite pleasant.

My eating companion had a roasted langoustine with coco of Paimpol, trout eggs. I tasted the langoustine, it had very soft and mushy, I didn’t like the texture.

For the main dish, I had a loin of veal, anchovy, arugula pesto, potatoes and a green cake. Once again, the sauce was very salty. My eating companion had a lotte fish with a tomato and oyster tart and some roasted radish.

We shared together an extra dish of cèpes with some Ibérico sauté. I felt the ham wasn’t in it’s peak condition and a bit disappointed.

My dessert was a lemon cheese cake on a jelly disc with a creamy ice-cream. The cheese cake was very daring, it tasted excessively acid and the ice-cream was bland. My partner had a Nyangbo chocolate, caramel dessert, I preferred it much more than my dessert, the taste was quite classic.

The meal left me feeling not very fulfilled. I have a feeling that the chef wanted to try something creative, with beautiful plating, but didn’t quite there yet for the taste, the result was sometimes overly complex with many ingredients, but lacking a focus. There were some cooking errors. My eating partner felt the meal was so so, especially he found a hair in one of his plate.

Not sure we would like to go back, as there were many new places we would like to try, the menu was 43€ per person, the additional mushroom dish was 18€, we had a bottled of sparkling mineral water and a glass of bourgogne wine. 117€ for 2 persons.

L’Oiseau Bleu
127 Avenue Thiers
33100 Bordeaux
France
Reservation: 05 56 81 09 39 or

L'Oiseau Bleu / Restaurant Gastronomique / Bordeaux

[sck]

@naf

I had a rabbit farci with squash with raisin jelly with a reduced juice. It was a surprise that the rabbit was nearly raw, but was quite pleasant.

Which part is the raisin jelly in the picture?

@naf

We shared together an extra dish of cèpes with some Ibérico sauté. I felt the ham wasn’t in it’s peak condition and a bit disappointed.

You mean the iberico was too old?

[naf]

@sck

Which part is the raisin jelly in the picture?

You see the swipe on the lower bottom of the dish, that’s it.

@sck

You mean the iberico was too old?

We once bought a whole shoulder, and a few months later (we were 2, and even with occasional friends, it took a long time to finish), the slices started to get a funny taste…I had the feeling it was that same taste in the restaurant. I don’t think it was the heating up of the ham that had caused that taste.

[Harters (John Hartley - a culinary patriot eating & cooking in Northwest England)]

I don’t think I’d go back either even though, at 43€ the pricing seems fairly reasonable.

Was the rabbit intended to be nearly raw? I know it’s important not to overcook it in a dish like that but I’ve not come across very rare rabbit before

[naf]

@Harters

Was the rabbit intended to be nearly raw? I know it’s important not to overcook it in a dish like that but I’ve not come across very rare rabbit before

Me too, I never ate rabbit barely cooked until that meal. The nearly raw meat was chef Frédéric Lafon’s intention as the dish was good and all other ingredients were cooked technically correct. I think it was low temperature sous-vide cooking, my eating companion thought it was cooked by marination. We should have asked the question.

[naf]

@Harters

Was the rabbit intended to be nearly raw?

I just saw in the book À peine cru from chef Stéphane Jégo (L’Ami Jean, Paris), a recipe with rabbit carpaccio nearly raw, it’s marinated with spices and vinegar for over 12 hours. In the same book, there is another recipe with chicken breast marinated with lime juice, lemon grass, ginger and oil, rolled it in a maki form and marinated for 12 hours in the fridge.