Au Petit Salut

One day as a treat after the exams in September, we brought the kids to Au Petit Salut for lunch. It's a French, fine dining restaurant which offers an excellent set lunch for $32++. Not only is it great value, more importantly, the quality of the food is simply top notch.

Our family loves French food and one of the highlights of Au Petit Salut is their half dozen baked Burgundy snails with tomato and garlic butter. Words cannot describe how yummilicious this is - after you've eaten the snails, you soak up the garlic sauce with bread. Heaven!

Another entree, orange and pink peppercorn salmon tartare with baby spinach salad. This one is good too but not as good as the snails.

Lesley-Anne ordered the soup of the day, which was pumpkin soup. I didn't take a photo of it as it didn't look very special but oh golly, was I wrong. It is simply the BEST pumpkin soup I've ever tasted, no exaggeration. We went from "why would you order soup here" to "we must order the soup the next time!"

This is one of our favourite main courses - red wine braised beef cheeks with carrots, mushrooms and parsley potatoes. Melt-in-your-mouth tender. Mmmm...

Kenneth ordered the pork shoulder stewed in wholegrain mustard with creamy polenta. It's not something you can get everyday, the polenta is a lovely change from regular mashed potatoes. You probably need to be a pork fan though. I prefer the beef cheeks.

And finally, dessert. Homemade strawberry shortcake and raspberry coulis for Andre.

Crème brulée infused with fresh Madagascar vanilla beans.

If you're a chocoholic like me, there is only one dessert you have to try - Petit Pot au Chocolat. It's a pot of ultra-smooth chocolate mousse topped with hot chocolate sauce and whipped cream.

The portions are un-Frenchily large, I can barely finish one set lunch without feeling like I'm going to bust the seams on my pants. At $32++, it really is wonderful value and obviously we're not the only folks who think so, judging from the number of diners at this place. Reservations strongly recommended, if you don't want to be disappointed.