It’s Restaurant Week in New York City! My French BFF and I decided to take advantage of this by utilizing our lunch hour at Bar Boulud in the Upper West Side.

We ordered from the Restaurant Week Lunch Menu. As a starter, we had the Soupe de Chou-Fleur.

A smooth, creamy soup with cauliflower, raisins, pine nuts and chive oil. I loved the contrast of savory and sweet, and then the sweet after-taste from the raisins at the very end.

For the main course, I had the Saumon A La Moutarde.

A Scottish salmon over brussel sprouts and grain mustard sauce. The salmon and brussel sprouts were perfectly cooked. As I savored a bite of the salmon with the sauce, I could taste the nice tanginess from the mustard and a hint of nuttiness from the grains.

French BFF had the Confit de Canard as her main course. I was able to steal a taste of it!

A duck leg confit over lentils de puy and duck jus with a side of herb salad. The duck was also perfectly cooked, and the jus helped bring out the overall tasty flavor of the meat. The lentils, soaked in the jus, reminded me of the tasty meat.

For the final course, we had the Gâteau au Chocolat et Fruits de la Passion.

The cake was composed of milk chocolate, passion fruit and hazelnut feuilletine. I love chocolate, hazelnut and passion fruit. I’ve never had them together before, and what an incredibly delicious combination! Each one had its own sweetness that my tongue could recognize and shout to my brain. There goes the passion fruit! Then hazelnut! Then chocolate! Oh, there’s that passion fruit again! I saved the Cocoa Nib ice-cream for the end of my dessert course. It was so refreshing and was the perfect end to my meal. French BFF told me that it reminded her of Calissons d’Aix en Provence, these delectable treats from Aix en Provence in France. I was incredibly impressed by French BFF’s description of this ice-cream and made a mental note that I needed to try Calissons d’Aix en Provence!

The Restaurant Week Lunch at Bar Boulud blew me away! Our server gave us a post card with a cool picture of Chef Daniel Boulud on it (as seen above) and an offer of 15% off on our next bill. An extra nudge for us to come back, and we most certainly will!

To check out the Restaurant Week Lunch Menu that we ordered from and other special menus from Bar Boulud, please visit their website at www.barboulud.com/nyc/.

To learn more about New York City’s Restaurant Week, please visit www.nycgo.com/restaurant-week. It ends on February 8, 2016, so take advantage of it while you can! Happy Eating!

All images and content © 2016 Carol Vu, unless otherwise indicated.