Le Philosophe Visited 2/5/2014 3.5 Forks

Le Philosophe  55 Bond St (b/t Bowery & 2nd St), New York, NY 10012

You know when you've been in NYC for a while when a restaurant has turned over a few times over and you've been to several of its incarnations.  While I didn't recognize the address, as soon as I got to Le Philosophe, I realize I had been there when it used to be Hung Ry in 2011.   The layout is pretty much the same but the vibe is definitely very different.  It's now a very loud and very dark French restaurant.  The girls and I gathered there to celebrate Krush's birthday and we luckily got a nice corner table.  Even though it was a cold Wednesday night the place was packed to the gills - with a gather interesting clientele. One table had this couple who was wearing full on ball gown type outfits, another table with a really loud bunch of older women, and then there was us.

The menu has a lot of classical French dishes from Duck L'Orange, radish with butter, terrine, foie gras, and frogs leg to name a few.  It's a bit difficult to share French dishes, so we each ordered our own dishes with the exception of a few sides.  I started with the bone marrow ($17) and had the duck l'orange ($29) for an entree.  Luckily we started our meal with a few bottles of delicious wine because the service was atrocious.  While it wasn't really the fault of our waiter (who was quite pleasant and nice),  the prolonged waiting for our food made for a pretty unpleasant dining experience.  We were all starving and while I like a good glass of wine as much as the next person, most of us were about to gnaw our arms off at some point.  If I had known it would have taken so long to get our food, I would have chosen something more hearty than the bone marrow to start.  I'm generally a huge fan of bone marrow due to its intense and fatty flavors - I know every time I order it, it's probably taking 5 years off my life, but it can be so damn good.  Unfortunately, this one was a bit lacking - in actual bone marrow. I really scrapped the bone hard (ok, I know that sounds kind of gross) to get as much of the marrow as possible but the reality was that there just wasn't that much of it, which was pretty disappointing.  But the bread that it was served with was nicely toasted and soft in the middle and probably the best part of that dish.  When our entrees finally came out, I was totally ready to write the place off. 

Luckily I didn't because god damn, that was some amazing duck.  I usually stray from ordering duck at a lot of places because it's really easy to f-up and tends to end up dry.  But this was probably one of the juiciest and most flavorful pieces of duck I've had in a long time.  It was 2 breasts and cooked medium rare with the skin fantastically crisped on the outside.  It was served with turnips and a thin layer of mashed potatoes.  It was as close to a perfect duck dish as I've had in a long time.  I had a quick bite of the flat iron steak, which was quite delicious as well.  The fries on that dish was served with what seemed like a pure butter sauce.  I was pretty stuffed at this point but no birthday dinner is complete without dessert and we ordered the profiteroles ($10) and the chocolate mousse ($9).  I only had a bite of the profiteroles and they were a nice palate cleanser to what was really a very fat-filled meal.  

While I loved my entree, I had to knock this place a 1-1.5 forks for the absurd wait time and god awful acoustics - I could barely hear Richelle who was sitting about 2 inches away from me.  They definitely redeemed themselves with the main entrees and the duck is definitely worth coming back for but don't say I didn't warn you about waiting around.  Total bill:  $105/pp with drinks, tip, tax

Photo Credit: Yelp