Le diable se cache dans les détails

MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Enlarge Image

Frenchway's kitchen does a lot of the big things well, but falls short elsewhere, making the overall experience somewhat less than satisfying.

Originally a mini-cafe -- four tables only, attached to a bakery -- The Frenchway has split in two, with the cafe-bakery moving to Bread and Circuses' former location, and a new full-scale restaurant and lounge opening in what once was J. Fox's. Today's subject is the restaurant, an attractive place with one massive and dramatic wall of rocks, the other walls painted a cheerful tomato red, adorned by a few rococo sconces and one fascinating, antique-looking installation -- the top half of it a faded, Watteau-like painting, the bottom half a stressed mirror.

It feels like a French restaurant and it operates like many in France do, offering the full menu at lunch as well as at dinner, but augmented also with a chalkboard of daily specials at lunch only. The food is mainly French, although in France you're more likely to get a baguette than the multigrain bread served here. But that multigrain is so delicious even the most fanatic Francophile wouldn't complain (and if you haven't had enough of it with your meal you can buy it by the loaf to take home).

Prices on the relatively short menu range from $6.50 to $8.50 for appetizers, and $21 to $26 for the entrées. I was delighted to find that one day's appetizer special was herring salad with potatoes -- a personal favourite, and one I've never found locally. It isn't the tossed-together kind of salad, but one where pieces of herring are perched on boiled potatoes, and anointed in oil. As it turned out, it wasn't the kind of smoked herring I was thinking of, but I had no problem with that -- it was good, Winnipeg-style herring. The problem I did have was with the potatoes, which were half raw (a recurring problem, about which more later). And which, when we complained about it, weren't replaced with fully cooked ones .

We did well with some of the other, permanent appetizers. With, for instance, an airy puff pastry that was filled with shrimp in a lovely creamy fennel sauce, and with the spicy, meatball-dense mini-tourtiere, beautifully garnished with leeks vinaigrette. We also liked the carpaccio -- not the classic one with raw beef, but made with air-dried beef on a bed of delicious, parmesan-sprinkled arugula salad. We were less lucky with our crepes aux champignons; the crepes were soft and delicate, but there was only a mere smidgen of mushroom filling, and that without flavour (the promised emmenthal was also missing).

Tops among the entrées sampled were a tender and flavourful veal steak, and sesame-sprinkled seared tuna, paired with a pleasant ratatouille. Also good were a salmon steak bedded on puréed spinach, and a rich-flavoured duck breast sauced with cherries that was slightly but not impossibly chewy. The same was true of a brochette of lamb, which alternated with slices of onions and peppers.

But the devil is in the details, and if the entrées sampled were at the very least good, the opposite was true of most of the sides. It was as though a competent chef had been in charge of the main items, while a less-than-competent assistant dealt with the minor ones. The risotto with the veal, for instance, wasn't like a risotto at all, but more like boiled rice with a few peas thrown in (and, adding insult to injury, cold to boot). Almost sliver-thin green beans with the crepes were hard and flavourless.

But the most surprising and consistent failures were the potatoes, in whatever form -- all the more disappointing since I'd remembered the sautéed potatoes at the original cafe as wonderful. Those with the herring weren't the only ones that were half raw. On the same visit they were also half raw in the pommes dauphinoise -- the French version of scalloped potatoes, which was also completely dry. Boiled potato balls on another visit were fully cooked but tasteless and cold. Pommes dauphine -- crisp, deep-fried puffs of potato and choux paste -- were hot, but also with no flavour.

Still, we expected delicious desserts from one of the town's best bakers, and we got them ($6 to $8). Like the ambrosial tart of fruits and pastry cream, on a crust that was difficult to cut but which, once conquered, crumbled beautifully on the tongue. They do two kinds of brownies, one with and one without peanut butter; I had the one without, and -- heaven help me (and I'm usually more restrained than that) -- I ate almost all of it in one sitting. Others while good, weren't quite what we'd expected. The apples in the tarte tatin came compressed into a solid mass, instead of caramelized slices. A bread pudding would also have scored higher if it had been served hot, or at least warm.

The wine list is interesting, with several available by the glass, including -- bless them -- a Provencal rose. Service is pleasant and obliging, but too often unfamiliar with the food and the wines.

marion.warhaft@freepress.mb.ca

Dining out

Frenchway

• 414 Academy Road, 487-1997
• Licensed
• Wheelchair access
• Three and a half stars

To see the location of this restaurant as well as others reviewed in the Winnipeg Free Press, please see the map below.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition September 30, 2011 D3