Restaurant Review: Soleil Bistro & Wine Bar offers well-prepared food, pleasant setting

Web Posted: 08/28/2007 11:48 PM CDT

(Photos by Kevin Geil/Express-News)
Glazed pork loin (left) and properly cooked New York strip are among the tasty menu options at Soleil Bistro & Wine Bar. Other standouts include stuffed chicken breast and a satisfying Sunday brunch.

Bonnie Walker
Express-News Staff Writer

I went to Paris. Once. Caught in the spell of the city, I promised myself I'd return at least once every two years. That was six years ago.

In the meantime, when I see the word "bistro" on a restaurant sign, the Francophile in me perks up, hoping here will be a little taste of that long-ago experience. The bistro should be informal and inviting, offer good food, music and a wine list with unexpected pleasures. A lounge area will be the place to meet friends for a drink or coffee, and if charming sidewalk tables are not an option, a patio will do.

Soleil Bistro & Wine Bar, which opened recently in the shopping center at Cadillac Drive and Blanco Road, appears poised to offer the neighborhood bistro experience.

The entryway is lined with oak barrel planters spilling over with herbs, flowers and grapevines.

Here are the bistro tables with umbrellas, largely unused on visits we made, which always seemed to be on rainy days. But as the temperatures drop on crisp fall evenings, we'd think of Soleil outdoors for an espresso or glass of wine.

Once inside, the lounge area with cushy chairs, couches and bar is to the right. Straight ahead is the newly decorated dining area, with a long banquette against the opposite wall and a curtained room to the left.

Newly brightened with paint and art, Soleil sports designer colors and comfortably spaced tables that lift the ambience.

Our first dinner visit was on a Saturday evening. Surprised to see no rosé on the list of carefully chosen wines, I asked about it. The server dashed off, returning with two different choices, one in each hand. One was a favorite of mine, a Château Saint-Cyrgues from Costières de Nîmes.

The blackboard out front told us of two fresh seafood offerings that night, including striped bass and amberjack. We decided on turf-and-turf, tempted by a New York strip steak with fries, and a stuffed chicken breast.

Soleil's tomato basil soup should be a standby on the summer menu. Though somewhat commonplace these days, it's not always as excellent as Soleil's is. Thick, but not heavy, it's accented with basil and well balanced between the natural acidity of tomato and cream.

Soup also may appear as dessert at Soleil. A few days later, we ended a lunch visit with a chilled, creamy watermelon soup.

A spinach empanada, lightly spicy, was good as a not-too-filling appetizer. A caprese salad, with very fresh mozzarella, would have been better had the tomatoes spent a little more time on the vine. But we dabbed up the olive oil and juices with some focaccia and enjoyed it anyway.

The steak was perfectly cooked, the fries were crisp. The chicken breast, with an array of sautéed fresh squash and asparagus, was delicious, stuffed with spicy Spanish chorizo sausage and Manchego cheese.

A crème brûlée, thick and dense rather than creamy (we like both styles), was topped with burnished sugar. A tart tatin offered up a darkly caramelized sauce and baked apple, and melted under the fork.

At lunch a few days later we had quite a long wait between soup and entrées — this despite the fact that we were recognized. But water glasses and breadbaskets were replenished and assurances that our lunches were "almost ready" kept us placated. When the meals came, the extra time that might have been taken to prepare them was worth it.

The seafood and pasta that was the blackboard special of the day was heavy on the oil but brimming with fresh seafood in a tomato-y sauce. Pork loin slices were glazed with a sweetish port sauce, and grilled to perfection and complemented by perfectly seasoned, smooth-textured polenta. The delicately flavored chicken a l'orange had well-seared crust of skin protecting the tender layer of white meat beneath.

A gorgonzola burger was good, but only just, as it was marred by a thick, bready bun that tasted past its sell-by date.

We couldn't resist heading back for brunch on Sunday. Scrambled eggs, with baguette toast (a special request) and eggs Benedict with cured salmon replacing the typical Canadian bacon, were more than satisfying. The offer of French press coffee was, so to speak, the frosting on the cake.

The kitchen will need to speed up its good work, but outside of a couple of minor glitches, we really enjoyed our experiences at Soleil Bistro.

bwalker1@express-news.net