Dining At Le Crocodile

Fine Dining Thursday moved to Friday as we hit Le Crocodile restaurant in downtown Vancouver. Le Crocodile is a French restaurant that’s been around for 20 years. Iron Chef America winner Rob Feenie got his start there. Rob helped Le Croc vault to Best French Restaurant honors. Then he left to start Lumiere and Le Crocodile has never won a major award since. Still Le Crocodile is a fantastic restaurant and well work checking out. Here’s a pictorial guide to the dishes we had.

Le Entrées Froides

Lobster salad served with baby potatoes, radishes, shallots and fresh basil, and a lemon oil dressing. This was Bill’s “Entrées Froides” (French for appetizer). I didn’t get a chance to try it but it looks really good.

Garlic-sautéed frogs’ legs, chive butter sauce and tomato fondant. This was Michelle’s appetizer. It didn’t look that appetizing and the sauce was too thick. I have tried frog legs before when I was a small child. I now know why I haven’t tried it since.

Foie Gras topped with grilled Digby scallop with a crisp potato galette and a frisée salad and a mango reduction. You can’t go to a French restaurant and not order at least one dish with Foie Gras in it. This was what Sarah and I ordered for our appetizer. The Foie Gras was perfect. The scallop was good but not as good as the ones I tried at West Restaurant. Sarah loved the mango reduction sauce.

Viandes et Volailles

For the main course I chose grilled prime rib of beef, on the bone, with Béarnaise sauce. This was a fantastic dish – nice, simple, and grilled to perfection.. The sauce was on the side but the meat didn’t need it. Most French restaurant try to dazzle the diner with fancy sauces – sometime to the point of hiding the flavor of the meat.

Double-cut veal chop, on the bone, with imported porcini mushrooms and a veal reduction cream sauce. This was Sarah’s main course. The sauce was thick but it didn’t overpower the flavor of the veal.

Roasted rack of lamb, fresh thyme jus and mustard sabayon. This was Bill’s main course. Judging by the number of times Bill said “Mmm!” I say it was very good.

Roasted Fraser Valley duck breast served with pan-seared Foie Gras and an apple cider reduction. This was Michelle’s main course. It was also the main course I ate the last time I dined at Le Crocodile. Foie Gras and duck go really well together.

Le Dessert

Bill had the chocolate mouse. He didn’t Mmmm as much eating this dish as he did for the lamb chops. However, he say that was because he was getting full.

Michelle and Sarah had the tiramisu. The presentation was great, the taste was OK. Not the best tiramisu I’ve tried.

I had the soufflé. This was a really nice dessert. Very fluffy sweet and it just melt in your mouth.

Le Bill

The crocodiles come with the bill. However, by this time we were all too full and couldn’t eat them. So we packed them up and took them home. The bill was significantly less expensive than West, which is a good thing. You don’t want to be spending West prices on every fine dining trip. The dinner bill for Sarah and I came to $200 with tips.

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