Bistrot du Coin - Dupont DC

I've been hearing about Bistrot du Coin for quite a while now as a lover of good French food, I finally had an invitation to go!  The restaurant in located near Dupont Circle just a few blocks northwest.  Parking can be a bit of a nightmare in this area if you go during prime dining hours.

The restaurant has a very homey feel to it in spite of being placed in the middle a hot part of town.  I really liked what they did with the decor.  The bar is a massive wood structure and adds a bit of class to the restaurant area.  There is an upstairs dining room that appears to handle overflow.  Ambiance is romantic yet eclectic. 

The menu was great.  It's a french restaurant so there is a decent selection of french wines.   The first thing I did though was hunt to find Fois Gras!  Mission Accomplished.  It's harder and harder to find Fois on menu's these days.  In addition to the Fois, we also ordered their ravioli's (something of a specialty at Bistrot du Coin) and a small pot of mussels in white wine, tomatoes, thyme and garlic.  For a main, we went with the filet with Bearnaise sauce.

Fois Gras and risotto.  Fantastic

This is BdC's version of ravioli's.  Lots of cheesy goodness.

The picture doesn't do the thickness of the filet justice.

All of the food was excellent.  The filet was enormous! I have no idea how restaurants can uniformly cook steaks that are 4 inches thick at the thickest point.  I'd really like to try their mussels in a creamy sauce such as their sauce with light curry.  Taking pieces of buttered french bread and dipping it into an amazing mussel sauce is heavenly.  That could have been my entire meal.  The French fries.... were incredible.  They didn't serve ketchup with them but they didn't need anything. 

Service was spotty.  I had to get up and find my waiter on more than one occasion and the manager had to take care of getting my check at the end of the dinner.  To the restaurant's defense, the place became a mob shortly after we got there and everyone in the restaurant world knows how crazy that can be when 75% of your tables at seated within 15 minutes of one another. 

Bistrot du Coin is on my list of places to try again in DC.  Prices were reasonable for good french food in the Dupont Circle area.  Definitely check it out if you are looking for a good French meal.

Rating - 4 out of 5 stars.