This Week's Evan's Eats

Bergerac Bistro -- SE Woodstock

Dec 27, 2022

This past week, I had the fortunate pleasure of making yet another revolution around the sun. Birthdays for me have never been something I spend too much effort, or thought on. After all, it is just another day for you and me. One of the most arrogant things you can do is flaunt your birthday. You see it with younger individuals posting on social platforms informing the world to give them attention for being born. Congrats, your parents conceived you… what do you want us to say? Anyway, this year, I took a different approach to my usual annual celebration. In years past, I would keep things lowkey by spending time with my parents, and Bella—going out to dinner, and then later in the evening, heading to Scooters to get my government issued jello-shot, courtesy of the sweetest Irish bartender I know—Deb. This year was slightly different in the sense that we had some of my friends come over for a celebration the day of my birthday, which meant our evening out for dinner and jello-shots was pushed to the following eve, Saturday, December 17th, where we ventured to Bergerac Bistro on SE Woodstock.

The view of Bergerac Bistro’s outdoor sign from our table

Prior to making reservations at Bergerac, I had been craving French cuisine—and even as I am writing this, and likely while you are reading this, I am craving something French, or reading a recipe of that background. At home, I have been making Boeuf Bourguignon as of late, as the colder months lead us into winter. I have been trading recipes with my good buddy, Gus, on how he makes Ratatouille. Prior to that, during the Thanksgiving break, my mother and I had discussed making Coq Au Vin. So to say French cuisine has been on my mind would be more than an understatement. I recently started re-reading Kitchen Confidential, and the excerpts Anthony draws out and his experiences when visiting France has ignited something within me. If you don’t know who I am referring to when I bring up Anthony, then I’m sorry, but that’s just unacceptable. Seriously.

Anyway, seeing that my cravings for food, in tandem with the stories Tony has been relaying to me in my free time, all seem to breathe French. This lead me to fill that void that I have been craving. Those rich flavors in unison with subtle spices/ingredients and pronounced nuances that one can only really experience with French cuisine is now occupying my mind like a carrot hanging from a stick in front of a mule. When it comes to my background with French cuisine, I would say I exude a certain level of ignorance. Though I have had French food before, it is not something I grew up on, nor was I taken to many French restaurants growing up, but that is now something I am trying to change.

One of the main purposes here, with Evan’s Eats, is to deconstruct my palette. So much so that I can hopefully rebuild into a form that not only has a better understanding of a specific dish from a certain part of the world, but to have a better understanding of how that culture functions. The best way to do this, in my opinion, is to try as many different meals that come from specific cultures. The only thing I wish to maintain during this reconstruction of my palette is my curiosity for each respective meal, the cultural backgrounds that each meal calls home, and to continue question in my pre-conceived positions on said cultures and their cuisines.

Bergerac Bistro Review

Located on SE 55th and Woodstock, Bergerac Bistro nestles itself in a quaint hole in the wall. The first step into the door is immediately in the dining room where, I would guess, there are only about 10-12 tables. All of which were able to sit 4 people (you’ll need to call ahead of time if your party is larger than this). With low hanging Edison bulbs, the consistent hum of patrons chatting, and wait staff maneuvering about the dining room, the ambiance already felt cozy. This was reassuring. A restaurant that has a smaller dining space tends to give more effort into the quality of their experience—at least that is what I have gathered when working in the food industry. Larger dining spaces can still achieve success with delivering a great meal, ambiance, and overall experience, but the kitchen does tend to work in a different fashion once the rush hits. Their primary concern thus is to make sure the food gets out in a timely manner, allowing for other areas of the meal to lack, such as the quality of the dish, which in turn inhibits experience. When a restaurant and executive chef work out of a smaller venue, you will see their attention to detail is heightened. The very thing that lacks in quality for a larger dining room, is fortunately present in a smaller one. Executive head chef Joris Barbaray, I believe, kept this in mind when choosing his venue to serve Portlanders back in 2015.

Drinks

We have a lot to cover with this review, so buckle up and hunker down. In order to become fully immersed in the French restaurant experience, prior to anything, you must wet your palette, grease your wheels, and do as the French do, obtain a casual buzz. Across the pond, it would seem that smoking and drinking is entangled in the French culture. Kids as young as 10 years old are sometimes seen drinking wine when out to dinner with their parents, and occasionally granted permission to smoke cigarettes. Sounds like some badass kids if you ask me. I too would like to be a badass, and therefore, I needed to, first, get a French buzz. Something about alcohol that allows my wheels to turn and heighten my ability to appreciate things. This must be my Hemmingway coming out. Gin + Typewriter = Happy Evan brain. Unga Bunga.

While reviewing their menu, I was drawn to their Winter Martini and the Monte Cassino. As you could imagine, the Winter Martini was made with a vodka base and other mixables. Considering I am habitual whiskey drinker, and if I may say, a pretty decent one at that, the Monte Cassino seemed like the most suitable option. The comfort of the atmosphere in tandem with a whiskey based drink to warm my bones seemed like a good first step to immerse myself in this French restaurant experience.

This rye whiskey drink was mixed with Benedictine, which is a French herbal liqueur composed of 27 different ingredients including flowers, berries, herbs, roots, and spices. Alongside this liqueur was another called, Genepi. Genepi is essentially a type of wormwood and is a distant relative to absinthe. The final element being lemon juice and a lemon peel garnish presented in this beautiful coup. This herbal forward drink was very silky and refreshing. A citric background with a warm bite of whiskey was just what the doctor ordered. As for my counterpart, the lady had Rose bubbles to start. Like me, Bella can be somewhat a creature of habit, which is good, because at this point she is so used to being with me, this habit of entertaining a relationship means I’m doing something right, I guess. Either that, or she just feels bad for me because I’m not like those cool 10 year old French kids smoking cigarettes and drinking red wine. The other positive of knowing her habitual nature is that it allows me to guess what she was going to have drink. “Bubbles?” I asked. “How’d you know?”

A cocktail is simply the tipping point before the full dive. Therefore, a wine pairing with our meal was equally as important to greasing our wheels and letting the show begin. My knowledge when it comes to French wine is just about as strong as my ability to speak it—Hola! From what I have learned from my father, there are a couple of regions in France to keep an eye on, as well as a vintage. Anything red should be, at the absolute minimum, 2 years old. You’re treading murky waters otherwise. The reason being is that it hasn’t aged to its possible potential. Once you have gone beyond 2 years, then the wine really starts to walk on its own legs. I found something familiar on the menu and was able to relay it to our waiter to my best ability. A 2016 Grandchamp Montagne Saint-Emilion. Luckily, our waitress was able to see what I was pointing at on the menu because I imagine I sounded like someone learning how to drive stick shift for the first time and grinding the shit out of the gears. I looked at Bella since she took French in high school. “How’d I do?” She scoffed, rolled her eyes and looked back at the menu. NAILED IT. Please forgive me, Francois, for I am a stupid American.

This wine was delicious. Somewhat dry and resembling of a Pacific Northwest Pinot Noir. Little to no tannins and slightly peppery. What seemed to surprise me the most out of this bottle was its ability to present different flavor profiles with each of our bites and dishes. At one instance, with our amuses bouche, it tasted fruiter. With our selected appetizer, more oaky. And with our main course, it had fully evolved into a brilliantly savory, almost black currant forward palette cleanser. All the while, still breathing as we took bites and sips along the way.

Amuses Bouche

For you non-Frenchies, such as myself, you might have come across this phrase and thought I was misspelling something. If you thought this, I would love to hear how your southern accent would be fare in Boudreaux, or Paris. “Bone SWAR Madam mwizzle!” What this phrase actually translates to is “mouth amuser,” and no, we’re not talking about your sister. This is basically the starter to your experience. A little gift from the chef as a means to say, “I’m here to impress you, so lets start you here.” The exciting part about this is the fact you have no idea what to expect. Its chef’s choice. Thank you, chef Barbaray!

Set before us: Potage Crecy—a traditional French Carrot soup. This creamy, light, and somewhat earthy soup was a perfect way to get our toes wet. The chives provided a subtle crunch against the creamy liquid. The combination of flavors seemed to be equal parts across the board. Perfect amount of pepper, not too many chives, and just the right amount of cream. The carrots were effervescent and were pureed in such a manor that bits were still present in the soup, giving this amuses bouche a body beyond what the eye could see.

Appetizers

When looking over what we could have for appetizers, the first thing I see is Escargot Persille, which is snails, garlic butter, and bread. When I was kid, I can remember my friend Jack Garrity coming back from a trip to Paris with his family, and the thing he kept telling me was that he ate these disgusting snails. At the ripe age of 6, you hear of snails being eaten and immediately question, why? Add 20 some odd years to that age and now I look at it as more of an opportunity to try something I have heard of my entire life.

Anything that has a shell that encapsulates an animal or crustacean almost seems like an odd conundrum. I personally love oysters, or as my lady would pronounce them, oyshtures. I always joke with anyone who has never tried them, or is interested in trying them, that they are like salty sea boogers, but they don’t taste like that. Its odd that someone thousands of years ago was traversing a rocky beach somewhere, saw a shell-like rock, picked it up, pried it open, saw what looked like a blob of mucus and proceeded to throw that into the back of their mouth. Escargot looks and acts very similarly in that regard. A helpless, slow moving shell was once picked up and someone thought, Lets try this… I imagine they did, realized it wasn’t the best thing in the world, and so like any normal person would, added an obscene amount of butter. Much better.

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My first experience with Escargot is something I will never forget, and I encourage you to try it if you ever have the chance. These baked little babies were presented in such a terrific fashion. Between the texture and the richness that came in the form of melted butter, this was a very nice treat. The herbal ingredients were a great added touch to help enhance the flavors, giving it a hint of earthy undertones pronounced via the butter. All in all, I have to say I really liked this Escargot. It too is somewhat briney, just like an oyster, but not so much as they are baked, giving it a more tender, and richer profile by comparison. A real delicacy.

Entrée

For our entrees, we both found ourselves something that really wowed us. I wont be able to go in depth about Bella’s dish, so I will have to play the part of her whenever asked what she thinks of some of the meals we have that she likes. This being my response to what I thought of her meal: “It was good.”

As for myself, I chose the Lamb Navarin (see above). I was stuck between this and the Parmenter de Canard. I think it would have been to my benefit to try the duck considering Bergerac’s logo has a duck foot encapsulating the restaurant’s name on their sign out front (scroll to top image). I enjoy duck, but I have to make sure to not eat it around my mom as she used to have a pet duck growing up. RIP Chuckles. I think the reason why I say I should have gone with the duck is because I was surprised to find that my braised lamb was slightly dry, which was a disappointment considering my experience with anything braised has been nothing less than succulent, full of mouth watering, rich flavors. The thing that came to save this meal was my ability to combine all the other elements of this dish into the lamb, which helped to moisten the dish. Yes, I use the word moist… please grow up. Its just a fucking word.

The dish was full of other elements that really made me feel like I was enjoying a French comfort dish. Something that made me feel like I was being embraced by the hug of my mother during the holidays. Something I wish I could say I had this year. What you can find outside of the lamb in this dish is was turnips (a great winter veg), onions (typical in any French dish, and just about any dish you should be making at home), green beans, smashed potatoes (buttery goodness again. YES), white wine tomato jus, and crispy carrots. By placing each of these elements on my fork alongside the lamb, I found the tender meat was given a second lease on life. All together—moist. The tomato jus was the binder that held this meal together, but I can honestly say that the vegetables, alongside this really had to pull its weight in order help bring the lamb to its best possible state. All in all, a very good meal, but I think I will try the duck next time.

One thing I think Bergerac does well is its ability to not only allow us to eat these delicious dishes with our mouths, but our eyes as well. French culture seems to be predominantly thrusted by an aesthetically centered background. It cares more for the way it looks and acts and not as much by the way it functions—as long as we get to the destination, and we look good doing so, you have succeeded in a beautiful fashion. Bergerac allows you a glimpse into the French scene by showing you these dishes are foundation of what it means to see, think, and breathe in French. The ability to combine an appealing meal, and furthermore, make it taste just as good as it looks is a foundational pillar to how the French see themselves and how they wish to be perceived, all the while, their cuisine being one of the most accessible voices into this mirage of an experience. Bergerac, thank you. It was an experience I will never forget, and for that, I will be back sometime in a different part of the year to visit and enrich myself with French culture, and with that, a more well-rounded palette.

Evan Eats Report Card: Bergerac Bistro

Ambiance…………………………A-

Wait staff………………………….B+

Drinks……………………………… A

Appetizers………………………. A

Main course……………………..A-

Expense……………………………. B

Overall Experience………… A-

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