Cremant

Wednesday, February 6th, 2008

Filed Under French, Madison Park/Madrona 

On my birthday, Siv took me to Cremant (pronounced- Kray-Mahn), a famed French Bistro in Madrona that we have been planning to try for a while. Cremant is an unpretentious bistro serving traditional French fare in good sized portions. It is not your typical fine dining French restaurant, where you will have umpteen courses of tiny plates; not that I don’t enjoy that experience. The food tasted very authentic French, not fusionized for the American palettes.

The decor is casual, the walls and the furniture are done in gray and white. I guess the idea is for the food and the crowd to add color to the palette, which it did. The staff was overly friendly, not the pretentious kind that we have ran into at many a French restaurant. The place was packed, and the crowd was very noisy. Since our idea of romance is not the candle-lit corner table, we both love crowded places, we were fine. The tables were a bit too close, which was just a small annoyance. We could hear our neighbors loud and clear, and we couldn’t help but notice that they were out-of-towners. So apparently this is where the in-the-know foodie tourists go to dine in Seattle, not everyone sticks with the Pike Place Market restaurants which is good to know.

The menu had quite a good selection. The wine list was nice and had some very affordable wines starting from around $30. We went for a bottle of mid-range Bordeaux, which was a great choice. As for food, I started with a frisee salad with thick chunks of bacon topped with a poached egg ($12), totally crunchy and delicious. Siv went for the onion soup ($12) topped with melted Gruyere, he loved it, but it was a bit too big for one person. I am not a big fan of French onion soup. He could only finish half of it, I think it is meant to be shared. frisse salad

There were a lot of selections for the first course, but as soon as we spotted the Roasted Marrow Bones ($12) in the menu, we both knew we had to go for it. We love our bone marrow! The menu specifically mentioned that it will take about 20 minutes to prepare, so we ordered this along with our soup and the salad and by the time we finished those, these beauties arrived. These well roasted marrows came with a side of sea salt, some toasted bread and a silver spoon to help scoop it out. I don’t even know how to describe the taste of the roasted marrows… Scoop it out, add some salt, spread it on the toast and it is better than butter! Absolutely fantastic…

 marrow

For the main course I ordered the Braised Lamb Shank ($24) that was served on top of a lentil and walnut stew. I love lamb, and this was perfectly braised, just what you would expect from a French bistro like this. The portion was huge, but what else would you expect when you order lamb shank, right? I did manage to polish off most of it.lambshank

Siv went for the special of the night, a Roasted Striped Sea bass ($26) served with green pesto and a layered potato lasagna. This was really the right size portion, unlike my humongous lamb shank, and he thoroughly enjoyed it. Great flavor combination, even though I am not a big fan of lasagna, I enjoyed the bites of fish I tried. stripedseabass

We were too full for desserts by this time, and just ordered coffee to finish off the meal. The coffee came in a cute french press carafe, brewing right on our table, and they gave us these small wrapped chocolate pieces, always a nice touch.

The dinner was perfect! Food was excellent, service was great, and the price wasn’t bad either! If you are looking for an authentic French bistro style meal without putting a big dent in your wallet, Cremant is worth a try.

http://www.cremantseattle.com 

Cremant in Seattle


Comments

16 Responses to “Cremant”

  1. Nags on February 6th, 2008 11:06 pm

    That looks like a nice meal you had :) The bass looks awesome!

  2. anonymous on February 6th, 2008 11:27 pm

    wow - someone got lucky this birthday.

  3. Shella on February 7th, 2008 1:44 am

    Hey Sig - belated Happy Birthday girl…..you seem to have been pampered this b’day n hope this remains throughout - Cheers!!!

  4. Padmaja on February 7th, 2008 2:04 am

    french Bistro eh!! All the dishes look so delicious Sig, I bet you must have a had a great time

  5. Raaga on February 7th, 2008 3:05 am

    you seem to have had fun!!

  6. Nupur on February 7th, 2008 3:38 am

    Belated Happy Birthday, Sig! :(Martini): :(Flower):

  7. Asha on February 7th, 2008 5:20 am

    WHOA!!! That is delcious!!! :mrgreen:

  8. richa on February 7th, 2008 5:35 am

    :grin:

  9. Rajitha on February 7th, 2008 7:43 am

    :grin:

  10. sra on February 7th, 2008 7:45 am

    “umpteen courses of tiny plates” - on our recent trip to japan, one of us ordered a full-course meal, only to find that each course came with just about 1-1/2 tablespoons of food!

  11. rachel on February 7th, 2008 9:10 am

    :smile:

    My Mom makes the marrow dish…Something that my siblings and I used to fight over!

  12. musy on February 7th, 2008 10:54 am

    A fantastic B’day dinner, Sig! That must have been loads of fun :(Martini):

  13. mandira on February 7th, 2008 1:44 pm

    sounds like a delicious dinner to me. Love the pics Sig!

  14. shilpa on February 7th, 2008 2:16 pm

    Wow…that looks like a great meal Sig.
    Btw..I have a doubt which I wanted to ask for so long now….How do you remember the names of all dishes? do you write them down? Sometimes when I go out to eat, I order something and when our food comes and the waiter asks who had ordered what, I generally give them a stupid stare :oops:

    I normally refer back to the menu, if the menu is available online. If the restaurant has a daily menu, sometimes I take it home… they can’t use it anyway, since it is printed with the date… :), sometimes I even take a picture of the menu :D But in some cases like in Cremant, I was guessing and making up all the names… the pictures remind of the ingredients… so it is easy.

  15. A-kay on February 8th, 2008 4:57 pm

    Looks like it was one never-ending bday :)

    :D it only lasted two days, but yeah I have been talking about for weeks now :oops:

  16. sony on February 11th, 2008 8:54 pm

    belated b’day wishes sigma

    Thanks Sony! What a pleasant surprize to see you here… :)

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