The last time I was in New York I tried to get into Daniel by Daniel Boulud. Currently number 8 in the S.Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants for 2010 you can imagine you can’t leave it a few days before you want to go there to get a booking – which is what I did! (Safe to say I did not get a booking … heh heh)

Therefore, when I heard that Bar Boulud was opening up in London I got a bit excited. Though Daniel is the restaurant that Daniel Boulud is best known, he does have a few restaurants dotted around the world. The newest to his stable was the Bar Boulud in London that we went to tonight.

Our booking was for 6.30 and normally at this time any given restaurant isn’t actually heaving but Bar Boulud was packed to the rafters! I was quite surprised. It must be the buzz about being a new entry to the London restaurant scene but also maybe its location in Knightsbridge which didn’t hurt.

Dinner menu at Bar Boulud is French bistro/classical French. I’m not sure burgers are particularly French but I knew before I got to the restaurant what I’d be having for my main: the Piggie Burger! which when I read a review of the place for some reason struck a chord with me. LOL. Sandra agreed with me and also went for the Piggie Burger for her main. What can I say – we both have good taste …the Piggie Burger was a beef patty with bbq pulled pork, lettuce and slaw, green chili mayoannise and interestingly served on a cheddar bun. Sound yummy much? And I can say for sure that it was … though the serving was entirely too small. 😉 Pomme frites which came with the burger were well fried.

But before we got to burger we also had some starters. I think Sandra’s was the winner with her seafood platter which looked pretty darned good except the seafood was chilled which I don’t really enjoy. My sausage (Lyon specialty sausage pistachio and black truffle in brioche) wasn’t what I was expecting it to look like but it tasted pretty darn good.

For dessert, which we could fit since our mains were quite modest, Sandra chose a decadent mint chocolate dish. It came complete with hot chocolate sauce which was used to pour over the crisp top to break into the dessert. I went for a lighter option combining two of my favourite flavours coconut and ginger in the Coupe de Fruits Exotiques: Tropical Fruit Sundae with ginger, Mascarpone Foam, Coconut-passion fruit sorbet.

Overall I was very impressed with Bar Boulud. Service-wise they were very good at filling up our water whenever we needed it (my litmus test for good service) and had a balanced presence at our table (though it did slightly disappear when we actually wanted the bill!) Food was good quality. Atmosphere felt energetic and hyper though I was glad to note we didn’t have to shout to hear each other.