Le Bouchon @ Changkat Bukit Bintang

French anyone? Yup, this is gonna be my first French fine dining ever. And what better place than Le Bouchon. Actually I am eying for Frangipani but I heard some negative reviews of the service and inconsistency in the quality of their food so I gave this a try. It was recommended by one of my friend and drop by to check the place out beforehand. Before what? Well if you don't know already, it's the venue for my proposal. Yup, you heard me right the first time. 

The place is opposite Frangipani at the end of the street. From the outside they served beers and wine while but when you walked pass the bar, you will come upon a comfy small French styled restaurant. 

There were only 3 couples the whole night I was there which is nice as I don't like the place to be too crowded for the special occasion. And the ambiance was just perfect. 

Wines were everywhere in this place. They are in the wine chamber, the cellar the wall the floor, you name it. You can check out their long list of wine in their website actually. 

We are not wine drinkers so we ordered some plain water. Gonna clear up my taste bud before the real meal comes in. We had ordered their Gourmet Menu which consists of a 4 course meal.

This is a some crackers which the chef had prepared for us while waiting for the course to be ready. As you can see, there's two type of crackers here. One of it consists of raspberry on top of it while the other is some sort of tomato based Bolognese sauce on top. I like the one with the Bolognese sauce better.

  Salade Périgourdine

For the first main course we have a plate of medley imported lettuces, goose liver terrine, confit gizzards, smoked duck with Cognac sultanas vinaigrette. This is one hell of a good salad in simple layman term. The portion was generous especially the smoke duck. Pretty nice for a first course.

It's our first taste of goose liver or foie gras in French. It's actually better than we thought. The texture are some sort like cheese. But whole lot better. And there's plenty of it in the salad. Splendid.

Gratin d’asperges aux truffes du Périgord et au Champagne

 As for my first course, it's gratin of asparagus with champagne sabayon and black truffles from Périgord. Sounds pretty Frenchy and look French too. Little but nicely decorated. I had expected their course to be small in portion and this is what I meant. Asparagus is simple but the sauce on top of it was really nice.

Coquilles St Jacques grillées et fricassée de champignons sauvages, sauce au Porto

Babe's second course was again spectacular. It's grilled sea scallops with wild mushroom fricassee and Port wine sauce. It's a simple dish but the fresh grilled scallop will make you go crazy. This dish has babe go GaGa. The nice mixed wild mushroom and port wine sauce is just perfect. 

 Soupe de moules noires au safran et légumes aromatiques

What is French dining without saffron soup? So here's my second course which is black mussels and saffron soup with aromatic vegetables. This soup seemed to fall flat on me. Maybe I don't really appreciate the saffron soup since it's my first attempt at it.

Carré d’agneau à la croute de fromage de chèvre, courgettes à la fleur de thym,
sauce au Cabernet sauvignon

This is babe's main course which I choose for her. It's rack of lamb with goat’s cheese crust, roasted zucchinis with thyme flowers with cabernet sauvignon sauce. The portion was large this time around which surprises us. Luckily though as we were worried that we will starve to death that night. haha~! 

 We had ordered medium well and the lamb really tasted good. I think they cooked the goat cheese crust onto the rack of lamb as I don't see any of it. And there's a bit of crunchy feeling to it which we both like. But towards the inner part of the lamb, it seemed a bit too raw for us.

  Magret de canard rôti au miel de montagne, échalotes confites et fricassée de légumes aux tomates séchées au soleil

I was contemplating between ordering their grilled fillet of seabass with fennel, roasted tomatoes and caviar sauce and this. And the waiter had recommended me the duck. My main course is this mountain honey roasted duck breast, confit shallots and fricassee of vegetables with sun dried tomatoes. Finally something really good on my side of the course. This is like Western style roast pork but in this case duck.

 It's medium well again as I ordered and the even portion of lean and fat meat on the duck with it's crispy skin really make my night a good one. Totally beautiful.

  Crème brulée aux framboises

And finally for my last course which is the dessert. We are actually really full after the main. Surprisingly, Yes. This is their crème brulée with raspberries. The looks are simple but trust me it's really really nice. The top part (I suspect) is burn using a torch which melted the sugar icing on top. The lower part is cold but maybe not as cool as I wanted it should be. But nevertheless, it's a good dessert.

Tiramisu à la mangue

This is one of their famous dessert if I am not mistaken, which is their Mango tiramisu. There's slices of mango in the middle part of the tiramisu cake. Babe totally love  this but there's only one down side of the mango which is it's not freshly sliced but we suspect from the can. But the strawberry on top was fresh.

Overall it was a memorable night as babe accepted my proposal and the dinner is the best fine dining we had. Well, it's our first and only one to date though. So we can't complain much. The price? It's RM148 per head. It's actually quite worth the money if you really think about it. I mean the ambiance, the quality of food and also the service. It's not a casual night out but definitely something memorable which you wanted to last forever. (Rating: 4.0 out of 5.0)