Bistro Brocante

Bistro Brocante
Thorvald Meyers gate 40
0555 Oslo
22 35 68 71

http://www.bistrobrocante.no

Bistro Brocante is a small and cosy bistro-style restaurant in Oslo's semi-swanky Grünerløkka. The menue sports a relatively wide range of quite simple, moderately priced (you can have a good main course for less than kr 200) dishes. The guests seem to be younger to middle aged upper middle class people. Bistro Brocante offers no vegetarian courses on the dinner menue. If you aim for a meat free lunch though, there are a couple of dishes to choose from. The lunch menue is served till 17:00. I went there to have dinner.

Seeing that they had no vegetarian meals on the dinner menue, I asked whether the chef could accomodate my non-carnivor needs. To my great joy, this was no problem whatsoever (always a good sign) and the waitress came with some suggestions (potato-mash, stewed vegetables etc.). I said I was open to try whatever the chef was inspired to make for me. While I waited, I had a glass of white wine, a riesling also chosen by the waitress. It was on the sweeter side, but it was perfectly fine for my slightly infantile tastes in wine.

As a simple appetizer, we got some olives, pickled baby cucumbers and slightly stewed green beans with salt and spices. They arrived in just the perfect amount so that we wouldn´t starve before the main course arrived but also so that we couldn't go wild and stuff our faces and be full before dinner. The appetizer was no coulinary spectacle, but was refreshing and nice. It did exactly what it was meant to do.

The main course arrived, very well timed after the appetizer. I chose to stick to my white wine.

The chef made the following for me: A hearty slice of omelette with baked-in veggies, a good portion of mashed potatos, all on a bed of stewed vegetables. You get a nice serving of good quality, semi dark bread with the main course.

My first thought was that an omelette with a potato mash was a bit of an overkill, a bit like eating two side dishes without a main act. On the positive side, both the omelette and the potatos had lovely structure and texture. Perfectly cooked and presented well. The veggies were flawless. Everything tasted fresh and was rich in taste and combined well.

I LOVE mashed potatos. That is, I love potatos in general. I could have mashed potatos three times a week. The mash at Bistro Brocante, although the texture was superb, tasted somewhat flat. So did the omelette. Both the egs and the potatos had a very "safe" taste, with very little spices you could actually taste, so I had to adjust salt and pepper in both. Having said that, the combination worked better than what I expected when the dish arrived to the table. And, as I said, the veggies were beyond yummu.

Still, my impression was that the chef at Bistro Brocante is a "meat-chef" without an especially well developed sense of what a well composed vegetarian dish is. Meaning: For the chef vegetarian simply equal no meat. True that, but to prepare a real meal, you need your food to taste as a main course and not a string of side dishes arranged on one plate.

As I write this, I feel concerned that I am making this sound overly critical. Which it isn't. Bistro Brocante is a good place for us plant-eaters when we want a decent, uncomplicated meal for a reasonable price. But you will probably notice that the chef(s) aren't well schooled in vegetarian cookery. Which isn't too impressive if you cook for living. So, this is not a place you want to spend a ton of money at. You don't reward uninspired cooking.

To end on a great note: My desert consisted of a SPECTACULAR chocolate fondante, marinated sour cherries and vanilla icecream. The fondante was beyond perfect, from texture (all cake-ish and immaculate on the outside and warm, fragrant, and runny on the inside). The cherries complemented the powerful chocolate taste of the fondante exactly as they were (probably) meant to. The icecream was good, especially given the fact that I really don't like icecreams. But mixing it with the chocolate fondante, and coated in some cherries, oh well, I almost loved it. Which means that for a person who appreciates their icecream, it would probably rock.

The conclusion? Go to Bistro Brocante if you want a nice meal and you're going with a carnivore friend and you don't mind them eating meat. Just don't expect fanfare and fireworks in the tastebud department. More like a low-key and nice, quiet celebration. Not more but not less either.