Cafe Boulud - Restaurant Week

Restaurant Week in NYC is coming to an end this week and I've taken the opportunity to try a few of New York's restaurants at a severely discounted price. Lunch is only $24.07 and Dinner $35. Restaurant week is a great opportunity for people to enjoy great food, restaurants, and renowned chefs at an affordable price. I can think of many meals where I paid much more than the prix-fixe prices which proved incomparable to the elegant delicious food off the restaurant week menus at New York's finest restaurants.





One hot ticket for restaurant week is Cafe Boulud who only partakes in lunch service for restaurant week; their dinner menu remains the same. I have tried getting a reservation for their restaurant week menu since last year and this year was lucky enough to stumble onto a cancelled reservation. With 24 hours of notice, I recruited my friend Niko to play hooky and take an extended lunch hour to try this french restaurant owned by distinguished chef Daniel Boulud in the Upper East Side.

 Amuse Bouche - Truffle Oil Arancini Stuffed with Fontina Cheese
 

 Appetizer - Duck Terrine with Frisee, Onion and Cranberry

 Dessert - Rum Raisin Bavariose with Vanilla Bean Ice Cream

 Complimentary Madeleine Cookies at the end of the meal

From their famous end-of-the-meal Madeleine cookies to the arancini amuse bouche it was a fantastic meal start to finish. The server even told us that customers have come back to the restaurant specifically for the Madeleines and ask if they can pay to have them at the beginning of the meal as well as the end. And as someone who does not particularly enjoy sweets, I have to say they were pretty good. Subtle lemon flavors in the fresh-out-of-the-oven warm cookies with powdered sugar dusted on top for the perfect amount of sweetness. In addition to their fantastic $24.07 three course prix-fixe menu, Cafe Boulud also has a special $24 bottle of wine (white and red option) to accompany their restaurant week menu. The cherry on top!

Note*: I had the blackened flounder over creamy polenta and braised collard greens for my entree. However, I was overly excited when it came out and forgot to snap a picture of it; but believe me, it was delicious.