Had lunch over the weekend at Juliette's ( at TongLi studio, in Sanlitun) before catching the new GI Joe movie. We wanted to try something new and decided to give Juliette's a try after reading about it in one of those dining guides.
I must say... there's nothing wrong with the food... but I think I got more satisfaction out of watching GI Joe...
The 2 course set lunch menu was a very reasonable 128rmb and even comes with a glass of drinkable wine. I had the beef consomme with foie gras. The foie gras was stuffed into 3 little raviloi/ dumpling- like pastry and cooked. Looks a bit like having wanton in beef soup. That was tasty but nothing to shout about.
For my mains, I had the grilled duck served with risotto. The dish was fairly huge. There was probably a whole duck breast filleted and arranged around a fairly big serving of risotto. The duck was a tad fatty but that's to be expected from duck. I peeled off all the duck fat and skin simply cos it was too terrifying to even contemplate eating all that fat. The flesh wasn't too gamey but neither was it so delicious that I couldn't wait to eat it all. However, i think it made a good match for the risotto which tasted strongly of parmesan cheese. I liked the risotto but Daniel would have liked it a little more al dente.
Dan's starter of tuna and shrimp salad with lobster reduction was quite refreshing but again, it didn't exactly send either of us into a rhapsody of how delicious it was. It was simply ok. Dan's main was some form of stewed beef tenderloin. Tasted good but again, not great enough for us to want to specially make a trip back.
Dessert is thrown in for another 10RMB more. I wasn't feeling too great so I skipped dessert. Daniel had the 3 scoops of ice-cream; I had a taste. Ice cream came in 3 flavours- chocolate, pistachio and coconut - none of which I particularly like. There was a chocolate "soup" as a dessert choice which sounded more interesting. If you're eating at Juliette's and happen to try the choc soup, let me know if it's any good!
Verdict: Ok if you wander past and decide to grab a bite. But not exactly worth making a special trip down to try. Oh.. and the service was somewhat shakey. The staff didn't know what the dishes were or how they were cooked which caused a little confusion when we ordered the beef tenderloin. We thought it was cooked like regular steak and not stewed.
