Welcome to Jeannine's Bistro

Finally made it there for mussels and, boy o boy, it was heavenly. My one regret is that we did not discover it earlier and now I'm relocating out of this town. Anyway... I started with the small house salad. The dressing was light, but flavorful, and the serving size was exactly appropriate. Then I had the creamy mussel soup which was really the introduction to my night of mussel heaven. It was extremely flavorful and not heavy at all, very smooth indeed. My husband had the French Onion soup which he thought was excellent (i've never liked French onion so I didn't try Jeannine's and can't comment).

had the Moules Mariniere which was absolutely divine--decent sized, tender and fresh mussels steamed in white wine with onions & celery. I'm usually avoid onions & traditionally pluck them out of everything, but these were steamed in such a way that the harshness was gone, and the mixture of celery & onion was... oh, so good! I ordered the large portion which was generous--maybe about 2-3 dozen? I lost count since I tend to shell everything all at one, then eat quickly. At any rate, I was perfectly full afterwards, but I did not have any room at all for dessert which was a huge shamel

Not to worry though, I returned the next evening and had the crepes mikado (light crepes with a generous but neat scoop of vanilla ice cream covered with warm belgium chocolate fudge) followed by the belgium chocolate mousse. The mousse was airy and smooth, and most importantly, chocolately.

The service was very attentive. Friday night was quite busier than Saturday, but we went there pretty late on Saturday--after 930PM. Even though we had only been there once before, somehow, the staff remembered us from the night before and even opened the door for us when we approached the restaurant. [Now does that remind you of Cheers or what?]

Anyway, I think a reviewer commented earlier that the service was a bit erratic with 3 different waitstaff. But, I thought it was actually nice not having 1 solo wait staff. I'm not a fan of being obligated to summon for assistance from 1 person alone--doesn't seem right. At any rate, everyone was very friendly and certainly not over-the-top. It's a great neighborhood gem.

Agustin S.

8/2/2009

What do you get when you have the kitchen staff of a really good restaurant now defunct along with the best servers from that same restaurant; you get Jeannine's Bistro. Build it and they will come, that not only goes for the customers looking for moules, but also pertains to the staff of Caf� Montrose. It's difficult enough building a restaurant with all the permits, contractors, the city, inspections, and of course the hiring and training of a staff to execute your dream. Now imagine if the hiring and training part of opening your dream is done. What ends up happening is a perfect execution of a great concept. Jeannine's Bistro didn't skip a beat, the food was as good as I remembered and the service was 100 times better than it ever was at Cafe Montrose.

The wife and I had been waiting for this restaurant to open since we had heard in April they were opening. Jeannine's Bistro is located on the corner of Westheimer and Bagby, right before Westheimer turns into Elgin. The bistro is tiny with only 10 tables and a bar on the back wall with enough room for only 6 bar stools. As you walk into the restaurant the aromas of mussels and frites overwhelm you. It was great. The menu will take you right back to Caf� Montrose. The four of us ordered everything mussels, with 6-8 different sauces to eat your moules with it was a difficult decision. I went with Moules a Gratin, mussels on the half shell sitting in a cream sauce topped off with Parmesan cheese then baked, it was a perfect sauce to dip the frites in. The wife ordered the traditional Moules Mariniere, incredibly delicious. We couldn't get over how consistent the size of the mussels were for every dish on the table. Our guests had the large Moules Mariniere with a bowl of creamy mussel soup. They couldn't stop raving about the mussels all evening. And of course we had some great beer with our dinner, on this evening the Chimay Blanc, Chimay Grande Reserve, and the Duvel was flowing quite freely.

The desserts look like they may have cut back, they did keep the goblets of vanilla ice cream topped off with Belgium Fudge. The wife and I went with simplicity, the crepe with butter and brown sugar. Our guests did the crepe stuffed with ice cream and topped off with fudge. It looked delicious, unfortunately they didn't share but who could blame them.

The last 9 months I have been looking for any restaurant that could have filled the void Cafe Montose left. I came close a few times, but there was always something missing, the frites weren't right, the sauce wasn't quite what I thought it should be, puny mussels. Jeannine's Bistro lived up to everything I was expecting from my mussel experience. After dinner Dennis and Jeannine asked how everything was and thanked us for joining them in their restaurant. I thought I would ask about expansion since there seems to be an empty retail space next door to them. They responded with a "yes". They have already started the build out and will expand with some much needed seating. I am looking forward to more tables. They also mentioned a happy hour on all draft beer and wine.