Mistral

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I really wish that we have pictures that does justice to our experience at Mistral. The lighting in the restaurant was way too dark for our camera's to get good pictures. The picture above i stole online, see how everything is a yellowish hue. Nice atmosphere,but nono for pictures. The place was pretty crowded when we got there at 8 so I'm pretty sure that reservation was a must. We were slightly relieved that we weren't kicked out for being under dressed. For the most part though people were dressed well, only a few slobs pushing the limit of business casual. We were seated towards the back by their while cellar in a booth. The atmosphere of the restaurant was quite lovely, it was classy but not pretentious. Service for the most part was good, more on that later. The volume of the room was pretty loud so there wasn't the need to whisper for fear of being rude. Ok enough fluff talk, on to the food.

The meal began with some nice bread and butter/spread. No wait, make that Awesome butter and wicked garlic spread. I was the first one to dig into the bread while everyone else was looking at the menu. I don't really know how to describe the taste, I just remember saying after my first bite " this butter is reaally goood..." I guess everyone thought i was just hungry or something because I was like on my third piece of bread before anyone else dug in. The yummy garlic and herb was nice and mild, which is nice cause no one like garlic breath. While this was not the first time we finished a bread basket, it was certainly a first for finishing all the butter and spreads.

Now about the service. We sat for a long time maybe like 15 minutes before our orders were taking. I was getting kind of annoy and expected better service at a restaurant of this caliber. However, when our waiter finally arrived he did immediately apologize and explained his reasons. So he took our orders and between the four of us we ordered every item on the prix fixe menu. I felt like a really messy eater as i sat staring at the bread crumbs on the table while we waited for our food. I was just about to brush it off on to the floor when another waiter came with a scoopula like device to scrap off all the bit of food from the table. This table cleaning happen in between each course throughout the meal, neat huh. ookay food....