The Bleu Bistro on Broadway is a special place for me, because I go there very rarely. In fact, it’s about three times a year, if the stars align correctly, and I can guilt everyone else into coming with. I’m not one of these people who “save” restaurants for some special occasion. If I like your restaurant, I eat there as much as I possibly can. I like the Bleu Bistro. But I can only get there three times a year.
I get the same thing every time I’m there — the Tuscan Tuna Open Faced Sandwich (and leave off with the pine nuts), and a lemon bundt cake for dessert. It’s my version of heaven for the next 40 minutes: a plateful of a salad that has tomatoes, onions and roasted red pepper, a lump of hummus and a spoonful of mandarin oranges to the side (don’t ask about the oranges because I just don’t know), and on a large piece of toast, a grilled piece of tuna with stuff sprinkled on top. I don’t find open-faced sandwiches an easy thing to navigate, but I do my best. For my reward, another plate — full of cake.
Tonight, a spontaneous trip to the Bleu Bistro led to a discovery that something was definitely awry. I wish I had been well enough to put on my Intrepid Reporter Hat and find out what the hell was going on for you loyal readers but let me backtrack a little to say that my sickness was unrelated to the food, and then leave it at that.
Here are the problems.
(1) They’ve stopped serving dessert.
(2) I was served my salad on a separate plate, before the dinner arrived (this was not the problem, although it’s related to problem #3). The salad had pine nuts (this was definitely a problem). Since I was not allergic to pine nuts, I ate it sulkily. The salad came with two large slices of “garlic toast” (although, the garlic flavor was mild to the point of nonexistence). I am a small woman. By the time I was done with the salad, I was done.
(3) The dinner was brought out — my lovely little piece of tuna on toast with stuff on top. And what’s that I spy sitting next to it? A bed of lettuce, topped with tomato, cucumber and onion? Hmm… looks like another salad to me.
At this point, my mind just shut down, sort of like one of those infinite loop errors. I spent the rest of dinner silently eating my tuna on toast, which did not taste as good as I remembered, and appeared to have sprouted a light sprinkling dried rosemary (which made me choke). Going around and around in my head was, “I just ate a salad… but here’s another salad… but I just ate a salad… but here’s another salad… doesn’t look like a bleu bistro salad… does it even have DRESSING?… is it for my sandwich? No.. cus there’s bits on top of my sandwich… so it must be a salad… but I just ate a salad…”
I just can’t go back. I put up with the smoking, and althought the servers are all lovely people, the service is not all that reliable (I think they spread the waiters a bit thin). But now that I’m not getting any dessert, and they’ve taken to playing with my head? Dude. I don’t have to drive out of my way to get this sort of action.