Les Faux Bourgeois

Restaurant: Les Faux Bourgeois
Cuisine: French
Last visited: September 15, 09
Location: Vancouver, BC (Mount Pleasant/Main Street)
Address: 663 15th Avenue East Vancouver
Price Range: $10-20 (Closer to $20)

1: Poor 2: OK 3: Good 4: Very good 5: Excellent 6: Tres Excellent!!

Food: 5
Service: 3
Ambiance: 2.5
Overall: 5
Additional comments:

• Traditional French bistro food
• Seasonal menus
• Local favourite
• Line ups/Very busy
• Neighbourhood/hidden gem
• Great value/non-pretentious
• Good portions
• Daily specials
• Reservations highly recommended
• Wine bar
• Dinner service 5:30-12am
• Wine bar
• Dinner service only
• Tues-Sun 5:30pm – 12am (midnight)
• Closed Monday
• Les Faux Bourgeois Café next door opens everyday 9-4pm

**Recommendation: Duck Confit, Mussels and Frites, and their daily special was amazing. The lamb is highly recommended, but I didn’t try it on this visit.

I finally got to try the highly talked about French restaurant Les Faux Bourgeois. I’ve heard so much about it and all through word of mouth. All positive too. My friend waited 2 weeks before she could get a reservation and all the anticipation was just building. I almost had to take a 5:30pm reservation because it was so busy. On a Tuesday night too!

This is authentic French-Canadian food with reasonable prices (no main over $19) AND reasonable portions (you don’t need a dinner #2). It’s a rare combination to find especially for French food in Metro Vancouver, BC. It’s hard to come by affordable French cuisine (mind you it is an up and coming philosophy for restaurants) but Les Faux Bourgeois masters this without sacrificing on quality.

Don’t underestimate this restaurant because of its location (East Van – Kingsway & Fraser). Surrounded by hole in the wall eateries, in a somewhat residential area; the location is probably what makes it possible for them to charge what they charge. It truly is a neighbourhood gem.

It has a casual and unpretentious atmosphere, and being outside of downtown Vancouver it even has the added charm. This is definitely one of those humble restaurants you can’t wait to tell your friends about. The food is just wonderful, with well flavoured sauces and executed meats. Some say it’s too hyped up, but considering this place doesn’t advertise and is far from being located in a touristy area means that it gets its business through local word of mouth. Les Faux Bourgeois deserves its hype and I’m excited for it!

On the table:

Complimentary Bead & Butter – Crusty bread served cold – the authentic French way.

Fillet de Boeuf Grille – 4/6

• Beef tenderloin and potato gratin with your choice of butter sauce, red wine shallot au jus or green peppercorn cream sauce $19
• I had it with creamy peppercorn sauce.
• Let’s be fair. This isn’t a steakhouse, so it’s not the best steak you’re going to get. It’s a French bistro, so it’s rustic and still very good.
• The steak is tender and juicy, but the quality of course isn’t that of a steakhouse.
• The “creamy peppercorn sauce” wasn’t creamy and a bit thin, but it didn’t really matter because it was still delicious and rich in flavour.
• The potato gratin or scalloped potato was very finely executed with multiple layers of thinly sliced potatoes.
• It’s not very cheesy or anything, but each layer is seasoned well. You literally bite into layers of potato, not mushy or crunchy, but tender.
• The only thing is that they were scarce on the vegetables with 2 pieces of broccoli on the side, which I found random.

**Pork Tenderloin (Daily special) – 6/6

• Pan roasted pork tenderloin, potato spinach and endive sautee, walnut cream and shallots with Gewurztraminer pan jus $18
• This was a daily special and they sold out at 8pm. I got one of the last ones, and thank goodness! This is delicious!
• It’s a generous amount of perfectly tender pork medallions with a pink centre.
• It had a rich and somewhat thicker pork au jus reduced with Gewurztraminer wine and the sauteed onions on top added a sweetness to the savoury pan jus.
• I used the bread to wipe up every bit of sauce and I would definitely order this again.
• The side of potato spinach and endive sautee was also fabulous.
• It was chunks of roasted potato, layers of sauteed spinach and slightly bitter endive leaves topped with a walnut cream sauce and shallots. It had great textures and flavours.
• I was under the impression that the walnuts would be pureed into the cream sauce, however I still appreciated having them simply tossed on top. A little incorporation of both techniques would have been ideal.
• Make sure you get some of everything in the first bite, the flavours come together exceptionally well.

**Canard Confit – 5/6

• Crispy duck leg confit with roasted potato, frisee, green beans and port wine jus $15
• This was a very rustic, old fashioned, country style duck confit.
• The duck has a crispy skin, and just enough fat, so it keeps the meat nice and moist.
• The meat is so tender and flaky it just shreds away from the bone when you touch it with your fork.
• The port wine jus is again one of their many amazing sauces, savoury with the subtle tang of perhaps balsamic vinegar (?).
• The roast potatoes were tender, the green beans crunchy and the frisee salad was a nice side to balance out the richness of the hearty duck.

**Mussels & Frites – 5.5/6

• Mussels served in a white wine garlic sauce. Served with fries and homemade aioli $15
• One of their most popular mains. We got 28 mussels for only $15.
• What a classic dish. Classically French and divine to the taste buds. A simple recipe that is very well executed and authentic to French cuisine.
• The mussels are so fresh and cooked in this white wine sauce that has lots of freshly minced sauteed garlic.
• The quality of wine used for this sauce must be a high quality because it made the sauce. All their sauces are to die for. This white wine garlic sauce is no exception – my favourtie out of the 4 sauces we tried that night.
• It’s the kind of sauce you dip everything into and just want to drink like soup! We dipped our bread in it, the fries, and everything in it! Including fingers!
• The fries were good and crispy, but I’ve had better fries than this before.
• They came with a homemade aioli which is nice. I preferred dipping them into the white wine garlic sauce though.

Lamb

• I haven’t tried there lamb, but it’s another popular item that they highly recommend.
• Apricot glazed lamb cheeks with mint cous cous… sounds wonderful.

Desserts

All desserts are made in house. They could work on their dessert menu though and the options were very limited and a bit boring and expected. The desserts are all pre-made desserts like creme brulee, chocolate mousse, lemon tart, madeleines etc. I understand that desserts are time consuming so it’s good to have “make a day ahead desserts”, but I just know they could do a better job than what they offer.
Milk Chocolate Mousse – 3/6

• I think this is my first time ordering mousse, because I’m not really a big fan of it.
• The waitress really sold the chocolate mousse and said it was the best on the menu, so I had to try it.
• It’s premade and served in a chill glass with whipped cream on top and it was pretty good, but I also don’t have much to compare too.
• It was light for a chocolate mousse, not too rich or decadent, and had a nice creamy and fluffy texture when you dug your spoon into it.

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