R Bistro - Revisit

It has been awhile since we have been to R Bistro, and we do usually really like this place. As I have mentioned before, it is just a matter of getting the right menu that we both want to go eat, and we go.

On this night, we shared the pan fried crab cake with Old Bay seasoning and creamy sauce and the mitzuna salad with poached egg and pancetta for our starters. Both were very good. I sort of have a bias against crab cakes because they are usually not very good, but this one was. Very crabby and seasoned nicely. The sauce was a tangy creamy sauce, with a touch of heat. And it was just one cake-properly sized for an appetizer in my opinion.

The salad was also very good. A nice amount of the mitzuna greens (similar to arugula with its peppery flavor, but a bit milder) topped with a slice of caramelized apple topped with a round of pan fried pancetta. And a perfectly poached egg, appropriately runny, right in the middle of the salad. This was a very well done salad. Maybe a tad underdressed, but with the runny center of the egg, it came together. The apple was a nice touch to give a slightly sweet flavor to the rich and salty bacon and egg flavor. I thought there was a little too much of the apple, and did not eat all of it, but just some small bites with the other items. The pancetta was perfectly crisp and the salad was also the right size. We enjoyed both items a lot, but probably thought the crab cake edged the salad out a tiny bit. (Ok, hubby thinks the crab cake edged it out a lot, but we disagree on this).

For my main, I had the Alaskan halibut with sweet potatoes, arugula and lime butter sauce. I will start by saying that the fish was perfectly cooked, and was not dry and all. The lime butter sauce was simple, but perfect for the fish. Buttery and tangy with the lime flavor and some lime zest. The arugula complimented it as well. I was not a big fan of the sweet potato aspect of the dish, it just didn’t seem to add anything and they didn’t really have a lot of flavor. And maybe because they seem sort of fall-ish to me, and I am so excited about spring foods, they just weren’t doing it for me. But the rest of the dish was quite nice. Not amazing, actually fairly simple, but well prepared and well seasoned.

Hubby had the quail and sausage braised with grapes on blue cheese and walnut polenta. Hubby loves his little birds, and he thought the quail was very well done. He did not however think the accompaniments added much to it, although he liked them all with the sausage. He said the quail could stand alone. The sausage he liked with the grapes and polenta, although he did not remember any blue cheese flavor there.

All in all, while it wasn’t our best R Bistro experience, it was a very nice meal. We had good service and good food on a beautiful spring day.

R Bistro
888 Massachusetts Ave
Indy 46202
317/423-0312
www.rbistro.com