Bistro 18

Under food:

Bistro 18
Montclair, NJ

Moms was in town last Christmas, so we had my (second? third?) belated birthday dinner. With the holiday traffic, we decided to stay close to home. Pickin's were slim, but I found that Bistro 18 was open Christmas Eve.

Our party of five was still short by two, but we got seated at 7pm with no problem (we had reservations). The place was not even half-full that night, probably because it was wet and cold outside.

Moms was hungry, so we mentioned to our host that we were ready to order. To which the host, in a Seinfeldian-Soup-Nazi huff replied, "I don't like my staff to take orders when the table is still incomplete, it confuses the staff in the kitchen." (WTF*?!!!) I have never encountered such a brusque response, which was odd given that (a) the place bills itself as a bisto; (b) it was not exactly bustling that night, and (c) they seemed to have a sufficient number of staff.
* what the fur

It was certainly bizarre to say the least. The host did grudgingly send a waiter to take our appetizer orders. The waiter seemed to have no problem whatsoever with taking our orders.

Bread basket.

Mozzarella, prosciutto and roasted peppers with balsamic sauce. The peppers were sweet, but the mozzarella was dry and bland. Couldn't even tell if it was buffalo mozzarella.

Potato and celery root soup. Nice starter, very light.

Herb-crusted snails with garlic demi-glace. We were impressed by this, it was really tasty. Chewy, buttery and well-seasoned. It came with a basil sauce and a pepper sauce, I think.

Washed down the apps with the '05 Mondavi merlot that Brother D got last Thanksgiving. It was not bad, fruity but with enough weight, balanced, eminently quaffable.

Yay, Brother F and his friend made it! Of course being the good sister, I immediately dispatched him to the local wine store for more vin. This is what he got.

Frei Brothers Reserve merlot, Sonoma. What a good pick... it was a tad sweeter than the Mondavi we just had, and also worked well with the food. Brother F remembered our sojourns in Sonoma county last Thanksgiving, so he figured that the wines would sorta taste the same. Can't argue with that logic.

I was not able to go and take pictures of everybody's plates. I ordered the tuna. Brother F got the veal, I think, and his friend ordered the seafood pasta. Moms got full from the soup and bread.

Wasabi crusted yellowfin tuna. With brown gaze (soy-based?), yellow rice, steamed bok choy and wasabi on the side. I liked the tuna, which was very generous serving. I also liked the crunchy wasabi crust on the outside, kinda like a spin on your typical pepper-crusted tuna. The sauce was super-sweet and I was not fond of it. The bok choy was alright, a bit on the limp side. The rice did not work well with the fish; too many flavors going on.



Capellini (angel hair pasta) with shrimp, lobster, scallops, arugula and fresh plum tomatoes. The friend said it was pretty good.


I think this was veal scallopini with sun-dried tomatoes and artichoke. The picture does not really match the description on their online menu, so I could be wrong.

Bistro 18 has a nice selection of desserts.

Creme brulee. I think the sauce was raspberry. This was textbook-perfect: brittle crunch of the caramelized sugar and creamy, silky custard. There was also a syrupy sweet sorbet (raspberry? strawberry?) that went untouched.

I think this was ice cream in a crepe cone, but not sure.

Could not get this picture to come out clearly. This was an apple tarte tatin with vanilla ice cream.

Everybody finished their plates, which said something for the food. We even got to meet the executive chef, Ricky, that night. Very young-looking Filipino dude, and he sounded pretty serious when he mentioned his training and experience. I wonder if he was curious about the crazy table that dared to order apps without their party being complete.

Bistro18 is BYOB.