Aquitaine Bis

A taste of Paris in Chestnut Hill

Dining Out by Robert Nadeau

DINING OUT

Aquitaine Bis (617) 734-8400 11 Boylston Street (Chestnut Hill Mall), Chestnut Hill Open daily, 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m. and 5:30-10 p.m. AE, MC, Visa Beer and wine Parking in supermarket lot Sidewalk-level access

Used to be, this kind of Parisian food was the big deal in every American city. North Italian food overtook it in the public mind, and then half the chefs and their bankers wanted to do this Asian-fusion thing, all creating the opportunity for a French-food revival, which made the South End's Aquitaine one of the surprise success stories of recent years. Now Aquitaine has expanded to the Chestnut Hill Mall, replacing an Italian caffè with what the sign calls "bar à vin bistrot salon de thé." I count that as three separate kinds of eating places in Paris. And I think the wine bar is too expensive and not portioned properly, and the tea service is all wrong, but the bistro -- place of quick hot meals -- is so compelling that the others don't matter. It doesn't matter if the plaints of Edith Piaf are followed by the plaints of Cesaria Evora. It doesn't matter if this poetry stands amid the prose of Star Market/Shaw's and the Chestnut Hill Cinema. Just keep those steak frites ($21) coming.

Steak and fried potatoes is what bistro food is supposed to be all about, and Aquitaine Bis does a super job. The steak is tasty hanger steak, cut into little scallops, the better to hold a rich, brown truffle-enriched sauce. (I have to take the truffle part on faith: one of us in seven never smells the musky aroma of truffles, and I'm in that minority). The frites are classic French fries, highly salted and with a potato flavor you just don't get at McDonald's. A salad of cress and homemade garlic mayonnaise (now there's a sauce you never see anymore in restaurants) completes the large platter.

If you treat Aquitaine Bis as a sit-down restaurant, then dinner begins with complimentary gougères (cheese puffs is a prosaic translation). Sliced French bread and sweet butter in a ramekin, no olive oil. Rather modest, appetizing appetizers like a lobster bisque ($9) that isn't overspiced or creamed, a thin soup with real lobster meat and flavor. Or gravlax ($9), made from excellent salmon, arranged around a superb little potato salad made with onions and waxy Finn potatoes. (Ignore those pretentious dots of basil oil around the perimeter.) Or mussels à l'Aquitaine ($8) with a bland cream sauce of onions and a little pepper.

An onion-and-Gruyère tart ($7) is more intense, with flavors of bacon and cheese, an excellent crust, and a bit of salad. Pair it with Belgian endive salad ($8) made with roasted walnuts and some apple, dressed with (I'd guess) a thinned mayonnaise that makes every bite delicious.

Now you're ready for steak frites, or the more serious fillet au poivre ($26), a wedge-shaped bone-in steak with a single mini-leek on top, a rich pepper sauce, and a cake of potato slices. Or the "seared and sliced duck steak" ($22), long slices of duck breast with a sweet-sour lingonberry sauce, on a smoke-flavored creamy purée of lentils, with a few strings of carrot. If you want more vegetables, ask for a side order of haricots verts ($7).

Or, in the key of seafood, roast sea bass ($23) -- yes, the Chilean kind, salty flaking white fish on a perfect barley risotto, with a red-wine reduction sauce (really okay on the fish, but even better with the barley). Or seared sea scallops ($21) -- three large, sweet ones, done almost as nicely as the scallops at Legal Sea Foods nearby, but here with sautéed cucumbers. From the blackboard of "plats du jour," the Saturday-night special was salmon en croute ($19), a reheated slice of a huge pastry enclosing salmon and a layer of white seafood mousse in another outstanding pastry shell, garnished with fresh chervil and a cilantro cream sauce that unfortunately loses the flavor of the herb. (It seems to need an acid medium like salsa to hold the aroma.) I'm also fonder of fresh-cooked salmon dishes.

Now the wine part. The list is good, but few bottles are under $30, and there aren't enough half-bottles or wines by the glass. The 1998 Menetou-Salmon (Fournier, $28) was surprisingly full-bodied for an upper Loire wine usually comparable to Sancerre, but it's worth the difference for the 1998 chablis (Trembley, $31), which has the classic steely dryness of real chablis. Servers offer still and sparkling Vittel mineral water ($6), but there's nothing wrong with tap water in Chestnut Hill, and they refill frequently. Although tea ($2) is served as hot water in a porcelain pot with a bag on the side -- an arrangement that guarantees it won't brew -- the decaf ($2.50) and even decaf espresso ($3) are entirely credible.

And that's important, because the desserts are the part of the salon de thé that Aquitaine Bis gets wonderfully right. The fave from the South End is warm chocolate pudding cake ($8), which is at once crusty, creamy, hot, and all-chocolate. But don't miss the caramelized banana bread pudding ($7), cut like a slice of pie, with a caramel sauce and fried banana slices on top. Chocolate mousse ($6) restores the honor of the dessert: it's not overly bitter, but very chocolatey and rich, with a little crème fraîche to cut the bite. A lemon tart ($7) is very tart indeed, like a flat Key-lime pie studded with raspberries. Apple tart ($7) is tarte tatin, the Norman answer to upside-down cake, with a lightly caramelized top.

Service at Aquitaine Bis was excellent on two Saturday nights, and it certainly has filled right up with a combination of suburban epicures happy to save a car trip to the South End and shopper types who've given the mall newcomer a chance and feel they've discovered something. This is not a neighborhood to be daunted by the wine prices, but customers may demand more Piaf and less thundering French rock in the background. The Peter Niemitz-designed bistro atmosphere is supported by some random metal rails, Impressionist advertising posters, artsy photographs of Provence taken by chef/owner Seth Woods, yellow stucco, wood floors, and even a Gallic sense of clutter. Codes have eased on raw-milk cheeses, but not on having one's poodle under the table at dinner. Seeing-eye poodles only.

Robert Nadeau can be reached at RobtNadeau@aol.com.

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