Dinner at Cote, Ealing Broadway

Dinner for 3 on a snowy winter's evening at Cote, Ealing BroadwayCalamari with tartar sauce

Moules provencal: Mussels in a tomato sauce.                         Smoked salmon on toasted bread with dill, capes and creme fraiche dressing

    Half chargrilled Breton chicken with garlic butter and frites.              Duck confit and cassoulet

Pan fried sea bass with a pea and cream sauce








Cote is a chain of restaurants delivering French food for a reasonable value. I don't have an issue with chain restaurants. I mean as long as the food is still freshly prepared and cooked, each individual restaurant is its own individual restaurant, with the chefs inside each restaurant affecting whether you like the place like with stand alone restaurants. It's the chain restaurants that buy everything in frozen, and simply re-heating which give chain restaurants a bad name. Cote shouldn't worry here.

The feel of the restaurant is like a French bistro and the staff are professional and friendly giving a warm welcomed feeling to the restaurant. This isn't my first time at Cote, I have been to others within the Cote chain and have the standard, taste and freshness of the food to be great.

The starters; calamari, mussels with a tomato sauce, and smoked salmon with a creme fraiche dressing. The calamari was meaty and had a great crunchy breadcrumb coating. I loved the little bits of breadcrumbs and sauteed garlic at the bottom of the pan, it was a real treat, like finding the little off cuts crunchy bits of chips at the bottom of the paper bag from the fish and chip shop. The mussels in the tomato sauce was delicious, slight tang from the tomatoes but the meaty mussels were able to stand up to the powerful sauce. The smoked salmon was delicious, however since it was on the set menu could have done with a few more slices of it, rather than just enough to cover 2 pieces of toasted bread.

The mains: Duck confit with cassoulet, half chargrilled Breton chicken, and seabass with a pea and cream sauce. The duck confit was super soft, the meat literally fell off the bone, the skin was crisp and the cassoulet underneath was rich tomatoey. They had added little garlic croutons, which gave a burst of garlicky crunch against the soft beans which was a real treat as you didn't get this with every mouthful and it was a surprise when you got this. The Breton chicken was delicious, and came with garlic butter and crispy french fries. The  sea bass was perfectly cooked and the creamy sauce was rich but the peas give it the needed freshness.

We were too full for dessert, however I love getting the creme caramel, its amazing!! Maybe next time