When I arrived in Winnipeg in July of 2014, one of the more popular restaurants was Bistro 7 1/4 serving French cuisine and a monster mussels and fries. Like the changing of the seasons, Bistro was closed through 2014 and replaced by a new tenant, Blind Tiger Coffee Co. Fashioning themselves on a new trend towards speakeasy prohibition-esque restaurants, Blind Tiger promised fantastic cocktails and delicious cuisine.
Blind Tiger literally opened up in late 2015 at the exact spot that Bistro 7 1/4 used to reside. South Osborne already holds one of my favourites, Deseo, and it is always nice to see a renaissance of businesses residing in the decidedly older but quaint community. Blind Tiger embraces the prohibition concept: the only person you see is the front of house staff who upon taking your reservation opens up a cavernous "bank vault like" door into the restaurant proper. A cacophony of noise and happy patrons greeted us when we arrived. The highlights for Blind Tiger are their cocktails, unique eclectic brews of multiple liquors often with a fruity or sour touch at the end. Accompanying them is a large but simple menu taking themes from mostly French cuisine.
Knowing that they are a French style restaurant,
Onion Gratin is the closest to a French onion soup on the menu. The initial visual is impressive with a cute ramekin filled to the brim with soup and cheese-y goodness. Punctuating the visual is the aroma of the thyme and parsley on top which alters the flavour from the usual rich beef broth in French Onion soup to a more earthy herbal soup. The topping of cheese adds a rich and salty element to the dish. A good start.
These
Moules (Mussels) Provencales were mediocre. Granted all the elements should be there with good sized mussels cooked well and a bevy of shoestring crispy fries. The provencale sauce was the ultimate disappoint though: thin, flavourless and not enough to impart any genuine flavour into the mussels. The accompanying pieces of red and green pepper add nice colour to the dish but were on the raw side and again added no taste to the dish.
Coquille Malfatti is likely a unique creation at Blind Tiger. They take butter seared scallops and pairs them with a ricotta spinach dumpling all on a bell pepper cream sauce. I have to commend them on the large and well cooked scallops which were tender, moist and springy. The ricotta spinach dumpling was unique but ultimately was too doughy and dense and lacked any real sustaining flavour. And while the bell pepper cream sauce adds a nice creamy and spicy kick to the dish, it failed to unify the entire dish together which ultimately feels a bit fragmented.
Taking from their French influences we had to try their
Escargots. These escargots, or snails are neatly shown in a ramekin and cooked with a herbal spread on each snail. Credit goes to the size of the snails which had in each a nice meaty punch that was tender and well cooked. Unfortunately there was no taste to be found in the dish and the one resounding flavour was that of fat and grease from the oils used in the cooking process which ultimately drowned out any aroma or flavour from the herbs. It truly was missing a dash of salt and a bit more restraint in the oil used to cook it.
Finishing out our meal was a
Onglet de Boeuf. This hanging steak was nice and tender and finished with asparagus, horseradish and parsnips. Cooked nice and tender, this steak was the best part of the meal and worked well with the roasted and creamy parsnip. The sauce is a red wine based bordelaise (from Bordeaux) that added a deep, rich and velvety component to tie the entire dish together. The best dish by far.
I could not help but be disappointed by Blind Tiger. It seemed to have everything going for it: a special theme, fancy and unique drinks and promises of good food. And while my initial impressions were excellent of the decor and drinks, the food was shockingly poor and failed to impress with most of the dishes seemed confused, lacked flavour and missing seasoning. Ultimately Blind Tiger is difficult to recommend, unless for cocktails or a pre-meal drink.
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