Bistro 7 1/4 - April '08

To celebrate a birthday we decided to try Bistro 7 1/4 on Osbourne. We've tried to go here a couple times without reservation, so the times available were rather limited. This time we were smart and booked a few days in advance.
http://www.alexanderskitchen.com/

Rating: 1 Poor - 5 Great
Atmosphere................4.5
Music .........................4 (we only noticed the music last minute, so this may not be a fair rating)
Food............................4.5
Service........................4.25 (see below)
Menu Selection..........5
Wine Selection ..........4.5
Price...........................5*
*price is based on quality of food

Upon arrival we were promptly seated not far from the open kitchen - which I loved to watch the chef cook in! Our server was very friendly and made some suggestions for wine, which we gladly accepted and enjoyed!

We started with the Pita Bread served with a trio of dips as an appetizer (white bean dip, red pepper and a spinach type dip); And were also given a crusty roll with butter, salt and a relish by another server - not sure this was meant for our table, but it was good.

I chose the Herb Crusted Pork Tenderloin with mushroom cream sauce - mmm!!! Very tasty! My husband selected the Wild Salmon with some sort of potato pancake type thing. His was tasty as well, a touch on the dry side, but only noticeable and not enough to complain about.

For wine we had an Australian Cabernet Sauvignon - Black Swan. Quite tasty, we'd have it again.

Something we noticed was all the tables ordering mussels, me not being a mussel lover wasn't keen to have them, but they did look good along side the homemade frites!

For dessert we had the dark chocolate espresso cake, it was soooo good! One thing I really liked is you can order 1/2 portions of dessert, and that is plenty to share.

The menu had plenty of options and the prices are very reasonable for the quality and quantity of food ($20-25 on average for main course).

My only comment on the service was one server, I think the bartender, didn't seem to have much for customer service skills and I didn't think her attire was appropriate for the restaurant. Our primary server was very friendly and accommodating and also very gracious and thankful when we pointed out something was missed on our bill.

We will surely return here as I need to try those delicious looking frites and may even venture to try the mussels (eek).

Overall rating = 4.5. Highly recommend Bistro 7 1/4 to all - but make sure you call ahead to reserve!!