L’Eden Restaurant

Attempting to beat the lunch crowd, Dustan and I ran to L’Eden to try the french cuisine. Being in downtown Tampa, parking and getting into this small bistro can be tricky. When we arrived, there were people lined up out the door to get a seat inside. Generally, when there’s a line outside, I assume the best. L’Eden fell short of my expectations.

First, we’ll start with the issues that confused me straight off. The menu mentions nothing about special hours for certain foods. Dustan only agreed to go because he thought he could get a steak, which was on the menu. When he went to order, we were told that Steak (and certain other items) were only available for dinner. No where on the menu was this made clear, and it left him scrambling to order something else. Since he’s typically culturally devoid when it comes to cuisines outside of traditional American and Mexican, this put him off right away. We ended up ordering the same sandwich, which seemed like it was a dish they couldn’t mess up. I also ordered the French Onion Soup, as I assumed a French restaurant would be the place that would get this simple dish right.

Once we did manage to order, we were brought out Diet Cokes. For the $2+ you pay for a drink, you get one of the small half-size bottles of Diet Coke. I understand a company not wanting to offer fountain beverages, but what’s with the half size drinks at full size price? I typically drink 3-4 diet Cokes every time I eat out. If I did that here, I would have run up an $8 to $10 beverage bill.

While we waited, they brought out some traditional french bread with an olive oil and herb plate to dip it into. The bread was a little crunchier/harder than I expected, but the oil brought it within a manageable taste. The thing we found is that we quickly ran out of the herb, though we could refill on the oil served at our table.

While waiting, we noticed more people in and out. Everyone looked frustrated, though I’m sure that was equal parts issues with the hot day, the slow service and the work day. The French Onion Soup came out eventually and it was lackluster. Firstly, it was completely deconstructed. They literally brought me a pile of cheese in a cup, a few flakes of dried bred and the crock of soup. The soup had very few onions in it and the onions themselves were small shreds, not the long thick pieces of onions that I expect in the soup. The broth was mild and lacking the heavy broth taste that I’ve come to expect. This was very watered down and empty tasting. Adding the cheese and bread gave the broth some substance, but it didn’t improve the flavor or the texture. Since it wasn’t cooked as a whole unit, the soup lacked the cohesion required for any semblance of what this dish should have been.

When the sandwiches came, it wasn’t much better. The Monte Carlo Sandwich is a stacked pile of prosciutto, tomatoes, olive oil and sliced mozzarella stacked on a long bun. The french bread, again too dry and hard, made the sandwich difficult to eat. I found myself dunking it between bites in oil to give it any chance of tasting and digesting right. The prosciutto, a meat I expect to be spicy and overpowering, was muted as more of a standard boiled or chopped ham. The tomatoes, cut too big for the sandwich itself, tasted a bigger part in the sandwich than they should have. The only star of this sandwich was the mozzarella cheese, a soft white cheese that was bland but helped to hold the unit together. As far as sandwiches go, this was pretty weak.

I took the time to ask others around me what they were eating and how they felt about it. Everyone who was eating a salad was seeming to enjoy it. Everyone who was eating a sandwich or another dish appeared disgruntled. I had always known French food for it’s strong flavors and it’s blend of tastes that compliment and inspire. L’Eden failed this simple task all around.

While none of the food was appauling or distasteful, I would never say that anything we had was worth a second trip. If you work downtown and need food in a pinch, this touch of complacency may be with acceptance. It’s definitely nothing I’ll make a trip for again.

French bistro, downtown tampa