By Gloria Glyer
Photography by ron schwager

Palate-pleasing delights fill the bistro’s menu.

What is it about Folsom’s Bidwell Street Bistro that is so appealing? The food, certainly, is an important drawing card, but the bistro also offers a quiet and classy setting for dining. “Quiet” is the operative word: The bistro is one of the few local places where diners can converse in normal tones, without having to shout.

The interior is well-designed and comfortable. Tables are arranged with enough room for servers to perform their duties but for conversations to be private.

Executive chef Wendi Mentink spotted us even before we sat down for lunch. At her suggestion, we tried the appetizer sampler (usually only available at dinner), which included beets with goat cheese, crispy polenta, assorted sausages served with small, sour pickles known as cornichons, bruschetta and wild boar sausage. I found the sausage with pickles and the polenta the most appealing. Because this is a bistro, it seemed appropriate to sample the French onion soup. Gruyère added both depth and flavor, although a sprinkling of salt would have been welcomed.

Diva Peg Tomlinson-Poswall prevailed upon Mentink to prepare duck confit, a regular at dinner. Tender, fall-off-the-bone duck was seasoned to perfection. It was delicious, but my favorite dish was the grilled New Zealand loin lamb chops, marinated with lemon zest and oregano and served with baby green beans, red onions and crusty wedges of baked red potatoes. The lamb was tender, flavorful and prepared to the right degree of doneness. I wanted to devour each morsel right off the bone.

Another favorite of mine was the Cobb salad, served with a satisfying tomato vinaigrette. The bacon in the salad added a nice smoky flavor.

The grilled marinated Angus skirt steak featured a generous serving of tender sliced beef and pommes frites (fries). Herbed couscous was a nice addition to the Moroccan spice-rubbed wild king salmon. Adding to the flavors was the pickled cucumber relish with its puckery seasoning.

What else? We had the roasted chicken sandwich with almond-cilantro spread; grilled flat-iron steak salad on an abundance of greens with white corn, avocado and feta (a nice combination); spinach and cherry-tomato quiche (not very exciting); and penne pasta tossed with summer squash and fresh ricotta. (The ricotta was a standout, while the squash seemed almost like an afterthought.)

The bistro gets its sorbets and gelatos from Fiorello’s in Capitola. If the pineapple sorbet is available, try it. It tastes as if a fresh pineapple had been puréed, then frozen. The pumpkin pecan tart with caramel balsamic sauce combines two favorites of the cold-weather season in one tart. The Chambord panna cotta was wobbly, and the pomegranate-glazed Bartlett pear that accompanied it could have been a little softer. The vanilla-bean crème brûlée? Perfect.

The bittersweet chocolate roulade, profiteroles, pineapple upside-down cake with spiced rum walnut sauce and chocolate cake with peanut crunch completed our dessert order. Desserts are housemade and change with the seasons.

Diva by Diva

Paulette Bruce-Miller liked the duck confit best, followed by the lamb chops and Cobb salad. “Oh, what wonderful flavors in the confit,” she said. “Jacques Pépin would be so impressed. I can hear the French national anthem in my head.” She intends to return so she can have the duck all by herself. Although the quiche was very authentic and the texture and taste right on, she felt it was difficult to squeeze a quiche in between all the other flavors. “This would be a good, quick, energy pick-me-up if you were out shopping,” said Bruce-Miller, whose top dessert was the pecan pumpkin tart.

Gayla Mace enjoyed the comfortable setting, good service and very good food. “The polenta appetizer was the best because of the peanut oil used for frying,” she said. “It made the polenta perfectly crisp on the outside, melt-in-your-mouth on the inside.”

Peg Tomlinson-Poswall had no trouble picking her favorite: the duck confit. She said it was the best she’s ever had.

Joan Leineke chose the wines: McCrostie 2002 Chardonnay (Carneros), Z 2003 Pinot Gris (Russian River 2) and Brown Estate 2002 Zinfandel (Napa). Appropriately sized, high-quality stemware arrived with each wine. Leineke appreciated the attention paid to the food. “You get the feeling Wendi Mentink is keeping track of everything,” she said. “The duck confit tasted just like [in] the Dordogne in France where it originated.” She enjoyed the polenta and the bruschetta but felt the pasta and quiche were, in a word, boring.

For the rest of this story pick up a copy of Sacramento magazine's December issue.