A restaurant review. First a disclaimer: I am not qualified to be a food critic. I can’t even cook-I just end up burning things. But I did grow up working in fine dining restaurants and high end resorts, so I love good food. I guess that’s my only qualification!

Delivering magazines in Middleburg last week, and had lunch at Julien’s Restaurant. An authentic french restaurant-my daughter’s french class went there on a field trip to experience french cuisine, which was a big hit.

The lunch: it simply is not possible to go wrong with a slab of country pate on french bread. Awesome. It did, however, have spicy mustard on it, which I thought overpowered the taste of the pate a bit, but my husband loved it, so I guess it’s a matter of preference. Complemented by a nice red wine, a yummy lunch.

But…the dessert. I was chatting with the waitress about how I love bread pudding, but hesitate to order it in restaurants because it can tend to be dry and stale when not done properly. I like it fluffy, with big juicy raisins, but mostly, it has to be served warm and absolutely swimming in custard. The waitress encouraged me to try it, and ordered it with extra creme anglaise. And they delivered. Excellent. Although it had a good amount of custard-certainly enough to enjoy the dish, I could even have done with more. When I say swimming, I mean like milk in cereal, that kind of swimming 🙂  But again, a matter of preference.

There was an interesting (in a delicious way) subtle taste to the bread pudding which I couldn’t identify at first, and my husband thought it perhaps was a slight whiff of cornbread. I thought, what an interesting southern take on a classic. But when asked, via the waitress, the chef said there were no corn ingredients used. When pressed, he clammed up, and said he wouldn’t even give his recipe to his grandmother!

So, I’d be interested to hear if others have tasted their bread pudding, and if they found the same distinctive taste that we did. Very interesting!

3 West Washington St., Middleburg. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Juliens-CafeRestaurant/105914256118311