Lunch at Rue Dumaine

Rue Dumaine is my current favorite restaurant in the city of Dayton and they are open Fridays only for lunch. This last Friday I had the pleasure of eating there with my Mom and Grandma. Lunch is ordinarily a quick in and out affair as people usually have to get back to work but being as that I am a man of leisure on spring break and my mother has Fridays off we were able to linger and enjoy lunch in a more European way. Rue Dumaine is the perfect place to relax and enjoy a long three-course lunch with friends or family.

I started with the fresh spring pea soup and I have to say this was the highlight of the meal for me. This bright green soup was a perfect thing to have on the first day of spring! The soup was light, refreshing, clean, and crisp. The peas soup was finished with a little crème fraiche for a touch of richness. It was a perfect compliment to the gorgeous weather we are currently having in Ohio.

For an entrée I ordered the duck ragout with asparagus and wild mushrooms served over creamy polenta. I was really happy with the flavors again, a nice springtime lunch offering. My complaint was not with the depth of flavors or how they complimented each other it was with the texture of the meal. Everything in the dish was soft. Duck braised till falling off the bone and shredded, sautéed mushrooms, and asparagus (slightly overcooked) all soft. Then these items were all served over creamy polenta, again soft. What Chef Anne needed here was a textural contrast. This is a fundamental of plate presentation. I assume that the asparagus was there to add some crunch to the meal but as it was overcooked it could not do that. I would suggest some toasted pine nuts to accompany the Italian polenta. My Mom and Grandma both ordered the haricot vert salad with blue cheese and sherry vinaigrette. This salad was good and surprisingly filling. I think it was perhaps a little heavy on blue cheese, but overall a great salad


Lastly we ordered dessert, a luxury for this time of day. The lunch menu at Rue Dumaine is a brief affair, written once weekly and is essentially a short list of five or six specials showcasing Chef Kearney and her Sous Chef Brian Griffey’s talents. Because the lunch menu is so short they only had one dessert, a pear galette, which made our choice easy. This is not a dessert I would normally order but I was pleasantly surprised. A simply warm pear turnover topped with fresh, lightly, whipped, cream that was not too sweet or too rich for lunchtime. The pastry was light and crisp not doughy and rich like premade puff pastry has a tendency to be. The pears were just sweet enough to end the meal and the cream added some richness to balance the tartness of the fruit.

All right service, as always, is the sticking pint with me. I feel that lunch service at Rue Dumaine is better than the nighttime service. The feel here is more relaxed and not as stuffy. Also I felt that they servers aren’t as rushed because the volume is not as high for lunch so they have the time to dote on their tables a little bit more than usual. The Chef even had a moment to come to our table and say hello. This is a nice touch and I must admit I have a soft spot for Chef Anne and I love it when people in the restaurant make a fuss over my table.

A nice leisurely lunch with two of my favorite people in the world, in one of my favorite restaurants in the world! Eight out of ten.

Rue Dumaine Insane!

This past Saturday I had the privilege of dining at Rue Dumaine in Centerville. Chef Anne Kearney does a wonderful job in the kitchen. Her pedigree includes a best new chef in the country from Food & Wine magazine circa 1998. I am partial to the restaurant because they always make a fuss over me when I go there as one of my students works there. There were five in our party and after waiting around fifteen minutes for our reserved table we were seated.
Skinny Rick, the student, sent our table an amuse bouche of chicken pate on toast with cornichons, country mustard, and a berry compote. I was weary of the berry compote with liver but it really worked and I have to say that the pate is hands down the best use of chicken liver I have ever ran across. The texture is not grainy or coarse like liver can be if over cooked. There is a light, airy, whipped texture to the pate and the taste has a smoked bacon quality to it but with the richness of butter. Amazing. The first course post amuse bouche was a scallop sausage, again courtesy of Skinny Rick. This dish is essentially scallop mousse packed into a hog casing and pan-fried. It was paired with a simple salad and was, as with all of Rue Dumaine’s charcuterie, very tasty. The nice thing about this sausage was that it was not too dense as shellfish sometimes has a tendency to do when over processed. Next up was rillette of duck crepes finished in a red wine and shallot gastrique. These were succulent. The duck that is scrap from the confit entrée on the menu is taken and whipped with citrus, mustard, and crème fraiche and wrapped up into tender little pancakes and finished with a tart and sweet red wine sauce as a means of balancing the richness of the duck. When entrees were served I ordered the braised lamb short ribs, which were served with a reduction of the braising liquid, battonet of carrots and sweet potato gnocchi. The lamb was great it was tender and full of flavor but the gnocchi were less than impressive. They were dense, under seasoned, and lacking sweet potato flavor. Dessert was ordered, we chose the sorbet trio apple/tarragon, raspberry, and mango. The stand out here is the apple tarragon. It subtly cleanses the palate while providing a touch of much needed sweetness after such a rich meal. We also received the chocolate hazelnut torte as well as a traditional crème brulee. The cake was passable but nothing to right home about. The crème brulee was under cooked and runny. The crust on top was nicely browned but a little thin for my taste. The real problem was the under cooked custard. Crème brulee needs be dense rich and fully set in order to be great this was more like a vanilla pudding. In addition to these two desserts we ordered the cheese course which I always excellent at Rue Dumaine. Chef Kearney selects handcrafted cheeses from around the country and always has a great variety. This time the cheese course featured Mt. Tam a creamy, buttery, brie like cheese with a hint of earthiness, Pepato an Italian style farmer’s cheese with peppercorns, Pond Hopper yeasty goat’s milk cheese, and Point Reyes Blue a Jersey cow’s milk blue cheese that is creamy and pungent.
Lastly, let’s talk service. Our server was a little “flexed” as I would say. He seemed to be put off by the lack of wine ordered at our table. Then it was all down hill from there. He seemed to be a little timid, confused, and lacked confidence in himself and the menu. But let’s remember that he is a server so he is a lower form of life, like one of those fish from the bottom of the ocean where the eyes move independent of the head. I would have preferred better service but both Skinny Rick and Chef Anne made an appearance at our table to make sure we enjoyed the food so that made up for the uneven service form our waiter. All in all I would recommend Rue Dumaine to anyone looking for an authentic French Bistro experience with Contemporary American flare. It’s pretty damned good for Dayton Ohio! 7.5 out of 10