Brasserie Ruhlmann

We had brunch today at Brasserie Ruhlmann on a whim. We were in Rockafeller Center, and were ready for some warm food and a place to sit. Thankfully this place had both!
After we checked our coats, we were shown to a very nice table. It was probably around 1:00 and on Sunday they serve Brunch all day. The restaurant was about half full. I'd imagine after Thanksgiving it will be tough to get a seat.

We chose tap water over bottled, and I splurged on a mimosa. It was very tasty :) Warm crusty french rolls appeared with room temperature butter. Rick is eating low carb these days, so he left his roll there. It was tasty, and Rick took a bite of mine for the experience. He's lucky that he can have just a taste. He thought they were pretty amazing too.

We elected to have soup. I had a cream of mushroom soup garnished with chicken salad and cheese fondue. I had to have this special of the day just to see how they would do the "garnish". Plus I love mushrooms :) My soup came, and the rimmed soup bowl had a dollop of chicken salad covered in cheese in the middle of the bowl. Initially I was a little confused as I didn't see the pitcher that the server brought with her. The server poured the creamy mushroom goodness all around the chicken salad and cheese. mmmm mmmm good. Wow it was seriously delicious.

Rick chose the French Onion Soup. It came in a traditional crock with well browned cheese over the top. I like it when the cheese is actually browned and not just melted - it adds to the rich flavor. The soup was rich and sweet and very complex. It did have a lot of bread, which Rick would prefer not to have - he left it behind. But the flavor was exquisite, and inspired me to ask Rick if he would be up for tasting French Onion Soup all over the city looking for the Blue Ribbon of Onion Soup. He agreed. So far we've tried this one and the Uptown.

I've asked Rick to comment on aspects of this soup, and then we can average them all together for a score.

Out of 5 stars:

Presentation = Rick loved the presentation with the browned cheese wrapping the soup, and the service. Cheese was not stringy and you didn't have to fight with it. Traditional onion soup crock 4 ****
Broth Flavor = I thought the broth was onion-y sweet and yet complex. 5 *****
Bread/Crouton = There was a lot of bread in the soup, and it didn't seem to be toasted, which I prefer. 2 **
Onion Content = Onions were very small, and the bread interfered with the onion pieces. There were no long stringy pieces of onion (bonus). 4 ****
Cost = $11 - kinda pricy. 2**

Total = 3.4 Stars

If you find yourself here, definitely order the soup :)