Mont Briller: monsieur, ou est le FRENCH?

Area: B1 of Castle Plaza Hotel キャッスルプラザホテル  about an 8 min walk east of Nagoya Station, Exit 11 of Unimall ユニモール
Restaurant:  Mont Briller  モンブリエ
Website and Info:  http://www.castle.co.jp/plaza/restaurant/monbriller/index.html

Hours:  Lunch 11:30am-2pm, Dinner 5:30-9:30pm


This is a newly opened restaurant (2014) in the basement level of the Castle Plaza Hotel. It's a French theme (by name, the lunch seems almost Italian with pastas) with very French-like non-vocal music and a European feel.

I went for the non-pasta lunch (1200 yean).  The soup was a chilled kabocha cream soup.  It was milky and sweet with only the slight flavor of the Japanese squash.  The floating baguette soaked up the olive oil and was a nice accompaniment to the soup.  The bread was brought hot and crisp.  It was a focaccia but with no herbs.  Very light in density and the top was probably brushed with oil afterwards to make it almost seem fried.  

The red and white strips on the salad I thought were radish, but somehow they tasted like beets (perhaps it was only the sweet corn dressing that gave it the sweetness that beets have).  The round, deep purple veggies were radishes, tasting like the little red radishes I know from home.  Underneath was raw kabocha cut thin, lacking flavor because it was raw.  The green leaves looked brown and wilted. The roast pork was so dry it was flaky like canned tuna, but harder.  Because of this dryness, it took in the sauce almost immediately.  The sauce didn't have time to spread out and cover the whole pork medallion.    I didn't really get a sense of the mustard in the mustard sauce.  The potato was nice and mildly salted, with a roasted flavor but were so dry it had formed a white surface area.

I don't remember what the dessert was, but I guess it was that memorable!