It seems like every time I visit the new Moon Harbor Center on the shore of Jinji Lake, another restaurant has sprung up. This time the new-restaurant-du-jour turned out to be Ophelie French Restaurant. Despite my recent unrelated experience with an angry drunk Frenchman named Bruno, I decided to give the French another chance. I'm a nice guy like that.
Located right on the waterfront, Ophelie has outdoor seating with a spectacular view. On this particular hot, humid, Suzhou evening, we opted to sit indoors next to the window. So far, so good. The restaurant was very clean and comfortable, with a bit of a more refined touch than most other restaurants in Suzhou. It's classy enough that you would score points for having a date or business dinner here, but not so classy that everyone feels uncomfortably formal. I picked up the menu, expecting very high prices, and was pleasantly surprised. Very reasonable. The menu features a full selection of wine from around the world, in addition to an adequate beer selection, including Paulaner, and Stella Artois. The food section, which is always the second part of the menu that I look at, was equally impressive with a lot of unique dishes. We placed our order and relaxed with a glass of wine. Normally I'm a beer man, but on this particular day I was going for the full French experience.
The first item to arrive was the Pan Fried King Prawns. Served up atop a crispy apple, these things were so big that they could have used fake birth records to play on a lobster football team. More importantly, they were very delicious. The next item out was the Tilapia with Lemon Sauce. The sauce was very mild and accompanied the boneless fish perfectly. Having had our fill of items from the sea, the next to arrive was the Filet Beef. It's highly recommended by the chef, and for good reason. A very large cut of tender beef served with three different sauces: bleu cheese, black pepper, and dijon mustard. This was definitely my favorite item of the night. The dijon sauce blew my mind. We finished it off with a tiramisu and were so full we nearly had to be rolled out. The French have officially redeemed themselves, not like that had too. I just like hyperbole.
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