REVIEW: Jasmine French Restaurant

1768 Front St
Slidell, LA

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Overall:
Service:
Atmosphere:
Food:
Price:

Pros: A great place to bring - and impress - a date.
Cons: The restaurant seemed a little too empty.
Bottom Line: Was a great experience with classic French cuisine that left us hungry for more.

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Located in a small, unassuming building on Front St. in Slidell, Jasmine's is the kind of place that doesn't do much (if any) advertising, but lives off regular customers and good old fashioned word-of-mouth. Jasmine's is a somewhat upscale restaurant that serves French classics. We Hippos haven't done a lot of true French dining (unless French fries and French toast count), so we were excited to sample some authentically-cooked cuisine.

The dining area is shaped in a deep rectangle and is cozy and authentic. The decor is classic and elegant - white tablecloths on the tables and a large, beautiful painting of people dancing on the wall (if you go, check out the guy who looks like he's doing the Thriller dance). We went in for dinner at 7:00 PM, and there were only 3 other tables occupied. Of these, only one of the tables - a couple - was under the age of, oh, say 80, and no more younger people came in while we were there. Apparently, this place does best with the early dinner crowd and is not well known with the younger population.

To start the meal we ordered an appetizer and a half liter of wine. Oh how we love restaurants that serve half liters - it's the perfect size for us when we're dining on our own to each get two generous glasses. The wine was great and came at an extremely reasonable price ($15) for such a nice restaurant. Jasmine definitely gets bonus points for that! For an appetizer, we had crabmeat au gratin. It was creamy, cheesy, and delicious. Our only critique was that we didn't taste much of the flavors of the white wine that it was cooked in. But it still tasted great. Each entree came with a Caesar salad, topped with anchovies (salads without anchovies are also available for the unadventurous). Good stuff here, too.

For entrees, we asked the waiter for recommendations. He pleasantly obliged, and offered recommendations and descriptions (which weren't on the menu) of his preferred entrees in each category (pasta, beef, game meats, seafood, etc). We decided to go with two of his recommendations - the Beef Wellington and rack of lamb with rosemary. Beef Wellington is a classic French dish. It's a beef tenderloin on top of pate and all wrapped up and cooked in puff pastry. The Beef Wellington was a beautiful piece of meat - cooked perfectly and oh-so-tender. The rack of lamb was also cooked very well and had great flavor. It was served with a mint jelly that nicely complemented the dish - and this is coming from a hippo that doesn't like mint much. Each dish came with sides of green beans and potatoes. The green beans were your average steamed, butter-coated green beans. The potatoes were comfort food at its best. However, it was the perfectly cooked, well-seasoned cuts of meat that were the stars of the plates.

We really enjoyed our dinner at Jasmine. We've heard that new owners are taking over the restaurant soon. We hope they will maintain the integrity of the cuisine while making an effort to draw a younger crowd. As it is now, Jasmine is a great place for a romantic dinner for those in the Slidell area who don't want to cross the lake. The service was excellent, attentive, and postively contributed to the dining experience. We really enjoyed our meal and look forward to returning to increase our knowledge of French cuisine.