Le Champlain (Quebec City) 01/2011

This is the four diamond Relais and Chateau restaurant in the five star Le Frontenac hotel that looks over Quebec City. The restaurant occupies a grand room, like something out of a medieval castle. The service was enthusiastic but our server's accent and enunciation, were almost unintelligible. We ordered a simple meal. I started with a pea soup which was pleasant.
A crab salad was delicate with plenty of crab.
A duck breast slightly sweet with maple syrup was a little unusual,
tasty and beautifully presented. After a delicate palate cleanser
our problems started. I explained that I wanted the salmon stuffed with foie gras that I ordered to be barely more than seared. It arrived with a slab of foie gras pate on top of a rolled up fillet of salmon
which was completely cooked through. I returned it and got a replacement cooked as requested. Whilst it looked attractive it was very ordinary and the foie gras did nothing for it. Sandra's 'blue' filet was medium rare.
A nice piece of meat. For a supposedly first class restaurant this was a pretty poor effort. The vegetables were nice but the meal hardly merited the restaurants reputation. A dessert of mixed sorbets was very good but one could get that almost anywhere.
Score 13.5/20