There are ravioli filled with goat cheese and salmon and then drenched in a fresh herb-Champagne sauce just fine, if you only eat one. The pastas tend to be rich-in fact, too rich for the true Mediterranean taste. Just as at Spago, there’s a smoked salmon pizza, but somebody here forgot to leave off the mozzarella. The pizzas have medium-thick crusts and toppings such as wild game sausage, large shrimp or ripe black olives. Warm rock shrimp salad runs a close second, tossed with red bell peppers, the flavorful little shrimp and a garlic and balsamic vinegar dressing.Ībout half the menu is pizza or pasta. The best salad is probably the classic Greek: greens, tomatoes, Kalamata olives, dry cubes of feta cheese and a muscular vinaigrette with a bite to it. Instead of serving them with the usual garlic butter, Alm tosses half a dozen snails with garlic, tomatoes, prosciutto and onions.
The aioli is a bit much, however, on the grilled artichoke, which is already somewhat oily from grilling.Ī particularly good appetizer choice would be the escargot, prepared in an inventive manner. Good, greaseless fried calamari are the perfect foil for it. In fact, you might see more aioli right away when you order an appetizer. You’ll probably see this sauce again later in the meal. When you’re seated, you find a basket of warm, homemade rolls and little crocks of aioli, garlicky mayonnaise mixed with whole roasted garlic cloves.
In fact, you may have to relax some of the cooking-pizzas and certain main dishes, for instance-is done at a deliberate, often downright slow pace. Magdalena’s could feel crowded, almost claustrophobic, but the tables at Boulevard Bistro have more space around them. There are a few holes in the cooking, but to tell the truth, in many ways this restaurant is better than Magdalena’s ever was. This is a restaurant where you can get paella in a huge iron pan, pasta alla puttanesca done with rustic flair or even a simple plate of roast chicken. It offers something else: solid Mediterranean fare at reasonable prices. Perhaps it’s because Boulevard Bistro is not as flashy as Magdalena’s-or as French, despite the handful of Art Nouveau prints posted around the two dining rooms. But the crowds have not yet rediscovered this location. Tropical plants add exotic charm short-backed designer chairs add style. The walls are warm ocher, painted with a soft sponge flocks of coppery lampshades hang from the ceiling one lone booth, upholstered in a rococo fabric, sits rather defiantly against a back wall. The restaurant has been totally remodeled and given a spacious, almost classical appearance. Their brainchild is the new Boulevard Bistro, on the very spot to which Magdalena’s once drew crowds. Now the owners of Cafe Camelias-among them the chef, Richard Alm-have endeavored to improve the situation. When the much-praised Magdalena’s closed two years back, that pretty much left Cafe Camelias as the genre’s sole local representative. Bellflower is not exactly a hotbed of ambitious cuisine.
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