Petit Robert Bistro in Needham

To celebrate the birthdays of the July babies among our friends, we decided to have dinner together at Petit Robert Bistro in Needham. We have never been to this location, but we decided to give it a try because we liked the food served at the Back Bay location. Since the restaurant is under the same chain, you would expect to get similar quality food, but this turned out to be a wrong assumption.

We arrived at 5:30pm and were the first ones at the restaurant. The décor is a very corporate-like environment and is not as cozy as the Back Bay location. The server was okay but not too friendly.

We placed in two orders of Escargots as appetizers for 8 of us to share. The Escargots were chewy and topped with a nice garlic butter sauce. The garlic butter sauce was good and we used it as a dipping sauce for the bread also.



For main dishes, we ordered Rack of Lamb, Grilled Salmon, and Paella dishes. The Paella was special of the week. Since we had an extremely delicious Rack of Lamb at the Back Bay location, we were expecting the same quality at this location in Needham. However, the quality of the Rack of Lamb was significantly below our expectation. We ordered the lamb as medium rare, but it came out to almost rare. Also, the food was not hot, and the side dishes of potatoes and carrots were soggy. There is also one lamb chop that had its meat cut off. I did not expect to be served with a bone.

(Rack of Lamb at Needham Location)

(Rack of Lamb at Back Bay Location)


For desserts, most of us ordered the Grand Marnier Soufflé. The quality of the soufflé was even better than the ones we got at the Back Bay location. The Soufflé was freshly baked and was served with a chocolate sauce for the right amount of sweetness. The texture of the Soufflé was a little like steamed eggs and it was moist. However, it was not as light and fluffy as the ones we got in Bonaparte in Montreal.



Overall, the main dish was a total miss but the appetizer and dessert were a hit. One big minus of this restaurant is that it charges an automatic 18% gratuity to the AFTER TAX total of our bill. Automatic gratuities should have been calculated on top of the BEFORE TAX total of the bill, and so we felt cheated. The gratuity came out to $52, which was not worth it at all, especially since the service was not particularly good.

HOKAT Rating:
80/100

Address:
45 Chapel St
Needham, MA 02492-2601
(781) 559-0532
http://www.petitrobertbistro.com/