Simply stepping into Ashley's transported me to the 1800s - 1880s to 1910s maybe. The air was thick and, when my parents and I entered, full of old, white people and only old, white people. No African-Americans. No Hispanics. No Asians ... well, except me. It's also one of the rare restaurants in Little Rock where I've seen a butter knife AND two forks already at each seat. In fact, the servers appeared to be rather concentrated and very OCD about the silverware all night long. It seems to be the true mark of a hoity-toity restaurant - and maybe even a fancy-schmancy restaurant in France.
I remember that the upper-level French professor (French as in she's French, not just French as in a teacher in the French department) said that Ashley's was the only TRUE French restaurant in the area. Thus, when I saw that we could order a selection of cheeses with a baguette, grapes and roasted apples, I wanted to order it. I also wanted to order the "duck ham" because I remember that in France, it is common to eat dried meats with cheese. When our order appeared, the cheese and the "ham" looked delicious, and they didn't let us down. The flavours of the Tomme of Savoie, the Blue Stilton, the Bijou and the Camembert paired extremely well with the raisins and the roasted apples. The duck was also good, but it didn't really go well with these particular cheeses. I mean, it didn't help the flavours of the cheese, but it didn't destroy the taste either. There was only one major issue. What the heck is this bread-looking thing? It looks like a baguette, of course. It also tastes like a baguette. But ... the size of it ... it's not a standard baguette size. It was like a quarter of a baguette! Which really makes no sense with the amount of cheese that they gave us. An appetiser should be split equally with all the people, but if we split this baguette, it would have literally been one bite for each person - no, less than a bite since I'm pretty sure that I could have eaten the whole baguette in one bite. How misleading ... Yes, a baguette came out, yet, a baguette did not come out.
Maybe because someone higher up than the servers saw me eyeing that tiny baguette strangely because a little later, an order of cornbread which we had not ordered was brought out for us. Since I preferred the "ham and cheese", my father stepped up to the plate and took it as his solemn duty to eat all the cornbread ... allowing my mother only a single bite. Both said it was a little dry.
My mother, for her main dish, ordered seared scallops with potato gnocchi, peas, artichokes and dried tomatoes. It was delicious, but the chef was a little light on the gnocchi, something my mother loves to eat.
My father ordered roasted duck with orange sauce. It also had romaine and potato gnocchi and cherry tomatoes. My forgetful father forgot that his dish came with gnocchi, so after a bite, he was confused. "It's like potato, but not," he said. My mother tried one and thought that it had a familiar taste, but she couldn't think of what it was. I was not sure what they were talking about since the flavour was clearly potato, even if the texture was not.
I ordered roasted Colorado lamb with bell peppers, gnocchi, artichokes and cipollas (a type of onion). It was okay, but I was not impressed.
The best thing was the presentation. It came out in the pot in which it was cooked, but it was rather difficult to see what was inside or where the lamb was hiding - I kept pulling out those onions, which reminded me of garlic even though the taste was not the same.
Subconsciously, for the night, I started a pot theme. In reality, I wanted to try many desserts, but a person can only eat so much after a big meal and at the cost of $10 per dessert. I wanted the cinnamon tart with dulce de leche ice cream, and a vanilla macaron with raspberries and champagne sorbet. I even wanted to try the chocolate soufflé with vanilla Chantilly cream. However, after the soufflé catastrophe two nights ago, I decided against it.
In the end, I decided on caramelised apples with vanilla ice cream and fresh doughnuts. Although i definitely preferred this dessert over the 1620 soufflé, it wasn't that impressionable. I had hoped for something similar to a French apple tart, but the doughnuts were too big and the apples were not sweet ... at all.
While we were eating, we saw a server bring out two chocolatey desserts with ice cream to another table. We knew that they must be the sundae with pecans and chestnuts and a chocolate sorbet, and the caramel mocha semifreddo, but we didn't know which one was which. My father ordered the semifreddo because he liked the mystery. It wasn't bad ... but not my cup of tea.
Surprising everyone, my mother, who does not like chocolate cake, ordered the Parisian chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream. She, again, ordered the best dessert of the three. It was decadent, rich and thick. Very good.
At the end of the meal, I concluded that eating at Ashley's was a good experience, especially for a food blog, but it was not worth the money. The service was excellent, but it can't change what you put in your mouth. It won't change what you tasted.
