During my New York trip I also discovered a great French restaurant in Long Island City.
Cafe Henri, much like Balthazar, offers several dishes you’d expect at a decent bistro, including mussels with fries; hanger steak; croque monsieur and croque madame; and an impressive range of crepes with sweet fillings for dessert.
During my visit I had the soup of the day special, a deliciously rich tomato soup.
After that I had the main course of hanger steak served with mashed potatoes, mesclun salad, baby carrots and red wine shallots sauce. I don’t know what the chef put in the shallots sauce but it was impossible to resist. I’m only slightly ashamed to admit that I asked the waitress for a couple more small jars of the sauce — not because the dish needed it, but because it was so tasty.
I finished dinner with the Nutella-filled crepe. The buttery crepe was perfectly cooked and it contained just the right amount of filling. Not too much to make it sickly, but not too little to make it an uninteresting eat.
Anyone looking for French food outside of Manhattan should seriously consider Cafe Henri.