My restaurant Thanksgiving was very good but not great. I think I will forever be spoiled by my South Asian Thanksgivings at Indian Accent in 2016 and 2023.

But I like to switch off – Manhattan one year and Queens the next. Usually the Queens restaurant is nearby and if I had a car the restaurant would be about 20 minutes away. I chose Bistro Eloise in East Elmhurst, which by public transportation – especially on a holiday – is a PITA to get to. It would involve either two buses or a train and a bus or even another bus depending on the route I took.

My first mistake was taking the wrong first bus. Two avenues near me – Myrtle and Metropolitan and the Q55 runs on Myrtle Avenue and the Q54 on Metropolitan Avenue. They run parallel for a bit (or as parallel as two streets can be in Queens) and they are only a few blocks from each other, so it is not the first time that I took one bus and realized I was on the wrong one and would have to get off and walk several blocks north or south and take the other one in order to get to my destination. So already I was running late. I took a Lyft to the stop where I change buses and because of the Sunday schedule I saw that the bus was not coming for a half-hour and it was 2:30pm and I had a 3pm reservation. That was the point at which I should have called another Lyft to take me to the restaurant. For some reason I was being stubborn and waited. I had never taken the Q47 before and I was looking forward to seeing neighborhoods that I was unfamiliar with. At 3:15pm the restaurant called me and I assured them that I was on my way and they promised to hold my table. By the time I got to the restaurant it was closer to 4pm than I would have liked and luckily they had several empty tables so it was not a total disaster. What should have been a little over an hour on public transportation took me two hours.

Danielle greeted me and brought me to my table. She told me what was in the Thanksgiving special and left the menus with me.

The French items looked really good. Looking around the restaurant, I could see that many people were not taking advantage of the Thanksgiving meal and many also looked like regulars. All the staff was French. Kitchen was not but most NYC kitchens have a Latinx staff. I had an internal debate over which way to go and I decided that I would go with Thanksgiving now and come back another time for a French meal. Another time when the buses were running on a weekday schedule.

I had almost fallen asleep on the bus, so I started with an espresso martini. Not the best I have had but it did its job.

Later I ordered the Chardonnay with my meal and it was okay but not a really good Chardonnay.

The soup of the day was sweet potato, which was not part of the Thanksgiving menu. I ordered it because it sounded good and it was my most favorite part of the meal, which is another reason why I would like to go back for the regular French menu. The soup was velvety and a little sweet. It reminded me of my favorite soups at the no longer here Mood.

The bread was the crusty kind that I like so much but it was served cold with cold butter. Still it was very good.

Dinner was roast turkey with gravy, sweet potato gratin, steamed Brussels sprouts with turkey bacon, stuffing, and cranberry sauce.

Everything was good but nothing stood out as great. The cranberry sauce was very tart – I do not think they added any sugar to it, which was fine. I do not think I have ever had cranberry sauce that tart and I liked it. The turkey bacon was like limp ham strips among the sprouts and I would have preferred that everything had been roasted. I cannot tell you what was in the stuffing but it was very good and so was the turkey and gravy. My biggest complaint with restaurant food is the amount of salt and nothing tasted salty to me, so that makes it better than just good. I was not sure about the sweet potato gratin. I know it exists but cheese and sweet potato do not go together in my head. I cannot tell you what cheeses were used but I can say that it did not quite work for me. Did I eat it all? Yes. But it felt just a tiny bit off to me.

For dessert, I decided on the lemon tart and was really looking forward to it. What it does not say on the menu is that it is served with a meringue. I hate meringue. So now I had to scrape off the top without it mixing into the lemon and I ended up digging into it from below the meringue. The wait staff thought I was crazy. The lemon and crust was really good.

On the way home, I fell asleep and was the only person on the bus at the last stop. Lucky for me that was the stop I wanted.

So it was a very good dinner. With that kind of dinner, I think company would have been nice because conversation would have made for a more fun dinner. But I do very much want to to go back and try their regular menu because it looks delicious.