Brasserie Du Soleil — Restaurant in Wilmington

Today was not the first time I have been to Brasserie, but it was the first time I have ever been for brunch. My son was with me for Father's Day, and he had never tried Brasserie, so off we went.

Brasserie has a wonderful outdoor patio looking over a pond when the weather is nice, but it was muggy since a tropical storm was on its way, so we opted to sit inside. Inside the decor is dark wood on the walls with an older style tin tile ceiling. Inside is always a bit loud, although Sunday afternoon is not as loud as a Friday or Saturday night.

As usual with my son, we got shellfish for an appetizer (in this case, mussels). Brassiere has three different sauces that they steam the mussels with: mariniere, diable, and saffron. I believe all 3 sauces have the same base of white wine, butter, and minced shallots, but the mariniére has tomatoes, the saffron has, well, saffron of course, and the diable has some hot spice to it. I like them all, but the saffron is my favorite, which was our choice. Once the mussels are gone, dip the french bread in the remaining sauce; its marvelous. Brassiere French bread is excellent and comes with real butter, but the bonus of dipping in the left over mussel sauce: priceless.

My son had the eggs Benedict of they day which was over Canadian bacon and Gruyere cheese. I had their sauteed flounder over quinoa salad. The eggs Benedict was rich and yummy; just as you would expect. They come over a monster piece of French bread. The flounder was cooked properly, had a nice thin crust, but was just a little bland for my taste. Granted, following the saffron broth is a tough challenge, but I would like the flounder better with more spices.

One of the always fun treats at Brassiere is the desserts. Yes, they have a couple of American portioned giant desserts that have 1500 calories, but their special touch is the little dessert parfaits. Each parfait is bigger than a shot glass, but not as large as a whiskey glass. They are served with little spoons, and so you can order several, split them among the group, and everyone gets to try a few bites of goodness without...

Brasserie Du Soleil was one of my favorite restaurants in Wilmington. Last night I went to have one of their awesome salads and a glass of wine with a few friends. Three of us ordered salads and within 1 minute of each other, we each found a hair in our salads!! I am usually not one to say anything but we notified our server and she took the salads away. The manager came out to apologize and told us they were "looking to find the problem with the greens" and then would remake our salads. Since they were still searching for the problem and with our appetites for a salad gone, we informed them we would like to order something else and we were told no problem. At the end of the night, the bill came and we were charged for our entire check (minus the tarnished salads). We felt it was poor service for us to have to pay for the new food we ordered when we were under the impression it would be a replacement free of charge. We brought this to the manager's attention and were extremely nice, even offering to pay for the wine we had. The manager was extremely rude and made us feel that it was our fault for the entire mix up and issues with the food. We ended up having to pay for half of our bill. I have never in my life experienced such poor customer service. I have always loved this restaurant group but the way we were treated has resulted in them losing my patronage. I want to inform others (something I normally would not go out of my way to do) because I feel like this treatment was so ridiculous. You should never leave a restaurant feeling that you did something wrong when the issues were all on their side and they were...

We ate here for lunch before heading home from our beach trip. We had a reservation for 11:45 and got there a little early and were the second table seated in the dining room. Deb was our waitress and she was very attentive. We got the mussels for our appetizer and they were delicious with the spicy marinara sauce. We were amazed at the large portion size. I also got the French onion soup which was okay, I’ve had this before at other restaurants but I was not a big fan of the large pieces of baguette in the soup. We both ordered the steak pomme frites for our entree and waited so long for it to be brought out. It was disappointing because many tables that were seated after us (in the dining room and outside on the patio) received their lunch before us and already left before we got ours. Deb made sure to check in on us and refill our drinks and said a few times that the food would be out shortly. We each got four pieces of steak that tasted a bit burnt and unseasoned and a heaping serving of spinach. I liked the French fries because they were perfectly cooked and had just the right amount of salt. I also got the creme brûlée but at that point we were ready to leave so I had to eat it fast as it could not be boxed up to-go. Dining room was well decorated but I would not consider this a fine dining restaurant. It was pretty loud in the dining room especially as it got busy for the lunch hour and many guests were dressed very casually. Overall, experience was just okay but would not come back if in...