AT CLAUDE AND DOMINIQUE'S BISTRO, OLD FAVORITES ARE A SPECIALTY OF THE HOUSE

"If I were about to die, I'd want to have my last meal here," said the woman at the adjoining table. She was finishing a meal at Claude and Dominique's Bistro, where the flavors of Paris grace the heart of Pleasanton. From the outside, this tiny French restaurant resembles a New England lobster shack. But the cozy interior, with its lace curtains, valances, and floral wallpaper, looks more like your great-aunt's Victorian parlor. Seating no more than 40 to 45 people at a time-half of them in an enclosed patio-this place is nothing if not intimate.

Most of these are bistro classics, including escargots de Bourgogne (snails in garlic sauce), soupe A l'oignon gratinee (baked French onion soup), ris de veau (veal sweetbreads in a mushroom cream sauce) and cuisses de grenouilles (frog legs with tomato, white wine, and garlic). Then there's rabbit in mustard sauce, pheasant in a white-wine cream sauce, veal with morels, and a number of well-executed seafood dishes, such as the outstanding scallops in lobster sauce appetizer and swordfish in lemon and fennel seed butter. The veal and calf sweetbreads attract French diners.

"Sometimes the entire patio will be filled with members of the French community who have come from as far as San Jose or San Francisco."

Long-timers form the core of their clientele, some of whom have followed them all the way from Le Petit Paris. One such patron, Shirley Stapp, drops in regularly to celebrate birthdays with her husband and neighbors. "I've never had a bad meal there," she says. "When my husband and I dine elsewhere, we usually go to continental restaurants. We don't bother with other French places because we have Claude and Dominique's."

Diablo Magazine -March 2001