Restaurant Review: The Bicycle Club

Last Thursday was my birthday and last Thursday I got to enjoy a wonderful meal with Mom and my friends at the Bicycle Club in Englewood Cliffs. It was a great birthday celebration with some really lovely food and drink.
I hadn't been to the Bicycle Club in years but it's next to one of my favorite Karaoke bars so I thought it would be a great chance to get back there, to try their food again after a long hiatus. We were seated in the front room and the atmosphere was very low key and calm. I will say that the music was a little loud for me but we were sitting relatively close to the bar. There is a whole other back section in the restaurant that is quieter. However, without reservations there was a bit of a wait for the 6 of us so we decided that the bar would do just fine. Afterall, we were starving after a long day of work.
Our waiter was very friendly and helpful and overall the restaurant had a very fun feel to it. I especially loved the wooden decor and the wall art. There was a map of the United States made entirely of license plates. Each state was made of part of its license plate.
I decided to order French Onion Soup and the Spinach Salad and I got a drink called Obsession.
My other friends tried a variety of dishes, from calamari to crab cakes to hamburger to the baby argula salad. I must say that everything looked fantastic and everything I tried was quite delicious. The only thing I didn't quite love was the crab cake. I'm not always the biggest "cooked" seafood fan. I love raw fish, but cooked fish and shellfish can be a challenge for me. This was just a little too crab tasting for me. However, for everyone else that actually loves crab cakes to begin with, they were pretty good.
My French Onion Soup was utterly delicious and filling. It was traditional with very few surprises but it had a wonderful taste. It was cheesy and had lots of caramellized onion. I wish I had taken a picture, but I was so hungry that I completely forgot. It was, however, presented fairly traditionally in an eartherware bowl. I was already pleasantly full after eating it so it was truly good and I ate every last bite.

Such a beautiful salad

This did not stop me from enjoying my Spinach Salad. It was a small salad with roasted beets, goat cheese, and toasted walnuts tossed in a raspberry vinaigrette. Blatantly I have an obsession with both goat cheese and raspberry vinaigrette. I admit it. But they're both so good.  I love the creaminess of goat cheese and the slight tartness of the raspberry.  I also happen to love the crisp leaves of spinach and the simple sweetness of the beets so this salad was a big success for me.
I also absolutely loved my drink. It was bourbon, St. Germain and apple juice. It was very strong and tasted strongly of bourbon but it was delicious with the sweetness of the apple and st. germain. The girls also liked thier drinks. Each was pretty strong but mine was the strongest, so if you don't like bourbon, it's not the drink for you.

The restaurant was on the costly side and the menu limited, but everything was really high quality and prepared well with beautiful presentations.