By Sheri Elfman
Thursday, January 24, 2008

Christine’s is a brand-new restaurant just east of Federal Highway on Oakland Park Boulevard. My co-worker and friend, Joe, and I decided to check it out for lunch.

Although the location is new, Christine’s is run by experienced locals, including the former owner of Grateful Palate on 17th Street Causeway, and a South Florida entrepreneur.

The restaurant is very sleek and modern with wood floors and a metal wine rack covering one large wall. The walls are hung with colorful pop art prints.

Christine’s specializes in American fare. For lunch, they have a variety of sandwiches and salads. Joe started off with their soup of the day ($7), which was Chicken Tortilla. The soup had a creamy tomato base and was smooth and light. Joe then ordered Christine’s Chicken Club ($10), which had Applewood smoked bacon, avocado, baby greens, tomatoes and imported Fontina cheese on Italian Ciabatta bread. The sandwich came with a side of shoestring fries, which made Joe seriously happy. He said those were his favorite kind of fries and that they were seasoned well. I couldn’t just take his word for it, so I tried them. He was right.

I ordered the Seafood Louis Salad ($15), which was made of Florida rock shrimp and jumbo lump crab in a dressing – not mayonnaise. It was served with tomatoes, cucumber, carrots and avocado, which were all tossed in a light lemon-oregano vinaigrette dressing. I am picky about seafood salad, but this was great, and the dressing wasn’t overwhelming.

Since we skipped on the wine, Joe and I had to order dessert to make us feel better. He ordered the carmelized banana cheesecake with dulce de leche drizzle ($7), and I ordered the warm chocolate soufflé cake ($7) with Anglaise sauce. We were both dying over our decadent desserts. You could tell we were really into them because we actually stopped talking for a minute to savor them. Joe’s cheesecake was served with a crunchy crust and my cake was smooth and rich and gooey.

The elegant restaurant presented their dishes attractively. We both agreed that Christine’s would be a great place for a romantic dinner date or an impressive business lunch.