Restaurant Review - Brasserie Blanc, Leeds ** Only two stars ? Perhaps three at a push, but the thing is, on the rare occasions that I get to dine at the restaurants of the big name celebrity chefs, I expect something a bit different, a bit special, something with the Wow factor, and Brasserie Blanc really doesn't have any of these. The building looks nice, right by the river with an outside dining area for summer, inside the structure of the former warehouse has been nicely preserved. The staff are uniformly smart, polite and attentive, even asking whether she should pour my wine or if I would prefer to do it myself. I like to pour my own wine, and it was nice to be asked. For starters Mrs YS had guinea fowl rilletes (£6.20), which was excellent, although the presentation of two dollops of rillete and two bits of grilled bread left something to be desired. My deep fried goat's cheese parcel (£6.45) looked better atop its mound of dressed frisee, and tasted very good. Both starters are very pricey, how on earth does a rather small bit of cheese cost more then guinea fowl ? The main courses were, well, pretty average to be honest. Mrs YS had moules, "Steamed Loch Fyne mussels, white wine and cream" (£12.50 and an absolute rip off) to quote the menu, cream there was none, salt there was a dreadful amount, now my wife likes a lot of salt, but after tasting her mussels she said quite rightly that if anyone else had received the dish they would have sent it back. I had "Toulouse sausages, smooth mash, onion gravy" (£9.50), ok, two sausages of a decent size and flavour, although I have had better, perched on a small pile of "smooth mash" that was so smooth and wet that it began to dissolve into my "gravy" as I ate. Why the use of quotation marks ? Well, in my recipe book a jus is a thin, water consistency sauce, and a gravy is a rather more substantial beast, water it was, and with it being so thin you couldn't taste the difference between that and the mash. I ordered a portion of french beans to go with my main course (£3.50, it's lucky I was already sat down). It was obvious that two batches of beans had been prepared and then mixed together, half the beans were almost really good, green and al dente, the other half were graying and soggy. Brasserie Blanc redeemed itself somewhat with an excellent chocolate and hazlenut delice, really rice and dark, very nicely presented, but again the (vanilla ?) sauce dressing the plate was thin and tasteless, the delice itself though was great. I had a bottle of red vin de pays for £17 which was good and went well the cheese and sausages. Overall, the quality of this particular branch of Raymond Blanc's empire is all over the place, service was great, the food on the whole below average, you can spend the same amount in numerous restaurants in Leeds - Wharfedale - Ilkey which do not have big star names on their menu and get a much better meal.