We had been to one back in July to sample some local bouffe or food. Throughout France it's very typical to see set menus in restaurants so I ordered gratinée à l'oignon (good ol' French onion soup), quenelles à la bisque de homard which are soft poached dumplings with a fish base and served in a lobster bisque sauce, and crème brûlée. I figured go with two things I know and one thing totally foreign to me. Not sure that I'd eat quenelles again (the texture is...odd) but I'm glad I tried them. This time however I went with a salad featuring warm goat's cheese in phyllo pastry, saucisse à l'andouillette which is a cooked sausage stuffed with coarse intestines along with seasonings, and for dessert tarte aux pralines. It was my second time having the sausage as I had it when Natalia and I were here in 2008 but I'm glad I gave it another go. Unfortunately I have no photos of any of this so I have stolen from the internet to show you some quenelles and andouillette!
While I was at work on Friday James took his parents up to see Fourviere and the Roman amphitheatres that I wrote about a couple of months ago. Then James had to take off to work as well, but once he finished he and his parents came to pick me up at my work before heading out for dinner around the corner at Le Bistrot Le Charité. The owner is good friends with the owner of my work and I had heard yummy things about the food, so when I found out it was a 2-for-1 menu that night I immediately made reservations. There were two choices for each course (entrée, plat, dessert) so we ordered two of each entree (which is actually the appetizer in France, not the main course like in Canada) to sample. One was a carpaccio, thinly sliced uncooked fish on a puff pastry with bits of grapefruit, and the other was marbré de foie gras, like a terrine that we spread on fresh bread. When combinations sound this bizarre you have to trust that they taste good and they did! For the main course three of us went with an incredible lamb and Howard went with a delectable fish. Dessert gave us the option of chocolate molten lava cakes or this wonderful trifle-like-layered-strawberries-and-cream so we went for two of each again. Along with a bottle of recommended red wine it was the perfect amount of food and we all tried something new. (Apologies for photos of half-eaten dishes...but it was so tasty; at least I remembered a camera this time!)
We walked back towards our place and stopped at a little pub for a digestif before calling it a night. Saturday morning we met up at the Musée des Beaux Arts (which is conveniently one block north of our apartment) and spent two hours taking in some history from sculptures to artifacts to paintings. Among others we saw works by Rodin, Degas, Renoir, Monet and Picasso.
The piece of art above completely captured my attention as it depicts two options for a woman's path in life: salvation or damnation. The Latin captions really make it clear that you are either virtuous and godly and therefore happy or you have an uncontrollable libido that leaves you shamed as a single mother with a bastard child and doomed for death. It mostly enraged me but I won't go into a rant about that here. I can only imagine the essays written by feminist art history majors on this topic. Fascinating nonetheless!
Next we caught the metro up to Croix Rousse to enjoy the fabulous weather we'd be blessed with. We settled in at the Dog's Bollocks and ordered the 'Bollocks Burger' which ended up being the best burger we'd ever eaten. SO. GOOD. Then we headed to a patio for a beer in the gorgeous sunshine watching scores of people check out the items for sale at the street market beside us. Feeling a bit wiped out we walked down the hill, stopping to take in the views of the city, and while Sharon and Howard had a nap at their hotel we relaxed a bit at home and picked up a few things to offer them for an apéro at our place later on.
The Marchs came by later that evening and James had picked out some really nice wine, cheese, a saucisson called rosette de Lyon (a dried sausage of pork intestines) as well as a couple of baguettes. We all chatted in our living room with a roommate and a neighbour, and then it was time for a Canadian Skype session with my whole family in Kingston! A very nice e-visit to finish the night on. We needed a good rest that night since the following morning we were off to the Côte d'Azur!
No comments:
Post a Comment