Things to watch out for when ordering food in French restaurants...
If you are not travelling with someone well-versed in the type of food on French menus – bring a dictionary or travel guide book with you. We didnt remember it a few times with some interesting results! The French are well-renowned for their love of offal, so if you are anything other than adventurous about the innards of various animals, then avoid things like ‘rognons’ – kidneys or ‘nois de Riz’ – sweetbreads, while foie is used not just for foie gras, but for all liver dishes`- this is before you get to gras-double which is tripe... You have been warned! We ended up ordering rognons de veau, and nois de Riz de veau – not realising what they were. One of us even ordered foie gras and the nois de Riz at the same lunch, and the foie gras was really lightly cooked, so a lot of slimy looking and tasting food was presented to us! Then you can end up thinking that things are more complicated than they actually are – ciboulette is chives, faux-filet is sirloin and steac-hache is minced meat...
After some experimentation with different style restaurants, our strong preference was for the simpler style of French cooking found in inexpensive bistro type places - a lot of the 'gastronomique' food was very complicated, and over-accessorised! As someone said to us at one of the visits to a chateau - they dont give you enough of what you order and insist on giving you tid-bits of things that you havent ordered - that says it all really! We really enjoyed our local creperie in Vertheuil - they saved our hungry tummies more than once with great crepes - check them out at http://www.le-v-en-vertheuil.com/ as they also do Chambres d'Hotes (ask for Patrick or Bernard). Ther was also a great seafood restaurant in Granville called La Citadelle - a photo of their fruits de mer will be published shortly - worth a trip to France for this alone! Again, though, bring the guide-book for names of both fish and shell-fish - otherwise it is a total lottery as to what you get (pardon the pun - Lot was one of those fish we had trouble identifying!)
Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
Friday, August 1, 2008
French wine trip - part 1 - Tuesday 22nd July 2008
This is being written sitting outside in the garden of the small house – La Maison Bleu – that we have rented for the week. It is in a very small French village in the Medoc – part of the Bordeaux wine region – where the sound of cock-a-doodle doos ring out through the countryside from about 5am – frequently accompanied by the sounds of the local church bells, and more infrequently by the sound of dogs barking. At this time of the day – about 5.30pm, the sounds have been replaced by the many wasps and bees busily forraging in the climbing plants around the garden.
We arrived here on Saturday evening, somewhat later than originally planned – take it from me, the ferry from Royan across to the north-end of the Medoc, is not for the impatient or the faint-hearted! Be warned – you could face a three hour delay with the queue for the ferry wending its way backwards through Royan, with almost nowhere to even buy some water. We took an early decision and retraced our steps back to Bordeaux and around by the estuary – somewhat reminiscent of arriving at Tarbert for the ferry across to Killimor only to discover that the ferry would be delayed by a couple of hours and then having to detour into Limerick – at rush hour on a Friday on a bank-holiday weekend.
The early part of our trip wasnt without incident of the boating variety either. We arrived at Rosslare in good time to board the Oscar Wilde for our 17 hour trip from Wexford to Cherbourg. We were due to arrive in France early in the day to give us loads of time to explore the wine shops around the port, buy a few wines to try out during our trip, and then return on the way home to purchase a few more bottles of the ones we had liked most. However, while as a plan this had great merit, the ferry had developed ‘technical problems’ which took some time to resolve (several hours in fact) and then we had lost our berthing spot in Cherbourg, so that we didnt arrive onshore until 8.30pm the following evening. We were onboard for over 27 hours – not a great start...
Fair dues to my travelling companions – my brave sister agreed to do the driving to our initial stop-off point – Alencon, where we arrived at about midnight. We had gathered provisions for a midnight feast in the Auchon in Cherbourg (a really impressive supermarket, open until 10pm), and let ourselves into our hotel. The Hotel des Ducs was almost like a self-service hotel – they gave us a number to key into the key-pad at the door of the hotel, our room keys awaited us and we took it from there! The rooms were very large and comfortable and the showers were great! We did see people the next morning – well, we saw two painters who were doing up the main stairwell, and eventually a pleasant woman who checked us out and took our money. Alencon is a nice little town, with pedestrianised town centre, some impressive old buildings and a great food market. I was really sorry that we werent staying somewhere where we had a kitchen to try out some of the local produce.
Our next two nights were spent in Chinon, in the Loire Valley, in a very small hotel, which was adequate but not impressive – a typical old-fashioned hotel where we had to climb three floors of stairs to reach small but adequate rooms – but I cant say the same for the shower facilities! However we were now getting down to the serious business of wine tasting, so accommodation etc became a secondary issue. En route to Chinon, we visited Domain Huet that afternoon, in the village of Vouvray, and their wines are superb. They use bio-dynamic methods and while it may be seen as an extreme measure to grow produce by the moon phases, the proof of the pudding is in the quality of the outcomes – and in most cases – the results are great. The following day we went to Chateau Bernard Baudry, within the Chinon area and were given over two hours by Mathieu Baudry, who runs the vinyard with his father Bernard. Again, the vines are grown by bio-dynamic methods and organic farming principles, and the quality of the wines was really great – Cabernet Franc grape at its best. Before leaving Chinon behind, we have to mention the 5* omelets we got at the Hotel Le Lion d’Or (another small 2* hotel in the town), where we were made extremely welcome by the proprietor and where we would certainly stay if we were back in that area again (they can be contacted at id3709@inter-hotel.com tres agreable!
As a result of too much hospitality in the bar at the Le Lion d’Or (armagnac and calvados on top of wine isnt to be recommended!) we were a bit behind schedule heading for Bordeaux, so with the ferry-delay etc, we didnt arrive to our little village at Veurtheuil until much later than anticipated. We were made very welcome by our host Alain, and soon headed over to the local creperie for a much needed bite of dinner. One of the best crepes you’ll ever eat, made with proper Breton buckwheat flour, and did it taste good after so many hours on the road along with what felt like hundreds of thousands of drivers all determined to make far-off destinations in as short a timeframe as possible, or die in the attempt. We think that a few of them might indeed had the latter outcome, as there was a serious accident en route which also delayed us. A sobering thought all round, but one which didnt deter many of the drivers to continue to drive recklessly...
By Sunday, we had been existing on food that was either bought already cooked, or that we ate at restaurants for several days, so some home cooking was definitely in order! A bout of shopping at a not very impressive supermarket did yield up some goodies – great fresh salad ingredients (why oh why can we not get tomatoes that taste of something anywhere in Ireland??), some freshly cooked prawns to go with the salad for lunch and then the makings of home-cooked chicken for that evening... all washed down with some of the wines we had brought with us from Chinon... a few nice cheeses rounded off the evening. France has so much great produce, it is a pity that many of its restaurants insist on putting so much on top of it by way of complicated dishes and tastes...
Tuesday saw the first of our Medoc wine visits – we spent a great morning at the Lynch-Bages Estate, being looked after by Charles – and followed this with a light but delicious lunch in the nearby Cafe Lavinal which is in the place at Bages – seemed almost like a film setting - it was so perfect! And in fairness to them, the food they served us was absolutely great – really fresh goats cheese/roasted tomatoes on the best rocket salad was the best of three lovely starters, and is definitely one to recreate at home – if I can find equally good ingredients.
Roll on Chateau Margaux tomorrow!
We arrived here on Saturday evening, somewhat later than originally planned – take it from me, the ferry from Royan across to the north-end of the Medoc, is not for the impatient or the faint-hearted! Be warned – you could face a three hour delay with the queue for the ferry wending its way backwards through Royan, with almost nowhere to even buy some water. We took an early decision and retraced our steps back to Bordeaux and around by the estuary – somewhat reminiscent of arriving at Tarbert for the ferry across to Killimor only to discover that the ferry would be delayed by a couple of hours and then having to detour into Limerick – at rush hour on a Friday on a bank-holiday weekend.
The early part of our trip wasnt without incident of the boating variety either. We arrived at Rosslare in good time to board the Oscar Wilde for our 17 hour trip from Wexford to Cherbourg. We were due to arrive in France early in the day to give us loads of time to explore the wine shops around the port, buy a few wines to try out during our trip, and then return on the way home to purchase a few more bottles of the ones we had liked most. However, while as a plan this had great merit, the ferry had developed ‘technical problems’ which took some time to resolve (several hours in fact) and then we had lost our berthing spot in Cherbourg, so that we didnt arrive onshore until 8.30pm the following evening. We were onboard for over 27 hours – not a great start...
Fair dues to my travelling companions – my brave sister agreed to do the driving to our initial stop-off point – Alencon, where we arrived at about midnight. We had gathered provisions for a midnight feast in the Auchon in Cherbourg (a really impressive supermarket, open until 10pm), and let ourselves into our hotel. The Hotel des Ducs was almost like a self-service hotel – they gave us a number to key into the key-pad at the door of the hotel, our room keys awaited us and we took it from there! The rooms were very large and comfortable and the showers were great! We did see people the next morning – well, we saw two painters who were doing up the main stairwell, and eventually a pleasant woman who checked us out and took our money. Alencon is a nice little town, with pedestrianised town centre, some impressive old buildings and a great food market. I was really sorry that we werent staying somewhere where we had a kitchen to try out some of the local produce.
Our next two nights were spent in Chinon, in the Loire Valley, in a very small hotel, which was adequate but not impressive – a typical old-fashioned hotel where we had to climb three floors of stairs to reach small but adequate rooms – but I cant say the same for the shower facilities! However we were now getting down to the serious business of wine tasting, so accommodation etc became a secondary issue. En route to Chinon, we visited Domain Huet that afternoon, in the village of Vouvray, and their wines are superb. They use bio-dynamic methods and while it may be seen as an extreme measure to grow produce by the moon phases, the proof of the pudding is in the quality of the outcomes – and in most cases – the results are great. The following day we went to Chateau Bernard Baudry, within the Chinon area and were given over two hours by Mathieu Baudry, who runs the vinyard with his father Bernard. Again, the vines are grown by bio-dynamic methods and organic farming principles, and the quality of the wines was really great – Cabernet Franc grape at its best. Before leaving Chinon behind, we have to mention the 5* omelets we got at the Hotel Le Lion d’Or (another small 2* hotel in the town), where we were made extremely welcome by the proprietor and where we would certainly stay if we were back in that area again (they can be contacted at id3709@inter-hotel.com tres agreable!
As a result of too much hospitality in the bar at the Le Lion d’Or (armagnac and calvados on top of wine isnt to be recommended!) we were a bit behind schedule heading for Bordeaux, so with the ferry-delay etc, we didnt arrive to our little village at Veurtheuil until much later than anticipated. We were made very welcome by our host Alain, and soon headed over to the local creperie for a much needed bite of dinner. One of the best crepes you’ll ever eat, made with proper Breton buckwheat flour, and did it taste good after so many hours on the road along with what felt like hundreds of thousands of drivers all determined to make far-off destinations in as short a timeframe as possible, or die in the attempt. We think that a few of them might indeed had the latter outcome, as there was a serious accident en route which also delayed us. A sobering thought all round, but one which didnt deter many of the drivers to continue to drive recklessly...
By Sunday, we had been existing on food that was either bought already cooked, or that we ate at restaurants for several days, so some home cooking was definitely in order! A bout of shopping at a not very impressive supermarket did yield up some goodies – great fresh salad ingredients (why oh why can we not get tomatoes that taste of something anywhere in Ireland??), some freshly cooked prawns to go with the salad for lunch and then the makings of home-cooked chicken for that evening... all washed down with some of the wines we had brought with us from Chinon... a few nice cheeses rounded off the evening. France has so much great produce, it is a pity that many of its restaurants insist on putting so much on top of it by way of complicated dishes and tastes...
Tuesday saw the first of our Medoc wine visits – we spent a great morning at the Lynch-Bages Estate, being looked after by Charles – and followed this with a light but delicious lunch in the nearby Cafe Lavinal which is in the place at Bages – seemed almost like a film setting - it was so perfect! And in fairness to them, the food they served us was absolutely great – really fresh goats cheese/roasted tomatoes on the best rocket salad was the best of three lovely starters, and is definitely one to recreate at home – if I can find equally good ingredients.
Roll on Chateau Margaux tomorrow!
Sunday, July 13, 2008
The Tasting Room heads to France
We are heading to France this week for lots of wine tasting - planning to spend about two weeks away in total. The Loire Valley and Bordeaux are the primary places we'll be visiting with lots of vineyard visits planned. So, watch this space for regular updates and photos - mostly post-event as we'll be too busy sampling and learning while there to try and track down too many Internet cafes.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Gruner Veltliner
At one of our wine tasting evenings recently, we introduced the group to the Gruner Veltliner grape, which surprisingly enough, nobody had heard of before and none of them had tasted it either. It went down extremely well with them all - in fact it was their favourite wine of the evening. The one that we tasted was by Huber, their Alte Setzen 2006, from Traisental in Northern Austria. This then led to a discussion about visiting Austria, where one of my favourite places is the Wachau, where they also grow a lot of Gruner. I promised one of the group to let her know some more about when to visit and what the travel options are like. My friend in Austria gave me the following as a general guide... I also asked her to tell me about when the best time is to visit the Heurigen - which are small wine bars selling their own produced wine and other products such as home cured hams and sausages, and they are great fun to visit...
The best time to visit the Wachau .......... you have to remember that this is a very popular and well known stretch, in particular as there is a cycle path which goes from germany to Klosterneuburg and goes right along the Wachau. So in summer there are masses of cyclists. On the other hand, summer is weatherwise really good. Late spring and early autumn are the times I personally would prefer as chances are that weatherwise it is good . There is no problem getting there by train. Am attaching a link to the wachau train which is a local train which stops all along the various towns/villages. Although it is in German it does show fotos as well as routes etc which might be of use. If they really do decide to go there and have any questions just let me know. This is the link http://www.wachauerbahn.at/index Accommodation is not a problem as they are geared towards cyclists stopping for a night. If they were interested, they could also rent bikes and cycle through the wachau which is also wonderful (or so I have been told by german tourists !). As regards the Heurigen ..... they are open all year round but of course the nicest time is when you can sit outside so again, late spring to early autumn are best. As they all open for stretches of time dependent on the amount of wine they have there is always someone open.
So, maybe somewhere different for a wine trip sometime in the future??!
The best time to visit the Wachau .......... you have to remember that this is a very popular and well known stretch, in particular as there is a cycle path which goes from germany to Klosterneuburg and goes right along the Wachau. So in summer there are masses of cyclists. On the other hand, summer is weatherwise really good. Late spring and early autumn are the times I personally would prefer as chances are that weatherwise it is good . There is no problem getting there by train. Am attaching a link to the wachau train which is a local train which stops all along the various towns/villages. Although it is in German it does show fotos as well as routes etc which might be of use. If they really do decide to go there and have any questions just let me know. This is the link http://www.wachauerbahn.at/index Accommodation is not a problem as they are geared towards cyclists stopping for a night. If they were interested, they could also rent bikes and cycle through the wachau which is also wonderful (or so I have been told by german tourists !). As regards the Heurigen ..... they are open all year round but of course the nicest time is when you can sit outside so again, late spring to early autumn are best. As they all open for stretches of time dependent on the amount of wine they have there is always someone open.
So, maybe somewhere different for a wine trip sometime in the future??!
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