France Food Highlights Guest Post (by Sonya)

France Food Highlights Guest Post

Due to popular demand among Ian’s blog followers (well Zoe at least), I’ve agreed to post a guest blog with the food highlights from our France trip. Here’s the top 6 meals, in chronological order since it’s to hard to rank them, as well as a few honourable mentions.

Top 6 Meals

1. Rotheneuf lunch (http://lerocher-rotheneuf.fr)

This lunch was special not only because the food was excellent but because we stumbled upon this restaurant while on a walk and managed to get in on a Sunday afternoon without a reservation. Our timing was also perfect because it started pouring rain as soon as we sat down and then the sun came out again when we were ready to leave.

 

They started with an oyster and beef tartare served on an oyster shell for the complementary amuse bouche. I had the fish with a foamy sauce and squash for my main and Ian had the risotto. Delicious and beautifully presented. We shared the profiterole with warm chocolate poured over it for dessert.

2. Dinan, Au Bout de la Ligne, lunch

We found this restaurant through a business card that was left at our house exchange. After the amuse bouche we both had the traditional fish soup which is served with croutons, a spiced mayo and grated cheese. We had the bavette de boeuf and merlu (hake fish) for our mains.

3. Erquy, la Table de Jeanne, unch (https://www.la-table-de-jeanne.fr/)

Before heading out for a hike on Cap Erquy, we found a restaurant for lunch along the shore in the scallop capital of France, Erquy.  The restaurant was very close to the pier where the fishing boats unloaded their catch of scallops (or St. Jacques as they are known in France. For lunch, Ian had the fish soup and then fish for his main course. He thought the fish soup here was better than in Dinan partly because it was spicier. I had the scallops served with honey and diced applies along with veggies (fennel, potatoes, brussel sprouts and pureed something.) It was delicious in particular the honey and apples.

4. Reims, Brasserie le Boulingrin, lunch (https://www.boulingrin.fr/)

After a self-guided art deco walking tour of Reims, we headed back to the market area to a brasserie that I had spotted at the start of our tour. We were seated upstairs with a view over the park and beautiful red leather banquets. For lunch, I had the plat de jour which was veal tongue and delicious pureed potatoes. (potatoes are somehow so much better in France!). Ian had the entrecote roti very much inspired by Inspector Dupin's favourite meal. It was a lovely meal with excellent and very professional service.  A good way to end our visit to Reims. 

5. Nogent-sur-Marne, Le Nougentais, dinner lenogentais.fr 

For our dinner out in Nogent-sur-Marne where our house exchange was located, we walked into town to the restaurant, Le Nougentais. We had a bottle of Bourgogne pinot noir and split the razor clams as an entree. The razor clams were served in the shell with a sauce and were delicious. I had the roasted veal fillet and Ian had the beef tataki. We had the baba ganoush for dessert that came with a side shot of rum. It was very moist and boozy!

6. Nogent-sur-Marne, La Salamandre, lunch (restaurant-lasalamandre-94.com)

We splurged for our final lunch in Nogent at a lovely restaurant about a 10 minute walk from the apartment along the Marne river, La Salamandre. I had the 3 course Menu du moment and a glass of Sancerre. The meal started with an amuse bûche which was a very creamy potato/hollandaise/olive oil dish served in a very small bowl. The entree was a decadent mushroom soup with proscuitto or in french - VELOUTÉ DE CHAMPIGNONS, magret de canard fumé et noix, The main course was beef confit or PALERON CONFIT, purée de pommes de terre truffées. And for dessert was a tray of 3 small treats: choux craquelin vanille, brownie chocolat, baba limoncello.  Ian had fish for his main and pavlova citron for dessert. A perfect final meal for our stay in Paris!

Honourable Mentions

Best Seafood - Cancale. Both the seafood platter lunch that we had as well as the 2 dozen oysters that we bought from a stall on the pier were excellent!

Best Galettes - St. Malo. We ate a lot of galettes (savoury buckwheat "crepes") while we were in Bretagne, but the best were from Le Corps de Garde Creperie which was located on the wall in old St. Malo and had a beautiful view out into the bay.  https://le-corps-de-garde.restranslate.com/ 

Best charcuterie plate - Chartres (Gabin, Marcel et Ferdinand). We stopped at the wine bar for their charcuterie plate and a glass of wine. It was very charming and delicious jamon cut fresh from the 2 jamon legs hanging from the bar.

Best Market Purchase- Parame market rotisserie chicken. We bought a large one along with the roasted potatoes. It was so good and lasted us a couple meals. We tried the rotisserie chicken at the Sunday market across the street from where we were staying in Paris. It was also very good but not quite as delicious. 

Best Market - Rennes - It was huge and sprawled out across the streets surrounding the two very large market buildings. My favourite part, of course, was the half block dedicated to flowers! I bought a beautiful bouquet to bring back to St. Malo and give to our hosts when we left.

Bretagne Butter - Yes, Larissa, the butter is better in France! 

Best surprise - oysters for sale Sunday morning in the Parame town square from the back of a van. 5 euros for a dozen!

(This became our Thanksgiving appie.)

(Ed note - for most our meals we were well into the feast before we remembered that we had to take pictures!  Hence missing photos of a lot of our meals (or portions of our meals)).

Exploring Île-de-France (and a bit more Paris)

We bought a book that describes some walks around the region surrounding Paris, the so-called Île-de-France.  (A "region", or as we would call it in Canada a "province".)  Île-de-France has an extensive metro and you can get just about anywhere by train.  (We're actually staying just outside of Paris, in Nogent-sur-Marne, in the Île-de-France.)

Saturday - Champs-sur-Marne.

Champs-sur-Marne (on the Marne river) is one of the closest walks in our little book.

(Or course first thing in the morning we have to visit the local market in our own little neighbourhood - Nogent-sur-Marne (same Marne).  Here is the downtown shopping district:

And here is Sonya eyeing the market:

Champs-sur-Marne is only a couple of stops on the metro, and one of the highlights is an old chocolate factory.  It was built in the 1800's and produced chocolate until the 1960's, when it was bought out by Nestle France.  It maintained production until the 1990's when it was shut down.  Now it sits empty behind a wire fence and patrolled by security with guard dogs (we actually saw them).

The factory is split between the "mainland" and a small island (that you can walk on) - the bridge in the picture below transports cocoa from one building to another.

This building is called "The Cathedral".

Another view.  Other than the fence the buildings are surrounded by a large hedge so it's hard to get a good view.  The brickwork in some of the buildings is amazing!

An overview of chocolate production:

We were thinking it would be a great idea to buy the property and develop it into a market, with parks and condos, and sure enough we found a sign describing what Nestle is intending to do with the property.  No timeline but I'd like to visit again in the future!

After the chocolaterie we visited the local "chateau" - this one was originally built in the 1700's (I think) and then bought and refurbished buy a financier in the early 1900's before being donated to the state.  (It's expensive to maintain these old buildings.)

This one, unlike some, is fully restored and furnished as it would have looked "back in the day" (not sure exactly which day).  There was also an audio tour which Sonya enjoyed.

A large garden of course - this is the view from the dining room.

Overall one of the best days!  An old chocolaterie (combined with a river walk) and a fully restored chateau!  We're happy with our Île-de-France walking tours!

Sunday - Créteil and Ile du Martin-Pêcheur.

These are also close by on our metro line, so we could combine two walks in one day.  First a quiet river walk through nice residential neighbourhoods ...

Victor Hugo lived here briefly!  Back in the day when it was a rooming house.  Then it became a restaurant, and sometime in the 1990's the restaurant closed and now it is just a regular residence.  (The resident actually arrived home when we were lurking around.  "Are you visitors?"  "Yes, we are reading that Victor Hugo used to live here."  "Oh yes (no big deal.)"

The lovely neighbourhood - this is on an island with restricted car access, a lovely walk!

Another park, another bunch of flower pictures showing up in my icloud!  I'm not saying that Sonya is obsessed, but ...

We visited Ile du Martin-Pêcheur, which I expected would be an island with a nice walk, and a bar on the island, but the whole island is the bar!  It was all dolled up for halloween, and in the evenings apparently a big party spot but during the day mostly families.

G&T "au cucombre".

Monday - Luzarches and Seugy.

Luzarches is north or Paris, at the very end of the metro line.  (It took about ah hour and 20 minutes by train.  Actually 2 hours and 20 minutes because we didn't check the schedule ahead of time and just missed the hourly train from Paris downtown to Luzarches.)

The library and the obligatory old church.  (Unfortunately the library, like most things, was closed Mondays.)

Some ruins of an old fort with the church bell tower in the background.  (On the other side of the wall - sheep grazing.  The old historical towers of the old fort have been converted to sheep pens.)

The old church.  Parts date back to the 1400's.  This church is a collage of styles.

The streets of Luzarches.  At the end of the street is the old city gate - what is left of the ols ramparts - which is now just a private residence.

We walked from Luzarches to Seugy (the next train station down the line) which was a nice walk and part of the GR 1 trail.

Tuesday - Paris - Musee d'Orsey and the Jardin du Luxembourg.

Today we booked a guided tour to the Musee d'Orsey, which specializes in Impressionist art (so you'll see lots of photos, I'm not going to appologize).  Part of our tour was a "skip the line" which by itself was worth the price!  We didn't realize that Tuesday is the busiest day because this is the day the Louvre is closed.

The ground floor is "pre-impressionist", all about the old Art Academy and how they tried to suppress modern art.  An interesting display - the "kid" in the photo below is actually an installation!

Musee d'Orsey was originally a train station!  The clock at the end is original.

Monet's poppies:

We're watching "The Art of Crime" (French TV series) and two of the works that feature prominently in the show are right next to each other!  Monet's child:

And "Crazy Mary".  (We checked and the ribbon was in her hair.  People who've watched the show will understand.)

More Monet.  Interesting that we could bookend our trip with Monet's garden and Monet's art.

Pissarro (with detail) - one of my favourite non-Monet paintings.

Monet's church series.  (Sonya asked if this was inspiration for my own church paintings and yes it is, although I still have aways to go.  I love how the paint is just layered on like plaster.  One of my painting teachers says "Paint is power".)

Afterwards (and after lunch and some shopping) we visited the Jardin du Luxembourg (which is our old stomping grounds from our visit last year).  We visited the Statue of Liberty in the garden (which was actually our second Statue of Liberty of the day because they also have a copy in the Musee d'Orsey.)

The obligatory flower pics.

We had dinner out and this is our bottle of wine.  (Some folks have asked for more food pics.  We usually tuck into our food before we remember to take a pic and this is the only picture we got from what was probably the best meal of the vacation.)

Wednesday - Sceux and the Paris Opera!

Back to the Île-de-France!  Sceux is south of Paris (not at the end of the metro line but close to it) and the main attraction was a chateau (this one is converted to a museum, we skipped the chateau visit) and a very large park.

This is facing west (I think) - as far as the eye can see.

This is facing south - again as far as the eye can see.  The series of waterfalls is "The Cascades" and is a very impressive "feat of hydro engineering" according to our guide.

Sculptures (the faces spouting water) by Rodin.

Another view of The Cascades.

Another view southward,  The "Grand Canal" is over a kilometre long.

In the evening we went to the opera - "La Fille du Regiment" - at the Opera Bastille (not the other opera house, which was playing "Madame Butterfly" but it was sold out).  No photos sorry, the building was very modern and the opera was very nice!

Thursday we have a cleaning day and then head up to our last night in France, at a hotel right next door to the airport