I know we have been back for 3 weeks and while I was completely on the case in terms of getting the pictures posted to Facebook and Shutterfly, I know that I was completely lame on providing some commentary to go along with the food pictures – or food porn as some of you called it. Now I know that porn is technically not a family-friendly word, so allow me to apologize for that right now. But the title is not changing and that's that.
We hit so many awesome restaurants on our recent trip to Europe that I felt like that I needed to go to Cirque Lodge (you know the place where the stars go for detox or recover from "exhaustion") for food re-hab. I'm serious. I was foie gras'ed out. I mean, it was all incredible but it was full on eating and drinking for 16 days. I was thankful that I was training for my ½ marathon (still am) because that was the only way that my clothes were going to fit when we returned back to the States.
I'm not going to name every restaurant we ate at, but will mention the notable ones. The 2 "special ones" (in this case, "special" is good; normally in my family, "special" doesn't necessarily have a good connotation) will get a separate blog posting because they were restaurants that could potentially make it into my Top 5 of all time. I have a feeling that decision will come to me as I am typing this on my plane ride to NYC to see my nephews – and the rest of the family, too. :-)
The 1st full day in Bordeaux, and in Europe for that matter, was marked by watching CNN announce Sarah Palin's coming out party – you already know my thoughts on that, as well as some wine tasting. That evening, we ate at the Relais de Margaux gastronomic (or gastronomique) restaurant – that means fancy, gourmet, rich, over-the-top. Yeah, you get the idea. Marc had the first of his many jamon/jambon experiences and we had pretty amazing chocolate dessert. Too bad we were so tired from staying up all day that we barely made it to dessert and back to the room.
The next day was actually one of the best food days on the trip. We ate at Café Lavinal in Pauillac on the Left Bank. It was a beautiful day and the menu was fairly traditional French. I had some perfectly seasoned duck, and Marc had a roasted chicken that was as good as we have both ever tasted. See, the French treat chicken with respect by not just using plain chicken breasts but by roasting it to extract all of the flavors. Wow. That evening, we were told to eat at Lion D'Or. It's where the local winemakers go and eat, and given it was a Saturday night, we were psyched to have scored a table. If it's good enough for the local Bordeaux winemakers, it was good enough for us. More roasted chicken for Marc and I had some steak with béarnaise sauce. Lovely. The chef came out, said hi, and made sure everything was ok. He was making the rounds throughout the restaurant – very cool. Then we see him pull a chair from another table, sits down with some of his friends and drink some wine. Awesome.
In St. Emilion (Right Bank), we hit some nice restaurants, including Clos de Roy, which was featured in some of the pictures on Facebook (talk about pornographic with the foie gras), L'Envers du Décor, amongst others. L'Envers du Décor is where we first saw the decanter that looks like an oversized Margarita glass that has been included in some pics. All kidding aside, it is a great decanter for younger wines because it allows air to get into more of the wine quickly because of the surface area.
As we went down to Sauternes and Pessac-Léognan (also in Bordeaux), we had the opportunity to stay at Les Sources de Caudalie (awesome – just go, relax, get spa treatments, eat and drink). It's owned by the same folks who own Château Smith Haute-Lafitte, who make some excellent wines. We had dinner at their "casual" restaurant, which was still pretty crazy with the food options. Marc didn't see a ton of things on the menu that he liked, so we went with the steak for 2. It was so well seasoned (read: SIMPLE) and tender, but it was unfortunate that it was more like steak for 6 as opposed to steak for 2. Next time someone complains about French portion sizes too small, I'm going to have some issues with that individual. We had lunch at a great place in the middle of Sauternes called Le Saprien. The next night, we ate at La Table de Montesquieu in La Brède. I think that place won for best jambon, but to be fair, it was jamon from Spain as opposed to being from France. I also had some terrific monkfish in a beurre blanc, so I was happy.
In Basque Country, we hit San Sebastian which had its share of restaurants – grand and not-so-grand. We checked out Senor Arzak's (more on him later) favorite tapas bar – Bar Haizea – and I probably had more fun than Marc did because of the fresh seafood and mushroom tapas offerings. Tapas bars typically have you eat at the bar and just throw your napkins, etc. on the floor when done. It seemed like every traditional tapas bar had lots of old men and some old women in there talking feverishly about some topic of the day. Special thanks to Guré and Sally for pointing out Anthony Bourdain's show that was on a couple of weeks earlier, which tipped us to going there.
Ah, another reason that my phone came in handy. We also ate at Bar Gambara on my birthday. The New York Times wrote about the mushroom selection, so needless to say, we had to go – yes, there is a picture in the albums posted on Facebook and Shutterfly. We also had the opportunity to hit one of Guré and Jim's favorite places (Guré is from Basque Country) in Getaria called Elkano. You'll see a picture with a huge slab of meat in front of Marc and a monster lobster in front of me. Big Yves would be proud how I surgically approached extracting the meat from the lobster.
When we hit Rioja, we ate in the restaurants at the Gehry hotel – Marques de Riscal. The restaurants in the hotel were both OK, but other than the Gehry egg that matched the design of the hotel, the food quality and service were not really commensurate with the price of the meals. We did have a nice lunch at the Wine Museum in Briones, but overall given the quality of all of the other food we had, this was the food low point and it wasn't that terrible. The bar was just set so high from what we had thus far in the trip.
We wrapped up our trip in Paris and had dinner at Chez Christine, Chez Georges and another restaurant that will get the special blog entry. Cousin Claire's friend, Margo, a frequent visitor to Paris, gave us the recommendations and we were not disappointed although I think we really enjoyed the atmosphere of Chez Georges a bit more. The owner's father, Bernard, was in charge tonight because his son was picking up wine in the Champagne region.
Bernard was charming and I was on a quest this evening for roast chicken. I asked where who made the best in Paris. I didn't care – I was gonna get me some. He replied that the French make roast chicken every Sunday at home as it is the family meal. That is where it tastes the best, so I didn't get some but we had a great chat anyway. Bernard is actually the son of the original Georges, who then owned the restaurant for awhile, and then passed it to his son. Very cool. Tables very tight together. Great food, excellent wine and lively atmosphere. We really enjoyed it. BTW when we got home, I checked my Jacques Pepin and Julia Child cookbook and they both confirmed what Bernard said about roast chicken being a family dish made at home.
The 2 restaurants that will get its own section will be Guy Savoy and Arzak. Both are Michelin-star restaurants and I can tell you that in spite of the price tags both totaling a mortgage payment, they were just awesome. Stay tuned.
We hit so many awesome restaurants on our recent trip to Europe that I felt like that I needed to go to Cirque Lodge (you know the place where the stars go for detox or recover from "exhaustion") for food re-hab. I'm serious. I was foie gras'ed out. I mean, it was all incredible but it was full on eating and drinking for 16 days. I was thankful that I was training for my ½ marathon (still am) because that was the only way that my clothes were going to fit when we returned back to the States.
I'm not going to name every restaurant we ate at, but will mention the notable ones. The 2 "special ones" (in this case, "special" is good; normally in my family, "special" doesn't necessarily have a good connotation) will get a separate blog posting because they were restaurants that could potentially make it into my Top 5 of all time. I have a feeling that decision will come to me as I am typing this on my plane ride to NYC to see my nephews – and the rest of the family, too. :-)
The 1st full day in Bordeaux, and in Europe for that matter, was marked by watching CNN announce Sarah Palin's coming out party – you already know my thoughts on that, as well as some wine tasting. That evening, we ate at the Relais de Margaux gastronomic (or gastronomique) restaurant – that means fancy, gourmet, rich, over-the-top. Yeah, you get the idea. Marc had the first of his many jamon/jambon experiences and we had pretty amazing chocolate dessert. Too bad we were so tired from staying up all day that we barely made it to dessert and back to the room.
The next day was actually one of the best food days on the trip. We ate at Café Lavinal in Pauillac on the Left Bank. It was a beautiful day and the menu was fairly traditional French. I had some perfectly seasoned duck, and Marc had a roasted chicken that was as good as we have both ever tasted. See, the French treat chicken with respect by not just using plain chicken breasts but by roasting it to extract all of the flavors. Wow. That evening, we were told to eat at Lion D'Or. It's where the local winemakers go and eat, and given it was a Saturday night, we were psyched to have scored a table. If it's good enough for the local Bordeaux winemakers, it was good enough for us. More roasted chicken for Marc and I had some steak with béarnaise sauce. Lovely. The chef came out, said hi, and made sure everything was ok. He was making the rounds throughout the restaurant – very cool. Then we see him pull a chair from another table, sits down with some of his friends and drink some wine. Awesome.
In St. Emilion (Right Bank), we hit some nice restaurants, including Clos de Roy, which was featured in some of the pictures on Facebook (talk about pornographic with the foie gras), L'Envers du Décor, amongst others. L'Envers du Décor is where we first saw the decanter that looks like an oversized Margarita glass that has been included in some pics. All kidding aside, it is a great decanter for younger wines because it allows air to get into more of the wine quickly because of the surface area.
As we went down to Sauternes and Pessac-Léognan (also in Bordeaux), we had the opportunity to stay at Les Sources de Caudalie (awesome – just go, relax, get spa treatments, eat and drink). It's owned by the same folks who own Château Smith Haute-Lafitte, who make some excellent wines. We had dinner at their "casual" restaurant, which was still pretty crazy with the food options. Marc didn't see a ton of things on the menu that he liked, so we went with the steak for 2. It was so well seasoned (read: SIMPLE) and tender, but it was unfortunate that it was more like steak for 6 as opposed to steak for 2. Next time someone complains about French portion sizes too small, I'm going to have some issues with that individual. We had lunch at a great place in the middle of Sauternes called Le Saprien. The next night, we ate at La Table de Montesquieu in La Brède. I think that place won for best jambon, but to be fair, it was jamon from Spain as opposed to being from France. I also had some terrific monkfish in a beurre blanc, so I was happy.
In Basque Country, we hit San Sebastian which had its share of restaurants – grand and not-so-grand. We checked out Senor Arzak's (more on him later) favorite tapas bar – Bar Haizea – and I probably had more fun than Marc did because of the fresh seafood and mushroom tapas offerings. Tapas bars typically have you eat at the bar and just throw your napkins, etc. on the floor when done. It seemed like every traditional tapas bar had lots of old men and some old women in there talking feverishly about some topic of the day. Special thanks to Guré and Sally for pointing out Anthony Bourdain's show that was on a couple of weeks earlier, which tipped us to going there.
Ah, another reason that my phone came in handy. We also ate at Bar Gambara on my birthday. The New York Times wrote about the mushroom selection, so needless to say, we had to go – yes, there is a picture in the albums posted on Facebook and Shutterfly. We also had the opportunity to hit one of Guré and Jim's favorite places (Guré is from Basque Country) in Getaria called Elkano. You'll see a picture with a huge slab of meat in front of Marc and a monster lobster in front of me. Big Yves would be proud how I surgically approached extracting the meat from the lobster.
When we hit Rioja, we ate in the restaurants at the Gehry hotel – Marques de Riscal. The restaurants in the hotel were both OK, but other than the Gehry egg that matched the design of the hotel, the food quality and service were not really commensurate with the price of the meals. We did have a nice lunch at the Wine Museum in Briones, but overall given the quality of all of the other food we had, this was the food low point and it wasn't that terrible. The bar was just set so high from what we had thus far in the trip.
We wrapped up our trip in Paris and had dinner at Chez Christine, Chez Georges and another restaurant that will get the special blog entry. Cousin Claire's friend, Margo, a frequent visitor to Paris, gave us the recommendations and we were not disappointed although I think we really enjoyed the atmosphere of Chez Georges a bit more. The owner's father, Bernard, was in charge tonight because his son was picking up wine in the Champagne region.
Bernard was charming and I was on a quest this evening for roast chicken. I asked where who made the best in Paris. I didn't care – I was gonna get me some. He replied that the French make roast chicken every Sunday at home as it is the family meal. That is where it tastes the best, so I didn't get some but we had a great chat anyway. Bernard is actually the son of the original Georges, who then owned the restaurant for awhile, and then passed it to his son. Very cool. Tables very tight together. Great food, excellent wine and lively atmosphere. We really enjoyed it. BTW when we got home, I checked my Jacques Pepin and Julia Child cookbook and they both confirmed what Bernard said about roast chicken being a family dish made at home.
The 2 restaurants that will get its own section will be Guy Savoy and Arzak. Both are Michelin-star restaurants and I can tell you that in spite of the price tags both totaling a mortgage payment, they were just awesome. Stay tuned.