Good food is synonymous with France, but I find that if you go to the big cities or tourist destinations you can so easily have a below par meal at huge prices (the euro quickly squashes any notion of anywhere in France on a budget!). I long to find those quiet bistros, tucked sown a side street, populated solely by locals, but of course you can only find those by stumbling upon them as any form of publicity would put paid to their anonymity. So when a whirlwind long weekend to Paris and Grenoble beckoned, the pressure was on to find some good places to eat.
Paris was barley a 24 hour stop, so it was wonderful to find that our hotel sat just behind Angelina, 226 Rue de Rivoli, the famous Parisian tearoom – in fact I could have done some serious patisserie bin raiding if I hadn’t been worried by my sanity and a raised eyebrow from the all-black clad glamazon fashionistas pounding the cobbles of the Place Vendome nearby. And actually, if I have to admit it, the beautifully crafted cakes look better than they taste! I had a much better millefeuille at Ladurée but, no matter, Angelina’s delicious Croquet-Madame more than makes up for it.
Eye candy...
After a surprisingly speedy 6hr drive down to Grenoble we arrived at the (very) shabby chic Château de la Commanderie,17 avenue d’Echirolle – 38320 Eybens outside of town. Deciding to eat at the expensive and smart looking restaurant the next night, we ventured into Grenoble town to find Le Grille Parisien, 34 Avenue Alsace Lorraine, 38000 Grenoble, France, which was recommended by Gourmet Chic blog (thank you!). When we arrived at 9pm it was fairly quiet but the hostess was so friendly and we negotiated the French menu with lots of miming from both parties, as neither we nor she spoke either language very well!
The food was perfect and very French. Mum and I had a mixture of tapas style salads and seafood to start while dad had the delicious special which was globe artichoke with a creamy girolle mushroom sauce and a poached egg. We then had some simple meat dishes – lamb with spring vegetables and truffles, steak with anchovies and shallots and duck with a Sichuan pepper, soy and honey sauce and more girolle mushrooms.
It was definitely worth saving room for the puddings which were all delicious. Mine was a modern take on Poire belle hélène with a pear sorbet, in addition to poached pear, served in a hollow chocolate globe which the waitress then melted by pouring chocolate sauce over the top – so beautiful. We also had a rum baba with limoncello rather than rum and strawberries and the special of rhubarb and strawberry tartlet with strawberry sorbet.
The next day was spent cycling (dad) and driving some extremely precarious roads around Alpe d’Huez (mum managed to find the only ‘dangerous’ road marked on the map - it was just us, some sheep and unexpected and increasingly heavy snow for two hours of winding roads – fun or mad?!) The dinner at the hotel was spectacular to say the least. It was situated in the grand ballrooms of the chateau and was so much better than expected. Stupidly I forgot my camera as the presentation was very artistic.
I had a starter of three langoustines perched on top of an avocado and grapefruit mousse with a sort of rose syrup and crystellised rose petals. For my main I chose skate with capers and a seafood sauce. Thinking I was going to get just a plainly fried skate wing with a bit of sauce, I was amazed to be presented with a stunning dish, where they’d managed to form the flesh of the fish into little turrets on top of little potato pancakes and drizzled with the most delicious sharp and creamy seafood/caper sauce. My description doesn’t do the presentation justice, and it was one of those dishes that you remember (I wish I could have the recipe but it would definitely be beyond my cookery skills!). Having eaten so much in past days I just had a cheese dish of fromage frais with cream and sugar for dessert (light then haha) but the chocolate parfait with chocolate sorbet that my mum had looked divine.
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