The French about their Eating + Wine?

[guignol]

i had a great meal in normandy at la rascasse in ouistreham: a shellfish platter accompanied by the regulation amount of muscadet.. comparing fruits de mer here and there is like chalk to cheese! for dessert les trois pommes: slices of sauteed apple over apple sherbet, with a shot of calva over it... the only word for such a meal is perfection.

[Bluto11]

i'm trying to think of other restaurants I went to in France, but I'm having trouble, it was over 5 years ago!

i do know I went to the Cafe La Madeleine in Paris. La Mere Poulard in Mont St Michel (didn't get the omelet though, we ate upstairs as a group dinner, had some chicken :p ). In Angers there was a fantastic creperie we had dinner at, sooooo good. in Paris, near the Medeviel History museum there was a restaurant with a window to buy crepes from. my nutella and banana crepe was the greatest thing I have ever eaten. the lady overloaded with nutella and bananas. it was excellent.

our last night in Rouen was spent at a bar called Callaghan's. we sat outside, drank tons of beer, it was great. the bartender started giving us free drinks. we had to go to this bar because our teacher's last name was Callahan, pronouced the same, so we just had to go.

[Bluto11]

wait, kinda remember one more!

there is a courtyard that is straight west of Sacre-Couer (or however you spell it) where like 4 or 5 restaurants all have outdoor seating under some tents. we ate at the one in the NE corner of the square, i remember the restaurant had a blue awning (the actual building with the indoor seating). got the French Onion soup. it was marvelous.

[Bluto11]

i found the crepe place in Angers. it is amazing what you can find using google, google maps, and a faint memory of other places in Angers.

http://creperie-lacremaillere.com/

[Catel]

Paris ? I know le Bouillon Chartier (rue du Faubourg Montmartre. :) The last pure bistrot in Paris...

[guignol]

...La Mere Poulard in Mont St Michel (didn't get the omelet though, we ate upstairs as a group dinner, had some chicken :p ).i suppose your smiley means you realize that poulard is no more chicken than fois gras is liverwurst ;)...

that said, la mère poulard is probably the WORST tourist trap in france, maybe even in europe. avoiding the omelette was a good choice, and the food is certainly not outright bad... if you're not the one paying!

[Bluto11]

i suppose your smiley means you realize that poulard is no more chicken than fois gras is liverwurst ;)...

that said, la mère poulard is probably the WORST tourist trap in france, maybe even in europe. avoiding the omelette was a good choice, and the food is certainly not outright bad... if you're not the one paying!
right on with the smiley :) i know basic basic french.

we didn't have many options, since we stayed at the hotel on the island! if you've ever been there, they have another building which is up some stairs, you go outside, and then it is on the right. they somehow gave our group every room on the first floor/second floor. the windows on the first floor opened right out onto a walkway/garden area so we all just drank wine, calvados and hungout there. we also were wandering the city at 2 AM, which was kinda fun.

[guignol]

we stayed at the hotel on the island!... we all just drank wine, calvados and hungout there. we also were wandering the city at 2 AM, which was kinda fun.definitely a great move. places like this are so much nicer that way. i lived for a while in san gimignano, and the place was magic once the tour buses pulled out!

[blackjack]

A few observations from my first two weeks living in France. (I'm still in a dorm, and I won't move in with my famille d'accueil for another week, so I can't give information really on family cooking/eating yet).

Restaurants are not open at all hours like they are in the U.S. On Sunday, we had a trip to the ruins at Nimes, and got back at 19:00h. I hadn't been shopping in a couple days and so went looking for a restaurant. I found everything closed except Quick, which forced me to break my promise to myself to not eat burgers in France. Whereas in the U.S. the extra money from being open Sunday is well worth it to the owners, in France the proprietors much prefer to have their Sundays free even if it means losing money by not being open Sunday.

The stereotypes about wine and bread seem to be true to this point. You walk into a restaurant for lunch at 13:00, and almost everyone over the age of 25 is enjoying a glass of wine with the meal. Likewise, get on the tram to go home after class, and 1 in 3 or 4 people will be carrying home two or three baguettes to eat with dinner.

Even if the food is becoming Americanized, supermarkets here are not like they are in the states. Selection is limited and prices are not that much cheaper than they in the charcuteries, boucheries, patisseries, boulangeries, etc.

I'll have more to add as an American living in France after I move in with my family.

[guignol]

about the closed restaurants, it's true that everyplace is closed at least 1 day a week, but not necessarily sunday, and it may be that 19h00 was just too early... most places dosn't start seating until 20h00!

clearly living in the dorms right now is slow, since the only inhabitants right now are... foreign students! but once the year starts it will liven up and you would meet plenty of french students. i think your famille d'acceuil will encourage you and give you tips to meet other students though; they've probably done this before.

how long are you there for?

[Catel]

We should have warned you about restaurants closed out of regular meal times. In France you have déjeuner between 11.30 -> 13.30 and dîner 19.00 -> 22.00. :o

Newsweek reporter Ted Stanger had exactly the same bad experience (McDo included) :D

Another advise: if someone tries to steal your place in a lineup, defend it. Cheating is the national sport, far beyond soccer. Don't let yourself get ripped off.

[blackjack]

I'm only here until December 23, so it's not that long a time. Still, I'm happy to be here and the food is very good. Today I had a crepe pecheur for lunch, only 7.50 euros, and it was fantastic (shrimp, mussels, and some type of fish). And it's true that the area around the dorms are quiet right now. More things will open up next week, as far as I know.

[nach0king]

blackjack, you don't know what you're missing by not eating burgers in France. Well, steak hacher, at any rate. I've not been to France in years but I used to love steak hache, nice and red in the middle. Fantastic stuff. I know it's not a burger but it resembles one, so some people might equate the two.

If you mean fast-food burgers, fair enough, but give the "real" stuff a try, it's splendid.

Incidentally I haven't read this topic in full, but the French have earned every right to be snobbish about their food and their attitude towards it, as their food is, on the whole, marvellous.

[guignol]

blackjack, you don't know what you're missing by not eating burgers in France. Well, steak hacher, at any rate. I've not been to France in years but I used to love steak hache, nice and red in the middle. Fantastic stuff. I know it's not a burger but it resembles one, so some people might equate the two.

If you mean fast-food burgers, fair enough, but give the "real" stuff a try, it's splendid.

Incidentally I haven't read this topic in full, but the French have earned every right to be snobbish about their food and their attitude towards it, as their food is, on the whole, marvellous.yes, a steak haché is no burger!

when you go to the neighborhood supermarket (or the meat counter at the hypermarché) there's no "hamburger" on display; if you want some they take chunks of meat and grind it in front of you. it has a grain to it like wood... shape it into a patty preserving that structure as best you can and grill it like a rare steak.

the reason behind the grinding is not to sell an agglomeration of odd bits with fat added; it's because the beef they use (it's marked boeuf bourguignon in its tray) is very tasty but too tough to grill as is.

[nach0king]

I see - cheers!

Man, I want one of those right now... frites, haricots verts, moutarde... awesome :D

[guignol]

I see - cheers!

Man, I want one of those right now... frites, haricots verts, moutarde... awesome :Dyou're killing me man! all i had for lunch was a tuna sandwich out of a machine!!!

of course in france even machine sandwiches are pretty good...

[Catel]

For me this evening it's blanquette de veau :p

[guignol]

with green olives? that's how mamie made it!

[guignol]

magnificent weather this weekend so hauled out the weber for a baroud d'honneur...

of course for a successful BBQ it's important to start right...

http://jolagier.blog.lemonde.fr/files/180pxpastis.jpg

bien sur sans exagérer!
http://emileb.canalblog.com/images/AntiCanicule.jpg

the chicken cut in quarters and rolled in fresh rosemary goes on first (almost all the rosemary falls into the fire, that's the idea anyway), then you've got time to pull the last bell peppers out of the garden; chopped up roughly with a big onion and a head's worth of whole garlic cloves, they just fit in the biggest skillet... let it all just burn about 30 seconds before adding the olive oil; 2-3 minutes on max heat, deglaze with a splash of the above yellow nectar... then clear out of the kitchen to let the wife do the polenta.

the chicken goes to the edges now and the merguez go on. repeat operation n°1...
http://jolagier.blog.lemonde.fr/files/180pxpastis.jpg

while cleaning the sardines. two minutes each side for those little devils, put it all on a platter and take it to the table while brother-in-law pulls up last basil plant. finding the corkscrew and opening a bottle of rosé (yes i said rosé, but i'm talking lirac or tavel, not white zin!) gives the wife just enough time to get the polenta to table... that's where the fresh basil goes. pull a couple of lemons off the tree et voila!

wie Gott in Frankreich!