I had the most wonderful meal since I have been in France this evening, and it only cost me 15€. It may, in fact, rival some of those “best I’ve ever had” meals, and it certainly tops most of those in recent memory. We intended to go to this little créperie in town that some of the others went to last weekend, but it was crammed full of people, and the host told us that we could put our names on the list for a table an hour or so later. So, we wandered on.
After passing a Tex-Mex, an Asian, and a Senegalese restaurant, we decided to try this small Provençal restaurant that had a “Menu” of an “Entrée” (or appetizer), a Plat (or entrée), and a Dessert for 15€. There were seven of us, and we got there at just the right time. We were seated, and then Hannah, an English Assistant from Virginia at Lycée Emile Zolà got a text from another assistant and excused herself so that Madeline didn’t have to eat alone.
What a mistake! Four of the six of us that remained ordered the Menu, and the others each had an Entrée (Appetizer) à la Carte. The photos I took of my food don’t even do it justice.
For my entrée, I ordered grilled red peppers with “Brousse Fraiche,” which is a kind of very mild French cheese that reminds me of the point at which heavy cream is just about to become butter. It had a vinegar reduction sauce on it that was perfect. It was certainly not overpowering, and it greatly enhanced the dish.
A thing you may have heard about the French, and this is true, is that meals take at least twice as long on the average as ours at home. It is really quite a treat to go out with friends and be able to spend time between courses chatting, thinking about how good the food we just ate was, and digesting enough to be prepared for the next course.
For my Plat (entrée), I had a duck dish that came with boiled new potatoes, half a grilled tomato with a dab of pesto, and what I’m confident but not positive were mushrooms. Every bite was incredible, and I did eat every bite – even the tomato.
After another fifteen or twenty minutes of digesting, we ordered desserts. The dessert menu was well-stocked with French favorites, and I offered to spilt the Chocolate Fondant (which is much more like mousse than like cake icing) with Crème Anglaise with Chris, the other English assistant at my school. He ordered another “Brosse” dish, and it turned out to be a very similar cheese to the one with which we had started, but instead of a vinegar reduction sauce, it was drizzled with a cherry sauce and covered in dark cherries. They weren’t bitter like some cherries, but they weren’t quite as candy-like as the maraschino cherries that top milkshakes and sundaes. Boy, were they delicious.
When we finally left there, two of the girls that were with us headed home, and the remaining four went to meet back up with Hannah and Madeline. We sat for a while at an outdoor area for a bar and had a drink – I love French cidre – and eventually wandered back home.
There were more things that happened this morning – I met some friends at café Eqwi, I bought a second pillow at le monoprix, I saw a lady in a hammock playing cello (no, I can’t make any more sense out of it than that!) – but really, today was all about the dinner. What an incredible meal. It will really shock (“Choc” in French) me if we don’t eat at that restaurant for several more meals during our stay here in Aix.
Tomorrow, I haven’t a clue what I’ll do. Perhaps I’ll go around taking photos of things, or perhaps I’ll just go around town. Who knows?
YUMMY!
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