La Table d'Eugène

It's our usual lunch story in Lyon.

11:30 AM:

"WHERE do you want to go for lunch?"
"I don't know. What do you think?"
"Well, it depends... WHAT do you want to eat today?"
"I don't mind. Maybe something hearty (means with potatoes and preferably dessert inclusive menu)/ healthy (means no carbs and ends with something like Café Gourmand: trio or quadruple mini desserts) WHAT do you want?"
"I don't care. As long as it's yummy."

And it would go on and on, depending on if either of us is doing something at the time.

After 12 o'clock:

"Come on! It's 12 already! We are missing out the best lunch places!"
"So what do you want?"
"I asked first! You tell me!"
"Do you want to stay local or go to another area?"
"Either."
"How about we go X, the steak/ duck/ chicken/ lamb shank/ Noodles... last time was good"
"We have been there already, how about trying somewhere new?"
"So you pick then. I don't know what you want."

It would then go on for some time before we Finally decide where to go.

Usually by the time (13:00- 13:30) when we get the area of the restaurant, we'd be at the restaurant's mercy if they want to take us in or not. If rejected, we'd be left with little time to try to get in to ANY nearby restaurant that looks half decent. We have known to be rejected from a restaurant at 13:25 by the maître D whom, by the way was smoking outside the establishment because it was a quiet lunch session.

Same story this time. We went to the Croix Paquet area and we tried to go to L'Ourson Qui Boit: No chance, full for lunch. Ok, so let's go to La Gargotte then, we went there before and we love the friendly Chef Owner: Wait! They Don't open for lunch. La Mere Brazier: legendary! For sure the food is yummy and the place looks so elegant it reminds me of one of my all time favourite restaurants in London Le Gavroche but at €70 for lunch... Perhaps we will save it for the special celebratory moment. Walking up and down the Rue Royale, I saw La Table d'Eugène and remembered that I read about this place from the Petit Futé (Lonely planet).

The place was full, of course. Mr. G went in and enquired about our lunch possibility and was rejected immediately with: Sorry we are full.

Disappointed, we started to walk away. Just the moment I was resigned to the idea that we may have just go to ANY all day bistro again. The lady maître D ran out and said: "Wait! we have a table that's leaving!"

It was a totally fabulous dining experience and I am so grateful for the two gentlemen that took pity on us and decided to free up the table.

The menu:

The menu is very correct for a modern French restaurant.

See how ridiculously happy I looked.

I had the suggestion of the chef:

Decorative plate: here and there some small herbs and fresh vegetables with grilled prawns and smoked salmon 

Mr. G had Velouté of little green peas with Poultry livers braised in raspberry vinegar and poached quail egg. Decorative fresh vegetables again.

Plat du jour: Beef steak with vegetables and jus. 

Saignante. Yummy!

Duck breast with honey sauce and vegetables

Happy face! 

Tiramisu fait maison

Mr. G's second dessert: Panna cotta with mango coulis and exotic fruits

I don't have a sweet tooth so lunch time with me is double fun for Mr. G, whom has Many sweet teeth!

Burgundy Lounge

Parallel to Marché Saint-Antoine in Lyon there is this fabulous place called: Burgundy Lounge

It's directly next to Le Café du Marché and a stone throw away from Vins Guyot.

It looks very clean cut from outside and I suppose it is very elegant inside too.

One early evening after our one casual stroll for too long along the river Saône Mr. G decided that he needed to sit down with all of our grocery shopping stuffed in the newly acquired "Granny trolley", we went in for a small drinkie.

It was very pleasant and according to Mr. G it was one of those small sweet moments in Lyon that you left feeling very content and all is well in the world. We were told about this special evening GOÛT DE FRANCE and he promptly booked it.

Few weeks after, we went to this scheduled dinner.

This is what we had:

Amuse Bouche trio

Butternut squash puree sorbet with walnut crumbles (smooth and nutty, I go nuts over it!)

Marinated oysters with oyster and petit pois aspic (the micro herb holy basil brought out the best of those oriental flavour marinated oysters!)

Cheesy marshmallow with grated aged Comté (interesting texture!)

We took 1 glass each, based on the sommelier's recommendation:

2013 David Moreau Beaurepaire Santenay Premier Cru  

2011 Chablis Premier Cru Côte de Léchet (very memorable for me!)

Crème brûlée au foie gras

Mr. G's glee over sitting next to a wall of wines and the extra dish!

The chef loves his micro herbs!

Salad of market vegetables in cooked and raw form with grapefruit, smoked haddock and homemade ketchup (may I please add: the burnt onion strips were sensational!)

One more glass each:

 Bachelet-Monnot Puligny-Montrachet 2013 (I really like this one!)

Michel Gay et Fils 2012 Beaune-Coucherias Premier Cru

Quinoa salad with pesto, marinated mackerel fillet with raspberry vinegar and puffed rice   

Did the chef cook those quinoa with rocket pesto water to make it green? The rice puff tastes essentially like a Chinese prawn cracker- in a very good way!

Mackerel very tasty!

Bresse Chicken ballotine stuffed with marjoram peas, beet coulis, caramelised onion and hay sauce

See how Mr. G is happily cutting away his main course!

Micro herb again! 

And of course; we took another glass each again. This time: red.

 Fixin Domaine Denis Mortet Vieilles Vignes

Gevrey-Chambertin Aux Corvées Domaine Henri Richard

Cheese selection from Didier Lassagne

Passion fruit cream, pistachio sponge cake, coco crumbles over formage blanc sorbet and meringue disc

Hand torn green sponge looks like velvet green grass covered mountain

Oh yeah the chef Loves his micro herbs! It does add tastes to the dish!

Yummy Bonne soirée it is!

With quite a few fine wine available by the glass: Good place for a stop over drinkie and great place to have dinner.

Alliance Française de Lyon

It's so sunny in Lyon these days. The sun comes up after 6-ish (according to my lovely classmate Anna) and it stays all the way almost until 19:00

This is what I have to walk home from my morning class from Alliance Française de Lyon with:

Carnet Gourmand: Yummy Chinese Food in Lyon

So when Mr. G and I first entertained with the idea of relocating to Lyon. I had a little problem with it. We have always stayed at Le Sixieme so naturally we thought we would find a place there. The problem is: after trying most of the Chinese restaurants there I was slightly disappointed. I am not being snobbish but perhaps we were just too spoiled by all the Cantonese offerings in London: char-siu pork, roast duck, Chinese hot pot, dim sum... The recent wave of Sichuan cuisine restaurants certainly didn't help while I was dreaming away the possibility of our French move. Oh well, I will just have to be Not lazy and make those dishes chez moi then, I thought. During our last visit to secure a home in Lyon we went to this Japanese noodle bar Goramen (which was the One saving grace for me in Lyon back then, more will be dedicated to this little gem later on) on Rue Neuve and I saw this unassuming Chinese place with the usual food pictures outside and an unusual name for a Chinese restaurant: Carnet Gourmand.

You see, the Usual Chinese restaurant names always includes: Wok, Dragon, Jade, Jasmin, d'or (gold), Chine (China), Mandarin, city names like: Pekin, Beijing, Chongqing, Hong Kong... See The Best 10 Chinese restaurants in Lyon

The current top number Chinese places in Lyon are all named less Chinese obvious. Guess this is a note the potential future Chinese restaurateur/ restauratrice should take?

The restaurant was full of people and Contrary to the common belief; this restaurant was full of Both oriental and European looking people. Interesting... I thought. We made it our mission to go back the same evening for dinner and I must say I was Very pleasantly surprised.

I didn't take any photo for the first time we went. I probably was too busy eating than thinking about taking pictures of them. I had: egg plant with dry shrimps, assorted spicy tripes, tripes steamed with chilli and oyster sauce. Mr. G had the more Normal dishes: beef noodle stir fry and his all time favourite: Chinese mushroom with pok choi stir fry.

Needless to say, apart from the fact that they offer what I am partial to (anything unusual the western sense: tripes, pork trotter, jelly fish, thousand year egg... take your pick!) that they are also very good at doing the what I call "white people's dishes" (sorry!)- Mr. G was completely hooked by their cooking.

So it's settled then, Mr. G said. We can now move to Lyon knowing that we are (he is) safe when I have the sudden oriental food craving...

Mapo Tofu

Steaming hot Beef noodle soup

  

Best place for English breakfast in London

London.

My old haunt. If anything. Watching "The night manager" of BBC has made me thinking of it so much more.

Probably it is because of the so called "river house" was just a stone throw away from my old place. Like... literally.

007 or not. There's this place, we, the locals, love so much: the REGENCY CAFE

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Regency-Café/543252479051404

The tea was made right, they ask you how many sugar you want.

Left or right, street sweepers or the channel 4 guys or the westminster lots; the queue was legendary but you will always find a seat.

You simply must! And I miss it!

LE market day in Lyon

Let's say: the JOUR is Male, Masculin. So I guess the "The" market day in French is "LE" (Bear with me, I am only A1N1 with Alliance Francaise!)

I love love those rural country style markets in France.

Fresh produce from the vegetable farms, colourful flowers, yummily smelly cheeses, beautifully rustic French pastries and all sorts of what you can or cannot imagine meat products. 

It's crazy! They (Ze French) do everything in their markets: 

Roast chicken over even roastier potatoes

Frog legs sautéed

 

  In your face freshly shucked oysters

Gourmet foie gras pastries

Ok ok... so maybe I am lucky to live in Lyon, this is what we have got to offer at the Saint Antoine Market, TOUT the Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays!

How to change label name in Blogger?

WHAT A PAIN IT IS to change the labels within Blogger
I "Demi"heartedly was happy I didn't write that many posts before and half heartedly cursing myself for writing so many, while I was doing the dummy's version: editing through each post's label, one by one... because I don't understand the Google search results of: How to change label name in Blogger?

I probably am super dumb but I am pretty sure I am not the only one. So if anyone is as dumb as me, I am very happy to explain how I do it the idiot's way.

1. You go to all of your posts and click on "Edit" and erase the label name and click "update" One by One.
2. Then it's done! Let's hope you are not one of those people with more than 100 posts to edit. I know I was too lazy back then so I wasn't!
3. Happy blogging!