Of French cuisine bringing people together

I had a visitor last Friday. Hung Jen came to visit Lyon. It was a really short trip, but let's not talk about that or other depressing stuff (let's just say the god(dess?) of transport wasn't on her side...or more like definitely against her)

What I want to blog about is our adventure in a restaurant in Vieux Lyon (Lyon's old town). This is the one we went to (the photo was taken after the meal)


You see, Hung Jen had heard of a French dish before coming. So she wanted to try it. She told me that it was raw beef...and I immediately knew what it was. I had heard of it before (and Teik Siang told me that it was good) but never tried it before, and I probably wouldn't ever have tried it on my own.

So as we were walking around Vieux Lyon, we looked at the menus. Since there are many restaurants in Vieux Lyon, and most of them specialise in Lyonnais dishes, I was looking for one that had steak tartare (that's the name of the dish Hung Jen wanted to try) on its menu. (steak tartare is French, but not specially Lyonnais...goodness, see how many explanations I need to make?)

Anyway, on to the food. Entrées first:

florentine de saumon fumé au fromage frais et à l'aneth

Salmon wrapped around some kind of filling made of cream cheese and a herb (look for the translation yourself, I don't know this herb anyway) The presentation is really beautiful, but basically I found this entrée disappointing...I like salmon but there you have such thin strips. And the cheese filling...I felt that there was too much... (felt rather muak (can't translate this)) So I scraped away part of it, that was better. And salad...I'm no rabbit. :P

The names of the dishes are all straight from the menu...I can do that because Hung Jen took photos of the menu :P We shared all the dishes, by the way.

Okay, the other entrée, which was absolutely yummy :D

cassolette d'escargots, crème d'échalotte et de champignons frais

In short, snails in a heavenly sauce. Now I understand why some people can eat snails without knowing what they were. But I still don't understand how they can throw up later, upon learning what it was. Aw, come on, if you eat something that looks so appetising and tastes so good...um, if it was human flesh I'd probably eat it again too! lol (okay, on second thoughts, maybe not)

Main dishes now:

quenelle de brochet à la cuillère sauce homardine

tartare de boeuf "spécial Comptoir"

The quenelle is a Lyonnais speciality. It's the thing in the bowl. (you can find more info on Google, I'm really lazy about explaining today) I had only tried quenelle covered in sauce before, which I usually find a bit bland. This is the first time I tried oven-baked quenelle, and it was really good :D

By the way, the side dish ("veggies") for both dishes is gratin dauphinois, which is some potato-based thing (again, too lazy to explain... -> Google!)

Then, the "adventurous" dish: the restaurant's "special" tartare de boeuf (boeuf = beef). I didn't like it much. I found it only just edible (and slightly more so with the sauce, which was basically tartar sauce, I guess) By the way, the dish is served cold, probably direct from the fridge.

So, my advice to those who are thinking of trying it: if you like raw steaks, you'd probably like it. Otherwise...do not try it on your own! Make sure you have a "backup" to help you eat it (you won't be able to finish it)

Oh yeah, and remember the Mr. Bean episode where he went into a restaurant, ordered something, couldn't bring himself to eat it and tried to get rid of it by hiding bits of it all over the place? That was steak tartare ;P (I think I realised that when I saw the episode in last year's English class...before coming to France I didn't even know the dish)

So in the end this is what was left on our plates:

You can see what was the most delicious! :P

The gratin dauphinois wasn't bad...but we were kinda full, and there was dessert later!

Haha, when we ordered the steak tartare, the waiter said "you do know that it is raw?" ("il est cru, on est bien d'accord!" LOL) With his tone of voice, even Hung Jen could guess what he was saying :P

Now dessert! (these weren't on the permanent menu...they put a small blackboard on our table with the dessert list on it)

charlottine à la poire et au chocolat (or something like that)

inside (pear and chocolate)

roasted figs with vanilla ice-cream

Every dessert came with a slice of orange and a slice of kiwi. (for decoration...but we can eat them as well!) I guess those were their "fruits of the day". Those sitting at the table next to us had the same fruits, I noticed.

And that is actually the second "adventure"...we chatted with them. And it was all thanks to the weird French food. lol

They were Greek, and the daughter had just finished a year of studies (an exchange) in France. Two of them (the parents) had ordered something that they ended up not liking. At least one of them (I don't know whether they ordered the same thing) was tête de veau (calf's head), I believe I heard. I've tried it before, it wasn't bad (a whole lot better than steak tartare lol), but it's not something I actually like.

They spoke English (I don't mean amongst themselves, though), so I suppose they had caught snatches of our conversation. Before our main dishes arrived, Hung Jen was saying that she was starting to feel scared about trying the raw beef. And when the dishes arrived, the mother pointed to the steak tartare and smiled at us, then she lifted up the cover of her bowl (yes, it came with a cover, don't ask me more) and showed us that she hadn't finished...and neither had her husband.

And bla bla bla...I don't know how (ask Hung Jen, she was the one who managed it), we talked a bit and ended up exchanging contact info. And we asked one of the restaurant workers to take a photo of us:


And now let me show you why Hung Jen should be a model for advertisements. Here are some of her poses with the steak tartare (I have photos of her actual expressions as well, but they aren't as good as these):

Pose no. 1: "Yummy, don't you want some?" ;)


Pose no. 2: "Nooo! Don't force me to eat this!"


That's all folks!
(all photos courtesy of Hung Jen...we used her camera, I didn't bring mine)