Category Archives: France

French Galettes and Crêpes

30 Wednesday Nov 2011

Posted by in France, Gastronomy, Oversea Restaurants, Travel

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When crêpes are mention, the first thought is usually towards the sweet thin pancake splatter with chocolate and banana, which I always buy whenever I am around Paris area.

So when I had the opportunity to travel to Quimper (a quaint little town in the Bretagne area), a friend brought me to try the Breton Galettes. It brought a whole new dimension on the world of crêperies to me. Initially, I thought galette that he was referring to was the thin biscuit type (which I tried in Japan before). 

I knew crêpes are a French thing (of course many British could claim the fame to this invention) but I never knew it was originated from Bretagne (Brittany). After some research, I learned that Galettes are from the Upper Bretagne and Crêpes are from the lower Bretagne. Galettes are usually referring to savoury crêpes made with buckwheat flour. 

We went to this little restaurant, Crêperie de Locmaria. This restaurant specialises in Galettes and Crêperies using organic products. (Sort of gives it a special edge I guess since this town is full of crêperies)

 

To go with the galette, my friend ordered the cidre (apple cider with 5% alcohol). According to him, it is typical to have galette with cidre. The cidre is very interesting and reminds me a lot of sparkling wines I have fromAustralia. It is less sweet and carries a sharp tang. And typically, you have to drink the cidre from a bowl. So, each of us were given a small red ceramic bowl. So cute !!!  

 We ordered the Galette with Andouille (typical Bretagne smoked sausage) and sunny side up egg and also Galette with mushroom and egg. I love it !!! It was crispy and light. When you have it with drenched with the runny egg yolk, it was sooooo good.

 

 

After we polished off our Galettes, it’s dessert time !!!

He insists that I try the traditional Crêpe with salted butter caramel. We also had the Crêpe with caramelised apple. It was so good… !!! the crêpe with salted butter caramel reminds me of crispy fresh caramel popcorn. Yummz…

 

After having crêpes from Bretagne, I see the big difference compare to those I had previously inParis. Those from Bretagne ROCKS !!!

L’Auberge provençale – Antibes, France

27 Friday May 2011

Posted by in France, Gastronomy, Oversea Restaurants, Travel

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Update : Nov 2011

** I was in Antibes, France on Week 47, 2011 and was so excited to head back to this restaurnat. Sadly, when I got there, the restaurant was closed. It looked like it was all cleared out and preparing for some sort of renovation. I hope it is the restaurant doing some upgrading work and will be back for business… and is not because it was closing down. Will update again when I go there next time.

Had a sudden attack of nostalgia of this quaint restaurant hubs and I went during our pre-honeymoon in Antibes, France.

It is by far the MOST romantic restaurant I have been too. It is not the posh classy romantic type but, sort of the rustic, old school charm with the Mediterranean feel kind.

The nice waitress sat us down in the middle of this whole wonder. Next to a small fountain. It was really beautiful. If I have a choice, I would definitely pick this as one of the stop for pre-wedding pictures.. Or even to hold my wedding reception here… hehehe… one can dream, no? ;p


Look at the beautiful settings. The green foliage above. Open air. Isn’t this Romantic?

The food here is pretty good too. We ordered their Menu (a set thingy) which comes with the starter, main and dessert.

Bouillabaisse – sort of fish stew. Dunk in the toasted pieces of bread and a hot peppery sauce called rouille. Sprinkle the cheese in. Yummmmmilicious. My favourite. I always have Bouillabaisse whenever I go to Antibes.

Was not very impress with this. It was seafood chowder baked with cheese. Love it only because they used Staub to prepare this dish.. ;p

Grill Dorade – Amazingly juicy. Not overdone. Thumbs up !

Duck in Fig sauce – Looks yummy right? Don’t be deceived. It was only so-so. The sauce was really good.

Pistachio mouse with raspberry sauce. Pure delightful.

Apple Tart with vanilla ice – Yummm yumm… Tart was crispy around the edge. Vanilla ice – so good !!

The 2 of us manage to clean all the plates. 🙂

After the meal, we were serve with complimentary shot of lemoncello each (Italian lemon liqueur – type of digestive). The waitress saw that we were so excited about our lemoncello that she gave us another 2 more rounds of that. I was feeling a little tipsy when we walk out the restaurant. hahahaa… sigh…It was an amazing lunch.

For those of you trying to locate this place, it is along the Rue de la Republique, facing the Place Nationale (which is sort of like a coutryard / carpark). On Sunday, this place is crowded with little marque selling arts and antiques. quite interesting to browse around after the heavy meal.

Restaurant l’assiette Alésienne – Ales, France

02 Wednesday Mar 2011

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For some reason the image of this meal kept haunting me this morning. Sigh.. So, I decided to give in to my cravings and blog about it instead… ;p

During one of my business trip to Alés in France, hub and I accidentally found this little gem tuck away in a little alley.  To be truthful, if I were travelling alone, I wouldn’t have venture that far off the safely ‘marked’ streets from the map which hotel usually give out.

But, since hub is with me, we decided to be adventurous and roam about this little town. This little place is known as Restaurant l’assiette Alésienne ran by a couple. The husband is the chef and wife serves.

English is not on the menu but with my minimal french, alot of hand gesture, we manage to order our meals…

For starter, I had Prawn Salad with crispy bacon. Prawn was lightly salted and saute to perfection. It was so fresh that you can taste sea in it.

And, my Main. I ordered the Marguerite de canard. The duck tenderloin was fried just nice. the skin was crispy while the meat is still pinkish. Juice oozing out when you slice open. To top it off, they serve it with fig sauce. The combo was just too amazing.

I can’t wait for my next trip back to Alés. Hopefully, this place is still around. 🙂