Food Porn Friday: Aux Lyonnais

Lyon. 

Before Paris won my heart with its perpetual beauty, Lyon seduced me with its warmth, its conviviality, and its gastronomy.  In 2000, I came to France for the first time and lived not too far away from this under-rated city.  I was able to come visit thanks to one of my step-father's former post-doc students, who kindly invited me to stay with her.  I'll never forget the night when we went to a sort of bouchon lyonnais with her friends.  I didn't quite follow all of the conversation that night, as I was still very novice when it came to the French language, but the food.  The food.  It remains one of my happiest memories of France.  I had quenelles for the first time, and it was at that moment where French cuisine really touched me.  The creaminess of the nantua sauce, the tender rice, the quenelle melting on my palette.  I dreamed of quenelles long after my plane had touched down in the United States.  I couldn't describe it well enough to my friends at school upon my return.  They just had to be there.  Live that moment of gastronomical delight.

And don't even get me started on the pognes.  Everytime I go back to Lyon, I have to go to the old city and buy the luscious brioches covered in red sugar and hazelnuts.  They are truly amazing.

I swear, if I lived in Lyon, I would weigh 300 lbs.

When I heard that Alain Ducasse, the legendary French chef with a penchant for Lyonnais cuisine, had a moderately priced (compared to his other restaurants...) bistrot lyonnais in Paris, I knew I had to go.  It would be my Proustian delight in the middle of the cold, rainy Parisian winter days.  We stepped inside the restaurant to discover a early 1900s bistrot décor, full of marble, old advertisements, and chalk boards describing specials.  It could have been Ernest Hemingway's local haunt.

We started off with coddled eggs with truffles and mushrooms.  We were given these amazing garlic breadsticks to sop up the egg yolks, and somehow they managed to make them crusty on the outside but softer on the inside.  I was a little sad that they only gave us two.  We then moved on to the quenelles.  Fab had never had a quenelle outside of a cafeteria setting, and this just...blew my mind.  How can you be French and not have had this culinary masterpiece?  They were light, airy clouds upon a savoury river of Nantua sauce.  Prawn tails decorated the sauce to demonstrate what had been used as the flavour element.

Best Eggs Ever.

Quenelles = heaven

The pièce de résistance if I may say so, was dessert.  This isn't just because I have a weakness for all things sweet.  They really were a masterpiece.  I took an île flottante, expecting the mundane meringue floating on less than flavourful crème anglaise.  That was my first mistake...this is Ducasse afterall!  The man somehow made a meringue with tiny little pieces of the red pralines, giving it a nice but not too overwhelming crunch.  It came accompanied by a small slice of tarte aux pralines.  Such a sweet ending to a magnificent meal.

Île flottante + tarte aux pralines

I have a list of restaurants where I always take out of town guests, and this one will definitely make the top choices.  The food was delicious and simply presented, allowing for a great gastronomical experience without the stuffy feeling.  Yet, I think the meal's success can be attributed in part to my already fond attachment to Lyon and its amazing bouchons.  The rest of the menu remained a bit rustic and outside of what might consider to be traditional French cuisine.  Nonetheless, I highly recommend this restaurant, especially if you cannot make it to Lyon during your trip to France.

Aux Lyonnais
32, rue Saint Marc
75002 Paris
Closed Sun., Mon.
Métro Richelieu-Drouot

Parisian Things

It's been a while since I've posted on here.  I've been busy brainstorming, working, and cooking.  Enjoying Paris too.  Here's an idea of what I've been doing through photos.

Baking:  In February, we had some very very cold weather blow through France.  What better way to stay warm than by baking delicious things for my loved ones?  These peanut butter chocolate chip cookies were so soft and divine, that they even won the French over!  Most people over here don't like the idea of peanut butter and chocolate, yet these cookies had just enough.  My fave yet.

First signs of spring:  Thankfully, after said cold weather, came more temperate times.  I bought these lovely buds down at the rue Cler market near my apartment, and they added a lovely fragrance to our home.  Looking at them made us feel as if spring was already here, bringing with it longer days, warmer temperatures, and travels across Europe!

Spending time with our baby:  Artemis is like our child.  She hates when we leave for work all day, so I always try to get some quality time in with her.  She was just too adorable with her Angry Birds toy this one night.

Learning about Macarons:  I was given a lovely Christmas present:  French cooking lessons.  It's been difficult to choose which ones to take; there are just so many!  I decided on macarons, because I've been told by many a person that they are incredibly difficult to make.  Time consuming yes, not too terribly difficult.  I really enjoyed this class because it taught me what I probably could not have gotten out of a book.  You need to make sure you age your egg whites, let the batter sit once you've piped it out, and open the oven door every 5 minutes until they are good and stuck on the parchment paper.  It was fascinating, and the results were delish!  I can't wait to start experimenting with my own flavors.

Walking around new neighborhoods:  I know the 18th (Sacré Coeur pictured above), but only the really touristy Butte de Montmartre.  After venturing up there a couple of times for engagements at friends' places, I thought it would be cool to explore a little more...especially since we are starting to think about a new place to live.  The 18th sometimes has a bad reputation, but there are some lovely places to make a home.  We'll see where this year takes us, but we're definitely exploring Paris for a new view.

Inventing:  One of the new directions I'd like to take my blog in revolves around my love of cooking.  I know that there are *tons* of food bloggers out there, so that won't be the main focus of my writing.  Yet, I live in an apartment with a tiny French kitchen, and I love giving American/Southern US recipes a French touch, as well as seeing what local ingredients I can use to make what I love from home.  Like this breakfast soufflé.  I got tired of making eggs and bacon for brunch today, so I took what little I know about soufflés, and I invented a new recipe.  Fab told me to write it down and sell it as he gobbled it down.  I won't sell it, but I'll definitely be tweaking it, getting the measurements more precise, photographing it, and sending it your way.

Have I mentioned that I have become obsessed with running?  And that I'm training to run my first 5K?  I'm beginning to think I've hit my head.

Stay tuned for travels to Istanbul, Berlin, Greece and more.  As well as those changes I promised.

Enjoy your week!

Tips for Surviving Thanksgiving

This is for all the French people out there.  If you are American, feel free to contribute your survival tips for Thanksgiving in the comments section.

You've probably got a big sourire on your face.  For years, you've been hearing about this huge American festival called Thanksgiving, but you're not really sure what it entails.  Now, you find yourself invited to a Thanksgiving dinner by your American friends and you're kinda freakin' out.  What should you expect?  How should you behave?  Is it really that much to eat?

Don't worry.  EC's got you covered.  Here are my survival tips.

9 kilos of bird for 22 people...you do the math.

Food Porn Friday: Cinq Mars + Salon du Chocolat

I owe you an apology for two reasons.  First, I have been on a Food Porn hiatus.  But come on...I was on my honeymoon.  Surely you can forgive me for that.  Second, I am about to give you a Food Porn Friday that is similar in nature to what you might call "amateur."

But, I'm gonna make it up to you in the end, I promise!

Fab wanted to take me out for a "Return to Paris" dinner one night.  Since we're in it for the long haul in the 7th, we are trying to find the good spots that don't cater to hungry tourists wandering in from the Eiffel Tower.  Turning to Le Fooding, Paris's foodie guide par excellence, we selected le Cinq Mars.

Le Tournebièvre

There are so many wonderful things to be celebrating this week.  I took a huge step forward in my professional career.  I am one year older...and hopefully one year wiser.  Did I mention that I got married just last Saturday??  Really, just so many things to be thankful for this week.

Last week, the momma, Fab and I went to dinner at one of my favorite restaurants in Paris.  It is one of those little gems of a restaurant where the food is indulgent and so delicious.  The ingredients are fresh and the menu options rotate for seasonal fare.  It is charmingly decorated, and if you sit out on the patio, you have a delightful view of Notre-Dame cathedral.  You would think that a restaurant with this caliber of cooking would have an impossible reservation list.  Yet it remains mostly obscure to the Parisian foodie palate.  But friends, if you are looking for a nice, calm place to take out of town guests or you just want a great steak-frites with an amazing peppercorn sauce, Le Tournebièvre is your place.

Frisée salad with poached egg, garlic croutons, and lardons

Vendée

My camera and I have been reunited.

I went to a PACS ceremony in Champagne-Ardennes back in September, with camera in hand.  I took pictures all night long, as I normally do.  Then about two weeks later, a sudden sick feeling came to my stomach..."Where the heck is my camera?!"  I tore my apartment apart.  I asked Fab to tear his apartment apart.  No trace.  E-mails were sent, but no one seemed to know where my little reliable Canon camera went.  I missed out on a lot of events (Prague, Thanksgiving, traveling in France, eating at Chateaubriand) and felt naked most of the time...paralyzed even.  But then, one night, Fab calls.  He found my camera in his suit pocket (the one he wore to the wedding).  Praise the powers that be!  So now my camera and I are working together again, and it feels so good.

I followed Fab to Vendée for Christmas festivities with his family.  I have been to Vendée several times now, and it is an absolutely lovely region, and a rather unknown one to us Americans at that.