The bf's visit, Part 2: Food

Finally coming back to the promised food post related to the bf's visit!  I'd like to start this food post by stating that I realized in a very odd way that French food was really as good as they say it is. What was this weird way? I moved from the Netherlands to here by train. I had to switch trains around lunchtime, so I grabbed a sandwich at a place I've since learned is your every street corner sandwich place. I took one bite and was astonished. I wasn't thinking about it being my first try of French food and expecting anything or even paying attention--I was just hungry! But the bite of sandwich completely took my by surprise. I knew I was going to eat well this semester.

Since arriving, I had eaten a few amazing meals in various restaurants around town and had realized  that wherever you go, pretty much everything is going to be amazing. French places frequently have a menu of the day, which is a choice of a plat-du-jour (usually several options), and you can  often add an entree (yeah English speakers, we got that one wrong: It's the appetizer, not the main plate) and/or a dessert for not much at all. It's a great way to try several things. I love the menus! Unfortunately, being a busy student and with a few weeks of having no money after the pickpocketing, I had really not eaten out nearly enough. I had eaten at the dining hall entirely too much (really the only lunch option with class timing). And while French dining halls serve things like duck, mussels, snails, and other things you would never see in American dining halls, they still cook them like a dining hall (read: they're gross). So by the time classes ended, I'd had enough. In the month and a half since I've eaten at a dining hall once, which reminded my why I was done with them. So long story short, I'm cooking again.

BUT, when the bf came, we went all out. He was in France and he was going to eat French food! We're not big planners, so our restaurant selection process usually involved deciding we were hungry, heading into town, and wandering and reading menus until something struck us both. It was fun! We went to all different parts of town and ended up at all kinds of places depending on their menu, atmosphere, whatever we were looking for that particular meal.

Well, I guess we did that except for the first dinner. I had told the bf about mussels and fries (moules- frites) places, and he had to eat at one of those, no question, his first night here. I told him it was a Belgian thing, but he was insistent (hehe I didn't actually fight it--it's an awesome meal). You get a kilogram of mussels (yeah that's 2.2 lbs) steamed in whatever sauce/broth you want.  I tend to do moules marinieres, which is your classic white wine garlic sauce, just because it's so amazing! We went to a great little place built into the side of a building and were one of the few tables in there. The proprietor was a fun Belgian guy who gave an enormous spiel and fun recommendations from his Belgian beer list, all while I was translating as fast as I could both his suggestions and the bf's questions. We split an order of the mussels and an order of some scallop dish with a beer-based sauce. I was not a huge fan of the scallop dish, but bf was in love.

But other than that we just wandered around town. I won't bother with place names, but if you're ever going to Montpellier and are scared to just wander freely, let me know and I'll get you names!  The first thing we had was a menu midi (lunch menu) in a square I like. Bf's first meal was a fish tarte (sorta like a fish and cheese pie) and steak-frites. So French!

I think we would probably agree that our best meal came from a place in this beautiful courtyard. The picture isn't great, but it was a cute square with a fountain in the middle and a restaurant on either side.

Bf got an utterly amazing plate of scallops. They were big, beautiful, and cooked perfectly. I had magret de canard (duck breast) with the most amazing sweet apple sauce. Drool, seriously.

We also went to once place where the appetizers were good, the meal was not, and the desserts were amazing.

 To the left is my appetizer--shrimp beignets (doughnuts). Kinda like extra-breaded fried shrimp. Very good. Below is bf's--terrine de something. Don't remember the details. Terrine looks a bit scary, and is some kind of fatty meat loafy thing (not like our meat loaf). It's really rich and delicious though.

I won't bother with pictures of the main dishes. The side vegetables were good, but that was about it. The desserts though. Mmm. First is a picture of my cafe gourmand. A cafe gourmand is a plate with a French coffee (they have tiny coffee) and several small desserts. This one was actual several reasonably normal-sized desserts, but less than the size was the utter amazingness of nearly everything. Top right was the worst thing on there, and was a not bad red fruit compote on some kind of cake. Bottom right was a dark chocolate mousse, bottom center was the coffee, bottom left was an apple tarte with some kind of flan-like base and caramel sauce, top left was a little meringue, and center was a creme brulee. The chocolate mousse and creme brulee were spectacular in true French fashion. The apple tarte really got me though. I am not a big cooked-apple person, so I didn't expect to like the thing. Bf is not a big dessert person at all though, and when I saw his face after he tried it, I knew I had to as well. And...uh...I still can't even describe it other than to tell you that after either of us took a bite, we would not be able to respond to any conversation while we were savoring it. It was amazing. I highly recommend cafe gourmands just because they're very French and fun, but that was my most amazing dessert ever. His dessert, a frozen lemon sorbet, was also great.

 

Oh French food. It's amazing. We also just had a couple meals with sandwiches or pizza bread and a bottle of wine or something like that, and it was still good.

Then Spanish food! We hit Barcelona right during Easter, which was awesome in that there were not many people anywhere, but not great in that a lot of places weren't open. We did manage to get paella though! Yum.