We have planned (our friends organised it actually), arranged this trip, a trip to Normandy mainly to enjoy their culinary, it was going to be, eat.... eat..... eat..... and drink, drink and drink, ( I don't drink though, which is a shame). 5 Days of indulgence, 5 days of gluttony.
So, August 4 of us set of to Normandy ( my husband and I and another couple). We spent our first 2 days in Honfleur, a beautiful town, very touristy but still very pretty. It is very clean and neat considering the amount of tourist visiting this place every year.
Made up my mind this time I will take photo of every meal we eat. It was a bit awkward initially, taking pictures in restaurant, conscious, I might be bothering other diners, but this occasion do not come by very often..., so I got my 105 mm macro with me and sometime I push my luck taking the flash as well when we go for dinner.
I love to share the experience of French food by sharing the pictures that inspires me and hope will do the same to you too. With my limited French ( I mean very limited), I try to translate what is the menu and did try to ask the waiter and explained it in better English than mine (well that's not hard...).
It is no way near my Indonesian food which quite spicy and robust ( which my tonge is used to) it was quite and experience, pardon me that I can not describe the taste, wish I was a better writer, but hopefully my photo will tell more than what I write.
The conclusion and the bottom line of this trip is we really enjoyed the food or most of the time anyway ( I do miss my chili and rice though....)
Day 1, we arrived in Honfleur late afternoon, Check in the hotel, unpacked, have a rest for little while and ready for an early dinner.
Honfleur is the capital of apple, cider and calvados...., so we got it for a welcome we have a small bottle of cider and the most delicious apple pie I ever had.
There are rows of variety apple trees in the garden, these are two of them.
The apple pie, very thin crispy base, with slices of apple on apple jam...., simple yet delicious. I wish there was ice cream or just cream to go with it... yuummmm
We had an aperitif to start with, all of them had cider and I had something lighter......, we were provided with canapé, very different, very colourful, very interesting and, very good indeed. I ate every single one tried to guess what might be in it or what they are made of.
They were cherry tomatoes stuffed with smoked salmon mousse, spiced puff pastry filled with leek mousse, crunchy black sesame twist with spiced cream dip and mango pure in gelatine.... We finished them all....
After a while we were called to move to restaurant. We ordered set menu, since we think we can sample the hotel specialities. While we were waiting, as usual we had bread and butter, an ordinary salted butter and seasalt and sea weed butter which surprisingly very tasty. The addition of seaweed somehow improve the taste and flavour of the butter. Different and very good.
As a prelude we had spicy lobster in cucumber soup, I thought it was quite a strange combination, but it works. The lobster is shredded and mixed in Thai style spice and the cucumber soup just a light pure cucumber.
Start with foei gras, that we all loved. It was just beautiful, it is a chunk foei gras (to give it a bit of bite) mix with the smooth one formed like a terrine. On is beet root jelly which is a bit sour to balance the richness of the foei gras and decorated with shelled almond, glade cherry as well as fresh stuffed cherry.
As one of the main course we had pan fried john dory with foam ( I don't get this modern way or nouvelle cuisine that use a lot of foam, to light for my robust taste. But really enjoyed the fish it was fresh, tasty and tender.
This millefeuille is layered with soft strong taste cheese....., so I passed this one. I do enjoy cheese, but rather the hard and mild one. They enjoyed it thoroughly.
Pudding, we have multi layered chocolate cake and differed mousse, with very rich cream on top...., it was out of the world....
Next...., cheese please...., by this time, it is not possible for me to consume anything anymore. I surrendered.....
Last...., we move back to lounge to have tea and coffee and the man had calvados....., it was midnight, a more than six hour dining experience....
I thought it was finish with food...., but more is coming and very tempting too, turkish delight, madeleine, toffee and custard cream on biscuit to go with our tea and coffee........ Being in France I can not missed the original madeleine (I have little space for this one...)
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