Lyon Hall

The irony doesn't escape me that despite spending 3.5 months in France and eking out only two food write-ups, one week in DC and visiting one restaurant with a French city in its title brings me back prodigal-food-writer-style to amateurly critiquing food.

I'm not going to lie: it's been hard being back. Instead of Special K 100 calorie bars, I bought €5 bars of artisinal chocolate. €3.50 bottles of wine were better than some glasses (ok, three) that I was offered at a fine American steakhouse and turned up my nose at. I consider cheese a dessert, I have heavy disdain for bread that's not two feet long and baked this morning, and I'm going through pastis withdrawals. I'm intolerably snotty, I have to check myself from beginning every sentence with "when I was in France, I ate...," and my palate has decided to only like French imports, which are decidedly pricier than their related products manufactured, sold, and bought in France at half the price.

So, imagine my surprise when after a week of being in DC, where the only things giving any pleasure to my enlightened but petulant culinary consciousness were leftover French chocolate, a few glasses of Bordeaux a night, and clementines from California, I eagerly and happily ate an entire meal. This was epic, for an amateur food writer who used to be satisfied with soy nuggets for dinner and then got spoiled by foies gras, bloody steaks and the like.

So what is this place that casually uses the name of France's gastronomical capital, Lyon? Lyon Hall is a restaurant in Arlington that impressively and creatively serves mostly French-themed dishes with either an American or Alsatian/Hungarian/Basque/German twist. It's of peu importe: most dishes come with sausage or bacon so it's sort of like intellectual comfort food.

And it was pretty much the most flattering pre-food-blog writing experience ever. My charming company, including the indefatigable, supportive food-blogging trifecta of Andy, Kerry and Mike introduced me as a veritable above-average amateur food critic. Expectiations that I actually know something intelligent about food were high, but so were the opportunities to nip bites from other peoples' plates. And what a place to take spoonfuls of other peoples' food.

I started off with the beet and arugula salad. Innocuous and nearly what I ate for New Year's: roasted beets, pistachios, arugula, shaved fennel, and goat cheese (ok, I really want to say chevre but I will keep it hidden in the parentheses). The vinaigrette wasn't too strong and I would only criticize the little goat cheese balls forming a triangle around my plate. That's why I'm unnerved by Wendy's square burger patties: beef (and cheese) aren't meant to be shaped certain ways. Also, I liked my salad because my dining neighbor, Pete, mentioned how he hated canned beets too and was discovering that fresh beets can taste sort of amazing, like I have recently discovered. Remarkable, these non-canned beets.

Did I mention I spent $18 on two pricey (but delicious) American beer (in the background)? Lyon Hall 1, Julie 0.

So I got the mussels for dinner, because that seemed sufficiently Frenchtentious (I may decide to delete that tomorrow). But, since Lyon Hall is only partially French (the host had the French complicated scarf tying going on but was sufficiently un-French in his reception), my mussels normande were American-French: mussels with blue cheese, empire apples, bacon and a Calvados-leek broth. Since blue cheese is my current favorite (especially coupled with apples), I approved.

The main highlight of the meal was trying other peoples' food, something I silently demand from men with whom I date (it's a test) and something that drives my brother crazy, but that delightedly, none of my tablemates and friends minded. I tried Mike's squash soup (pumpkin-beer puree, duck-fig sausage and celeriac kraut: it didn't taste that complicated but was satisfyingly hearty), Andy's sauerkraut (pleasantly earthly and un-tart) and his lamb sausage plate. This place is where you go where you feel insatiably cold and need something amelioratingly warm (or post-France after a semester of language, etc.). Merci.

Bordeaux

As I have complained about before, my computer broke and I have been too lazy to write about food while in Paris. Instead, I have opted to eat it. A lot of it. And take lots of pictures. But I am entering into am period of extensive travel: maybe six, at least five, different cities in a month. The French, as I explained to my friend Christine, are extremely fond of their regional cuisines or specialites regionaux. And I need to try them. And I am fond of telling my friends that. So, Christine, in her wisdom, suggested I write about it.

I will cheat a little and throw in one brief lesson from Normandie, the region where she and I and one million Japanese tourists, including one famous Japanese actor, went this weekend. Specifically, we went to Mont Saint Michel, a 1300-year old abbey. Norman specialties include seafood, particularly huitres (oysters)...

...and also apple liquors, including cider and Calvados, an apple brandy. Anyway, the French place high priority on what's fresh but also what's local and have a real pride in what is particular to a region. Like my fish at a local restaurant called La Tour Brette in Pontorson in Normandy (served with choucroute, or sauerkraut, which is local to Alsace, which is far but still counts as a region, just not theirs).

So for the weekend, I went to Bordeaux, where I studied abroad in 2004 and which was my first trip abroad. The trip started off great: while seated, I continued to cough like I had TB, sat across from a questionably lesbian/deaf pair whose rabbit (who was accidentally dropped while in his cage) started relieving himself mid-ride (thankfully I didn't smell it when I covered my mouth with my scarf). I learned that trick when the guy with the two-foot long rat tail and anarchy sign tattooed on his skull walked by.

Things got better though. I began the regional culinary exploration at a brasserie, Le Noailles. It's the type of place I love: older ladies with (deliberately) two-toned hair, old couples, young families, and a very dignified "winter garden" jutting out onto the sidewalk.

I sat down at around 10:30, thinking too Americanly that I certainly would be the last one to eat.

Au contraire. I got fabulous olives with preserved lemons; yes, non sequitur but olives on a table means to me that they want me there, 10:30 or so.

I ordered oysters (again) and they were shucked at the bar.

I had a glass of white wine (two maybe?.. I had to drink in the culture) and then coquilles Saint-Jacques avec cepes. I didn't know what that entailed but that's what my waiter suggested. I like making split-second uninformed restaurant decisions. Makes things more fun.


I got dessert: mousse au chocolat. I am slowly making my way through French classics. It was simple and delicious. I had a little chat about delicate (ok, not strong) digestifs because I was really on vacation and figured I should booze it up. So I got Jet 27, the most French sorority-girl drink if ever there was one. Neon green and mint. And regional (departement trente, he told me).


The next day after a disappointing hotel breakfast (Best Western should stick to biscuits and gravy and not French petits-déjeuners), I wandered over to the tourist office and indulged in another coup-de-coeur: taking an open-top tour in a hot yellow bus. I saw bridges and beautiful old buildings I had never seen. And then I proceeded to wander, beaucoup.

My homemade postcard...

I ended up finally at the Cassoulette Cafe, where the food was good, but the service atrocious. There was one lazy manager, one ever-breaking cook, two (and only two) waitresses, one with "je suis en stage" on her lapel, the other with "je suis en formation," which should have meant "I am in training," but must instead probably meant to suggest "I am being paid for walking around with a panicked look on my face, while insisting on doing nothing to ameliorate the situation." Anyway, left to right, un oeuf cocotte, a salmon mousse salad, a salad with Indian-spiced chicken, then a tartiflette and moules catalanes.

Then I kept wandering, soaking in the sunshine, visiting the remnants of the St Michel flea market, window shopping at boots, getting a canele, and wearing my feet out over Bordeaux's cobbled stoned streets.
Canelés themselves are a regional speciality: vanilla custard poured into a beautiful copper moulds and then baked, creating a beautiful carmelization. I order mine croustillant (crunchy). Beautiful.

After a nap, I headed to dinner at Le Gabriel, home of a Michelin-starred chef.. My second!

Le Gabriel is situated in the central building of La Bourse, with a level each dedicated to the bar, the bistrot, and the restaurant gastronomique. I joined families and lovers in the bistrot, while I proceeded to write postcards while working my way through a demi bouteille du vin. From 2004, the year when I studied in Bordeaux, awww. And I started off with a Ricard, because I love being asked if I want an aperitif and saying, "oui, un Ricard."

I ordered the menu and started with an entree, a chevre crumble with tomato and mozzarella. The French love crumbles, a regional speciality from America.

For dinner I had a piece de boeuf, a very perfunctory French plate, with potatoes and a delightful sauce. Whatever it was, it certainly tasted especially delicious with Bordeaux, one of the sips of the three glasses of wine I had. I didn't eat it all because I wanted to "garder use place pour le dessert" and the waitress was visibly concerned before I explained why I hadn't cleaned my plate.
Dessert was light anyway, so the chef was smarter than I: roasted figs and a sangria sorbet.

Afterwards, grabbing a beer at one of the Irish pubs I frequented seemed a good idea. There, I met a German computer programmer (he was cute, it's ok), to whom I recited everything I knew in German and who taught me about German compound words, including MittwochsuachmiHaggverguuguugskranzchen (our language lesson largely took place on the back of a coaster and he wrote that one down). We went to a Spanish bar and drank mojitos and danced to bad French pop and U2 and I have him my map so he could find his way back to his hotel. Auf weidersein!

Sunday meant another bad hotel breakfast, a quick trip to the farmer's market, and lots more wandering. After getting quite mouille (one of my new favorites) from the rain, I collapsed in a chair at the restaurant of The Regent, the hotel I couldn't afford to stay in, and got thon tartare.

After one final canele, I headed back home.

Marseille

I am starting to like it here. It happened yesterday when the weather really started getting terrible. It's been raining on and off for days and this morning I checked WebMD for symptoms of pneumonia. But yesterday, I was in front of a statue of the artist Delacroix, whose museum I haven't even been to yet. And I realized that fall suits Paris better and that Paris and I are going to get along just fine. Ah, l'amour.

Eating well has only somewhat to do with my nascent love affair. The pace here is fast, Paris has foul pockets that smell of euphemistic filth, and my French professor is a trou de cul (the Google results are unexpected, maybe). But, I have had wonderful moments of culinary and cultural revelation. One of those moments was Marseille.

I left Saturday morning on the TGV (the high-speed train) and arrived in time for a walk around the Vieux (old) port, a bit of shopping, an adorable little train ride around the city and up one of Marseille's inclines to see the beautiful church, Notre Dame de la Garde.

The church, Notre Dame de la Garde:

And from a slightly different view:

The boats:

The view from the tour boat:

And from back in the Vieux port:

My visit was centered around dinner at a place on the Vieux Port called Miramar. I went there with the explicit purpose of eating Bouillabaisse, what I understood to be the whole point of eating in Marseille anyway.

Miramar, the next day:

Vocabulary word of that night was "copieux," a synonym for "abondant" in French. I ordered a glass of wine, an appetizer, and Bouillabaisse..and dessert before I actually received any of this because they do pre-orders for dessert, "because they take so long to prepare." The reasoning I think has more to do with the aforementioned vocabulary lesson.

Dinner began with black truffle toast. Quelle chance.

Then the "real" amuse-bouche. I think the toast was called a surprise. I had a charming waitress, but between her joint Chinese and accents, all I got was olive bread and something about marscapone. Amateur food critic indeed.

My waiter (I think there were about 7 total) told me that by ordering Bouillabaisse, there was no need to order anything else unless I wanted to. I confidently nodded my head and said I wanted the entree du jour, calamars. With parsley, garlic, lemon and pesto. And an adorable little baguette.

I could have stopped there. This place was not created for women who dine solo. For further proof, see my dinner.

And that's dinner part one, the Bouillabaisse broth, accompanied by garlic cloves, roux (spicy mayonnaise), and croutons (little baguette toasts). You eat this before you actually get the motherlode of fish, seasoning it your liking while the waitress debones your fish. In my case, four types of fish. At this point, quelle horreur.

One dinner quickly becomes two dinners:

Remember, I had already ordered dessert too. With this dessert, I received two other plates of desserts. Another surprise! In additions to my own dessert (red fruits with a basil-infused pastry cream), I had little madaleines, chocolate-dipped cereal cookies, shortbread cookies with raspberry jam, homemade caramels, caramel lollipops, raspberry Turkish delights, and candied almonds.

In case you don't believe me:

Here's a bit more of Marseille:

View from my hotel room window (I had to hang out a bit):

The fish market:

Nougat at the Marseille fair:

Des coquillages:

Carbohydrates

My French lessons of late have been focusing heavily on verb tenses: plus-que-parfait, past tense, conditional, imperfect, future, near future, and then of course how they fit together to make an impossibly complicated and non-intuitively-constructed sentence. Nonetheless, when I can craft a seemingly complicated but easily assembled verb tense in my own language, I have a sort of unearned but still delightful sense of accomplishment.

So, I can say, confidently and correctly that as of today, I will have been in Paris for three weeks and one day. Further, I would like to think that I have learned or observed the following things and/or compulsions.

1. It is nearly impossible for me to accidentally eat 5-7 servings of fruits and vegetables per day. The only exception to this I have found is that might be achievable if baguettes count as grains and toppings on tarts count as fruits. Wednesday's menu may be illustrative: for "brunch" I had an Orangina (mix between orange juice and orange Crush), a ham/butter sandwich, and an apricot tart.





But I was in the Place de Vosges, which seems it should make it more nutritious.



Later, I had two bottles of water in the afternoon, and for dinner, a croque monsieur sandwich (nearly the same thing as brunch but it was open faced and had melted cheese) that came with one 7-bite salad, and a beer.



And I'm slightly ashamed that afterwards, I had a Coke and small fries at McDonald's, from where I wrote the above, where I had hoped to access their wifi (unsuccessfully; only got the bathroom code). Somehow, my pants fit better. I love this diet!



At least there is a picture of a vegetable.

2. I often feel compelled to not brush my hair, wear clothes that don't match, wear dangling earrings, frequently contort my face, and drink lots of little espressos to feel more French.

3. I at some point acquired an irresistible urge to have something sweet after each meal or in place of a meal. I eat pains au chocolate for breakfast, have decided it would be prudent to eat macarons and palmiers as much as is sustainable to determine my favorite boulangeries and patisseries, and almost always take dessert when I dine out as it seems the only responsible way to learn about France.

But, I have been feeding my soul in other ways. Here are recent photos of Claude Monet's gardens and house at Giverny.