A visitors guide to Bordeaux, France – Part 1

Bordeaux is world renowned for its red wine and delicious regional cuisine; however, this French city offers much more than just wine, it also provides excellent nightlife, wonderful museums, and loads of history. In Bordeaux, visitors from all backgrounds and walks of life are sure to find something to eat, see, or do that suits them.

Get lost among the winding and narrow roads that comprise the cities different quartiers. These small neighborhoods usually maintain mom and pop restaurants, small churches, and fascinating architecture. If you are a history buff, you’ll definitely want to stop by the Musee d’Aquitaine, a cultural arts museum which houses many historical artifacts from the region, including prehistoric figurines.

Just north of central Bordeaux, you can take a relaxing lunch break at the Jardin Botanique, a masterfully landscaped botanical garden.

If you are considering taking a trip to Bordeaux, France, definitely keep the following suggestions in mind. When you are looking for a place to stay, remember that Bordeaux, like many other tourist-driven cities in France, will have a wide range of hotels that vary greatly in quality. Reasonably priced and modest rooms can often be found in the center of the town, but you can definitely find some lesser known bed and breakfasts and small family-run hotels on the outskirts of the town center.

If you love fashion, the Bordeaux’s Place de Grands-Hommes is for you. Jam packed with high-end boutiques and luxurious designer fashion shops, it’s easy to see why travelers run rampant among the plaza.

If you’ve decided on Bordeaux for its cuisine, then you’ll definitely want to be sure you schedule the mandatory tours of Bordeaux’s most popular wine chateaux. Bordeaux three regions, Gironde, Perigord, and Landes often produce some of the finest French cuisine imaginable. Give your taste buds a treat with the various delicious restaurants that line the street.

After dinner, it’s not just back to the hotel room for most Bordelaises. These people love to drink and have fun with friends and family. Visitors will find a plethora of English-style transplant pubs and chic techno nightclubs.

Although France is most enjoyable, weather-wise, in the spring, autumn is a good alternative season for visitors to flock to Bordeaux, which means tourists groups are rampant, so beware and book early if you plan on attempting to combat the masses during your stay. Wine loving travelers, however, should also keep in mind that most of the wine chateaux are closed for the harvest season, in October.

In addition, travelers should also keep in mind that Bordeaux is a popular local retreat, so many of France’s denizens will often flock to the small town to escape the larger city hustle and bustle of the tourist season which extends from after the winter holidays throughout the summer, peaking in August.

Eating (way too well) in Paris: Third stop at Le Gourmet

Yet another interesting stop in our culinary adventures in Paris, the Le Gourmet restaurant offers great French cuisine for prices I hadn’t seen in Paris in 15 years.

by Phil Chavanne

Lunch time, where to go?

This is the third installment of the series of articles which I set about to write a couple of weeks ago on eating out well in Paris. I love food, I love good cuisine, and I want fellow travelers to enjoy Paris to the hilt. That’s enough reasons to guide them to those places I am certain they will enjoy.

Lunch time in Paris is restaurant time. People who work in the city do not carry their lunch bags with them. They rarely enjoy the benefit of a corporate catering service, but even if they do, such catering is hardly a feat for anyone’s eyes and taste buds.

Small restaurants perform a vital service: they feed the locals rather satisfactorily, inexpensively, and in record time.

What applies to locals applies to travelers, and your next culinary stop happens in just such circumstances. After a long morning walk in the quaint streets on the slopes of the Montmartre hill, you feel nicely hungry. Your steps lead you to Place de Clichy, a busy crossroads between the 17th, the 9th and the 18th districts (metro station: ‘Place de Clichy’).

Time for a gourmet experience!

Le Gourmet

You may be hungry, but you are no fool. You want to eat well, and spend your heard-earned cash on food worth this name.

In my considerate opinion none of the eateries positioned around Place de Clichy are worth the money they ask for. I find their cuisine either overpriced, or downright vulgar. I never had a satisfactory lunch at any of these places.

So where to go? Not far away.

When you are on Place de Clichy, turn yourself so as to face the downward slope, with the metro station in your back. Aim at Rue de Clichy, left of Rue d’Amsterdam. Walk down the street for about 200 yards, and turn left in Rue de Bruxelles. Walk another 200 yards. There you are on the right sidewalk.

Your next favorite food stop is located at No. 19 rue de Bruxelles.
Name: Le Gourmet.
Identifiable sign: its French bistro-style facade. And a crowd.

Entering the bistro

If you happen to walk in at around noon thirty, you may have to wait just a tad. The place is packed. I have been to this restaurant numerous times, and I still have to be there the day it is not packed at lunch time.

My advice: come at around 12:00 am, and grab a spot before everybody else does.

The place exudes old charm, with dark wood panels, old posters, menu slates marked with chalk on the walls, a traditional bar, a mosaic floor, bistro-style chairs and tables. It smells good, though cigarette smoke can become an issue at times when the facade door isn’t left open.

The owner and chef bought the restaurant about 2 years ago from its first and long-time owners, an elderly couple who retired after having steered the ship for longer than any local can remember. The new owner liked the decor, and decided to preserve it as-is, except for the facade which was changed early in 2006.

In this very Parisian setting, patrons feel immediately welcomed and are quickly seated either by the boss or a smiling waitress. This is lunch time, and they know patrons are in a hurry. No unnecessary delay.

Seated, and menu in hands

The menu is in fact chalked on the slates that hang on the front and back walls. A remarkable feat for such small a restaurant, the menu changes every day.

Anyone who lived in Paris for some time knows that restaurant menus do not change beyond the ‘plat du jour’ – the main fare for the day. Even the ‘plat du jour’ does not change that much: from one week to another, the same courses tend to get back on the menu.

Not so at ‘Le Gourmet’: the menu changes everyday and no two weeks are alike. True diversity. Even if you were to eat there every day for 20 days, you could try 20 different courses.

Gourmet cuisine is a mission

The boss comes from the province of Touraine, in Western France. He likes to work on French traditional dishes, and his cuisine draws its main inspiration from the famous Burgundy and Lyons regions.

Among the ‘terroir’ dishes served at Le Gourmet, you can taste veal knuckle (souris de veau), prime cuts of veal (onglet de veau), roasted gilthead bream (daurade royale rôtie), stewed duck (pot-au-feu de canard), pike dumpling (quenelle de brochet). And the list goes on.

To get fresh products from his favorite suppliers, he wakes up at 3:30 am every day to go to the wholesale market (the Rungis market, situated south of Paris). He buys only what he needs for the day, loads up his truck, and heads back to his restaurant where he’s spend the rest of the morning to cook for lunch.

The chef’s motto is “fresh products, traditional preparation”. He uses butter, not margarine. He doesn’t buy frozen products, and no off-the-shelf sauces as he prepares his sauces himself. He is light-handed on spices which he thinks ‘are all too often used to hide something’.

Appetizer, main course, dessert, wines

Le Gourmet’s menu typically offers a choice of 4 appetizers (such as a warmed up goat cheese served on a loaf of country bread), 3 or 4 main courses (meat, fish, poultry), and 4 desserts.

The choice of desserts is also ‘old-school’: depending on the day, your selection may include chocolate whipped cream, baba au rhum (a spongy cake saturated with dealcoholized rum), biscuits with ganache (a mix of chocolate, cream and butter), orange cake, fondant cake, floating island (beaten egg whites floating on a French custard), red fruit pies, and so forth.

Light wines get the lion’s share of the wine list. The chef’s hometown is Valencay (in the heart of the Touraine region), and he purchases his bottles directly from local producers. The list comprises a variety of well-thought-of vines: Gamay, Cabernet, Valençay, Bourgueil, and Saumur-Champigny.

All this for how much?

Beyond the quality of the food you are served at Le Gourmet, the check is another pleasant surprise. For a meager €13 (about $16), you have a full meal served in record time in a most pleasant atmosphere. For just a few more bucks, you have the wine to complete your experience.

To be honest, there are very few Parisian restaurants which will give you that much for such a low price. Le Gourmet wins my vote any time, any day. I recommend it to you wholeheartedly.

Where?
Le Gourmet
19 rue de Bruxelles
75009 Paris
Tel: 33 (0)1 48 74 53 42
Subway station: Place de Clichy
Lunch and dinner

Searching for a Restaurant in Norwich?

 

Norwich is often thought of as remote and unsophisticated located in a largely rural county. But in fact, set in the heart of East Anglia, the historic city of Norwich is a vibrant regional capital. A contrasting blend of historic heritage bustling with culture, Norwich has museums, galleries, theatres and vibrant nightlife, shopping galore and mouth-watering restaurants – a truly vibrant and dynamic city with a cosmopolitan feel.

When it comes to eating out, many people find it hard to know where to start when looking for a good restaurant in Norwich. The problem is not a lack of great establishments, but the vast Array of places to choose from!

As a City, Norwich really does have something to tantalise everyone’s taste buds. From cafes serving cream teas, to fine dining restaurants serving the ultimate gastronomic feast, visitors in search of a good meal really are spoilt for choice.

You will find a restaurant in Norwich fit for every occasion. From big celebrations – where the atmosphere lets you chat, drink and enjoy the party well into the evening, to romantic meals for two when only the best fine dining will do, you can be sure whatever you need Norwich will have the perfect place to make the night extra special.

But what makes a restaurant in Norwich truly worth visiting? We all have our own ‘must have’ criteria:

• Service – being quickly seated, welcomed with a warm hello, polite and attentive staff – they all add to your dining experience
• Menu – a delicious selection of mouth-watering dishes that whatever you are in the mood for gets your juices flowing. And then there is the wine – a range of perfect companions to complement your meal is essential
• Location – from riverside pubs to busy inner city restaurants, historical buildings down quaint cobbled lanes to modern bases in the heart of the hustle and bustle – you want a location that is right up your street
• Price – from eating on a budget to splashing out – you need a choice to cater for all sizes of wallet.

So whether you are looking for traditional English pub grub, something European say French, Italian or Spanish, maybe a taste of the East with great tasting Asian or Japanese cuisine, or the taste of the USA or Mexico to get your teeth into – Norwich has a restaurant for every occasion.

For one of the best examples of fine dining restaurants in Norwich try The Merchant’s of Colegate. Located in Norwich’s historical quarter, but within easy walking distance to the vibrancy of the City, this Norwich restaurant is packed with appeal. The height of modern sophistication, the décor is stylish and adorned with elegant Jack Vettriano paintings, and the food is one of the best Norwich dining experiences you could wish for.