Winding Down

Just ten days now until I come back to the UK and this period is always a bit difficult, I’m very lucky because it’s like living two lives in one with different friends, different social interaction, different vistas and a different mind set. It does take some adjustment moving between the two, and this period is quite unsettling, funnily enough when I’m on the brink of leaving the UK for France I don’t get the same feeling of limbo. When waiting to come out to France it’s more a feeling of excitement and anticipation, of course that could be the prospect of the summer as opposed to the winter. I am looking forward to getting back to England to see the family and my English friends and to have a pint of real beer, but I'm not looking forward to the rain and the cold weather.

There are loads of things that have happened which I haven’t bothered to write about like the chair breakdown in St. Giles Croix de Vie, but as no one bothered to answer my request to comment in order that I know if anyone is actually reading, I can only assume that they’re not so I don’t see the point of spending my time writing this when I can be helping Trevor by correcting the English on his website. It is a shame because I did enjoy these little chats, it's more interesting writing about what's going on rather than translating Bristolian into English, but I can't see the point if no one is reading it.

A bientot

Blog Swamp

I suppose those of you who started by following the blog and now don’t bother could be excused. Not only do you have to put up with the nonsense that I write but you also have to put up with the sporadic postings. I blame a mixture of having too much to do, the weather having been too good and Trevor’s website.

Blogging is made more difficult when having to keep in mind Trevor’s website. It is important that the reviews are posted on his website before my blog in order that they help raise his profile with Google. I don’t have any problem with that after all that’s one of the reasons I write the blog. It’s easy however to forget to post things on the blog when you have to wait for a few days after they have been posted on Trevor’s website, before being able to post them. The delay is in order to give Google time to find them on Trevor’s website and accredit them to it.

I’ve devised a filing method that indicates whether a review has been posted on either the website or the blog or both. This is fine however I’ve just found three restaurant reviews that I’ve missed from the blog. The reason is that they had fallen below the point where they were immediately visible on screen, and had reached the point at which one has to employ the downward arrow to see them, and you know what they say “out of sight out of mind”.

So now not only have I flooded you with a couple of posts that I had half finished previously I’m now going to drown you with these three reviews, and I still have things in production. Please accept my apologies; I’ll try to keep it a bit more constant from now on in.

Vendee-Vapeur

We had talked about taking the Train Restaurant “Voiture L’Orient Express” which is essentially a steam train which during a three hour journey from the Station at Mortagne-sur-Sevre to Herbiers and back serves dinner. At Herbiers there is a half hour stop to turn the train around for the return journey. En route the train stops for 45 minutes on the impressive 38 meter high Viaduct Barbin which overlooks the Sevre Nantaise and offers spectacular views of the surrounding countryside, or so the official website says.

Unfortunately the website also says that wheelchair access is not available, and although I do not use a wheelchair I am not prepared to patronise places that are so obviously discriminatory. It is a shame as I would have liked to make the train ride, although I wasn’t particularly impressed with the 2 menus on offer.

I can understand that some excursions demand a degree of physical adeptness so I wouldn’t berate them for not necessarily offering the opportunity to disabled people. It is true however that you often find that extreme sports do offer the opportunity to those disabled people who are deemed fit enough. However I wouldn’t put riding on a train eating a meal up there with the likes of white water rafting, sky diving and extreme skiing and in my opinion the time has come when attractions like this train must make whatever alterations are requisite to allow disabled people the same access as their able bodied counterparts.

For this reason I am unable to recommend this gastronomic excursion. I would in fact go further and urge any of you who are thinking of taking this excursion not to go and to make your reasons public.

Tate – 2009.

My Phoung – Chinese Restaurant Fontenay Le Comte

Before I launch into reviewing this restaurant I must first let you into a little secret. In England I have a Chinese Take-Away at the end of my drive, and the former owner Tak Yan Tse and I became good friends. Tak Yan (AKA Gordon) is a brilliant cook, in fact he’s the best Chinese cook for my taste that I’ve ever encountered. His food is full of strong flavours and he is not afraid to turn up the heat. He also doesn’t cook the sweet, bland, Chinese food that is the norm in so many Chinese restaurants designed to cater for the tastes of the English masses. He in fact taught me to cook Chinese food, and to this day other than Gordon, I have not found a restaurant whose food I enjoy as much as the food that I cook for myself. I have eaten with Gordon at the restaurant of his wife’s family in Plymouth on Chinese New Year and I must confess that the authentic Chinese food that they ate was also not entirely to my palate either, I wasn’t keen on jellied fish balls and chickens feet etc. which they adore, and I love fried rice which they rarely eat. So having qualified my position on Chinese food here is my review for what it may be worth.

We arrived well before the sun went down and decided to sit outside, the waiter a very pleasant and well spoken young man suggested that as this was our first time at the restaurant we should try the buffet. Clearly the buffet was the best value for money, but I hate them as I have to rely on other people to choose and to fetch and carry for me. Nonetheless in the spirit of seeking out value for money and in the interests of our patrons, we decided buffet it was. We had a bottle of Cote de Rhone, I knew I wouldn’t drink it all and said as much to the waiter, who said he would leave the cork and that I could take what remained home. The wine was reasonable, I like Cote de Rhone and at 12 euros it was not too expensive for a restaurant. Trevor tried at first to photograph the available food, but the dark interior coupled with the display on the digital camera, made it impossible to discern what I was looking at, so I had to trust him to choose. Good old boy that he is, Trevor started the fetching and carrying, starting with prawns in batter, spring rolls, a mussel and various other things. The batter was surprisingly crispy and the taste, if not exceptional was good, good enough that I sent Trevor back for another prawn and another spring roll. There was a young grill chef outside and the buffet included any meat that you liked grilled by him, Trevor and I both had beef, which I thought lacked a bit in taste.

Next we had some main courses. First Trevor brought chicken in a nondescript sauce with frogs’ legs in batter and noodles. He then got Beef in another nondescript sauce with egg and pea fried rice. In all honesty I thought that the noodles were a bit rubbery and I don’t mean the Chinese rubbery as in rubbery felali (lovely Ferrari), the frogs’ legs, chicken and beef were all cooked alright but lacked any great taste, and the sauces were bland, though in their favour not glutinous. The rice had a good enough taste for rice but was if anything a bit starchy for me, I like my rice with the grains separate. With each visit inside came new plates and the used plates piled up on the side of the table, some people might think that the growing stack was like a tribute, a testament to one’s ability to eat more copiously than the next table, whereas others might see the plates as a serious reminder of the level of gluttony that one has attained, I personally preferred not to look at them. We finished with lychee and chocolate ice cream, this was an error of choice, the chocolate ice cream and the lychee syrup were not a good mix, as one seemed to dilute the other, I’m sure that had we eaten them separately we would have enjoyed them much more.

We drank our coffee and when Trevor went in to pay he met his friend and fixer Christophe, he came out with his brother in law to say hello to me followed by his sister and niece. They were eating inside the restaurant and were just going to start their sweet and wanted us to join them for coffee. They seemed to have been enjoying something a little stronger than the soft drinks machine and we knew that coffee would probably only have been a precursor to something else, so we politely declined and made our merry way home.

In conclusion I must say that I think that this is a great place to go for something completely different and does represent fantastic value for money, the bill for the two of us came to 42 euros, the wine cost 12 euros of that and we had coffee which wasn’t included, so although we never saw the price it had to be less than 15 euros per head. There was a soft drinks machine inside from which one could help oneself at no extra cost, one could eat as much as one liked, and the choice was without doubt profuse. The staff were attentive but of course they didn’t have too much to do as they were only taking the orders, serving wine and clearing the tables when the diners had finished. Not having seen the inside of the restaurant I can’t comment upon it, we ate outside on the pavement which I loved, but then that’s not everyone’s cup of lap sang su shong.

Tate - 2009

L’ Auberge Le Trou Vendeen – Port de Courdault

The Port de Courdault is simply one of the prettiest little places on the Marais Poitevin. A long straight canal ends at the port, which is a rectangular sink where the barges used to turn and unload. As the sink has now fallen into disuse the surrounding warehouses have been turned into dwellings and this sleepy backwater has taken on a peaceful charm that is without doubt beguiling.

Unfortunately the Auberge Le Trou Vendéen does not profit from a frontage onto the sink, this would truly make the Auberge the visual rival of anything that I have seen in the Marais Poitevin. Inside the setting is good the first dining area which also contains the bar has plain white plastered walls, whereas on passing through a broad arch into the main dining area one is greeted by natural stone walls. The walls throughout are festooned with old implements and pictures, and the whole of the Auberge has a traditional Vendéen wooden beamed ceiling. All in all the décor is delightful and the atmosphere it creates when packed with diners is simply irresistible. As you well know ambience is a transient thing that ebbs and flows with many things including the numbers of people that occupy a space. This space seems to be well occupied on a regular basis. We had tried to lunch here before without making a reservation, and like some other notable figures in history, had found that there was “no room at the inn”. This time we had taken no chances and had reserved ourselves a table, it was just as well we had, as on arrival the Auberge was well populated and by the time we had eaten our first course there were only a few odd places left.

The service was relaxed, the maitre served us and he was dressed in jeans with a shiny silver grey shirt, unbelievably this was not the most spectacular thing about him which was in fact his magnificent handlebar moustache. I can imagine that if and when things got a little less hectic and he had more time to perform, he would be very amusing indeed. However today he was flat out and had very little time to engage anyone in anything other than orders and deliveries, which he performed with gusto and good humour singing and humming as he went. Trevor had a non alcoholic beer whereas I stuck to a glass of the vin de table, which was included with the meal, it was as usual not a grand vin but was nonetheless perfectly acceptable. We both went for the meal of the day which was a very acceptable 12 euros. The starter consisted of Pate, Macedonian vegetables (diced beans and carrots with peas) in mayonnaise wrapped in a slice of ham, with half a boiled egg and some cornichons (small gherkins). It was a very good mixture and the dish of pate (which was delicious) was left at the table so you really could eat as much as you wanted. The main course was a roasted chicken breast with a mushroom sauce served with boiled rice and garnished with lettuce and tomato. The tastes of all of this were fabulous, chicken in France seems to be inherently tastier than the chicken we buy in England, it was however a touch overcooked for me and therefore a bit drier than I would have preferred. The mushroom sauce was full of flavour and was very well balanced but it was a little sparse, but the rice was absolutely perfectly cooked, which might sound simple but it is remarkable how often restaurants get rice wrong, especially when the dish is, like this one, not a specific rice dish. The garnish a sprig of lettuce and a slice of tomato was more than a bit tired, I suppose you could say that it was meant to be more decorative than anything else, but I firmly believe that if you put something on the plate you should expect it to be eaten and as such you should give it as much care and attention as anything else that you plate up. All that having been said overall the main course was good enough. The cheese board though not having the widest choice was however left at the table so that you could help yourself to as much as you wanted. The dessert was a home made plum tart; it was as good as a plum tart can be with a light sweet pastry providing a perfect balance with the tartness of the plums. The maitre offered us a juice; we said we would prefer large white coffees which he brought without any fuss.

This is a good restaurant and I would like to return to try one of the other more expensive menus, which were 29 and 35 euros and had such delicacies as frog’s legs on them. The menu that we ate was in general well cooked, very tasty and excellent value for money. The restaurant itself is attractive and the service is very good. It is easy to be picky, and I feel that that is my job but in truth for 12 euros a head, this is in my experience surpassed only by the Donjon at Bazoges, I would definitely recommend this restaurant, but book to avoid disappointment. I would also recommend that you leave yourself a little extra time after lunch to have a gentle stroll around the port to allow your lunch to go down and to enjoy this beautiful peaceful place.

Tate – 2009.

Early September Update

Just a few lines to let the three of you who are reading this (that might be an exaggeration) know what’s going on out here. I know my posts are a little bit sporadic but it is sad to say that I doubt even my family bother to read my blog as I will prove by challenging any of them who do to chastise me either openly on Facebook or by whatever means they see fit. I’m fairly sure that I’ll hear nothing from any of them. I must be such a boring old fart. It would in fact be a good exercise for me to know who if anyone is reading this, if I’m writing this to myself maybe I’ll pack it in, so if anyone who is reading it could take a mo to use the comments just to let me know, no need to say anything except to say that you’re following the blog and give your name. Thanks to G&J who I know do follow it.

Onward, upward and full speed ahead, the reason for writing this is as a quick update on what’s been happening here while I’m waiting for Trevor to come as we’re going out to a restaurant in Lucon for dinner. Then that’ll be another review to do and I’d only just caught up, ah well never mind.

Dorothy and Dave my next door neighbours have gone home, Dorothy was here for the school holidays and Dave was here with Ashley one of their grandsons for 3 weeks. During the last week of their stay and at their behest I organised the final transfer of our old house and wine press to them and I got 3 estimates for the demolition of all of the old buildings and the installation of a septic tank. This was no mean feat as August is the main holiday period for the French and getting anyone to do anything is tantamount to walking on water, even some restaurants close in August. Also the Englishman who has a house behind the discotheque (he suffers from mega noise on Friday and Saturday nights but has a wonderful view from his terrace of the foam parties, I must try to get an invite) waited 2 years plus for a single estimate, and in the end I was instrumental in getting that for him. I must hasten to add that this has little to do with my charismatic personality and is much more down to the fact that I have a passable command of the French language.

As you will see from the blog I went to my second Fete on a couple of Sundays ago, the Fete des Chaseurs (hunters) with the Family Richard. It’s like a big meal under a very big marquee, there are normally about 150 people from Cezais, but the hunters draw their numbers from further a field and so there were less of the locals that I’d met at my first Fete. I was the only English person there and occasions like this certainly tax the language skills. At these do’s everyone brings their own crockery, cutlery and glasses, it would never happen in England too many people would use it as an excuse to get absolutely hammered. Here it’s an excuse to get all the family together and to go out and socialise with friends and neighbours, while getting pleasantly mellow. There are all ages from the youngest of children to great grand parents, here in rural France the extended family is still just functioning, although I have noticed a change in the young, they seem to be engaging less and less in this type of event. It will truly be a pity if they do disengage from the family, like so many of the young people in England have, and decide to follow the American model. This fete was as usual great fun, I ended up getting pleasantly squiffy and talking to a very attractive woman from Paris, her 12 year old daughter who was incredibly pretty reminded me of someone famous, but I couldn’t for the life of me place who it was, I’ve subsequently realised that it was the young Karen Allen from Raiders of the Lost Ark. They were a charming family and it transpired that they only lived around the corner from Christian’s sister Sylvianne in Paris. We did exchange addresses but being mellow I seem to have mislaid it.

Having been interrupted while writing this it is now gone no longer Friday evening, incidentally the trip to Lucon was delightful. It is now nearly two weeks later and a Tuesday morning, the weather has finally broken and it is raining having been stunning all summer. My cleaner Marie-Jo had said that the weather was set fair for the rest of the month, but she has now changed her tune and thinks that autumn may have arrived. That is not to say that we won’t get any more good weather but I fear gone are the days when I will still be sitting by the pool at 7PM. Of course the good weather doesn’t help the writing, and the late pool evenings and other demands on my time all conspire against me. A case in point is about a week ago I left the pool at 6PM I could have stayed later but I was making Pizza for dinner which is a bit labour intensive for me. The Phone rang it was Tony (the man with the house behind the discotheque) he wanted some help with a form he’d received, could he come over. What can you say, he didn’t leave until 7.30 then I had all the prep for the pizza and cook it by the time I’d eaten it was 10.15 and so life goes, writing is something I squeeze in when I can. It is true that I could have spent less time in and around the pool, but that’s what I’m here for and the winter is long and cold without the opportunity to sit by any pools.

Fetes Vendéen

A couple of Sundays ago I went with Christian, Gisele, Nicole and Christian’s sister the lovely Sylviane, to the Fete des Chasseurs (hunters). In the morning there had been a fishing competition at the lake in Cezais, which my English neighbour David had entered. David is an addicted and very accomplished competition fisherman, but he was no match for the French trout fishermen, he came 27th. Now a Fete here is a different thing to a Fete in England, here it is lunch with family and friends normally in a large marquee and normally for about 150 people. This was my second Fete the first had been on my birthday and I had been with the same people with the addition of Huguette and Bernard. That time it had been a treat for my birthday and I hadn’t been allowed to pay for anything, except my draw tickets, this time I was just another member of the family Richard and was right pleased to be so.

Now an event like this would never happen in England, everyone sits at long trestle tables and brings their own knives, forks, spoons, dishes and glasses. The Fete on my birthday had been a celebration of the pig and was started with an aperitif, then soup, then cote de porc (a pork steak) with beans this was supposed to be a slice from a whole pig roasted on a spit with Mojettes (a large white bean in a sauce which is a Vendeen speciality) it turned out that allegedly because of complaints by some people the previous year that their pork had been too fatty, the committee had decided to buy in slices of pork, and as the Mojettes had proved to be expensive they were making do with a cheaper alternative in a tomato sauce. The main course was followed by cheese and then an éclair and coffee. We brought our own wine and after the meal I was introduced to Eric and his bottle. He is a youngish guy mid 30’s to 40 and he makes the local Eau de Vie, which is the pure alcohol drink that all of the fortified drinks are made of. You drink from his bottle at your peril. In truth the batch he had brought with him wasn’t too strong and so a glass of it wasn’t too bad, another glass would have been a test and after that, well that way lay madness, or something very much like it so I declined. The meal was great fun and incredibly social, I was introduced to Phyllis an English lady of whom I’d heard much and who is without doubt extremely attractive, she is however married and her husband Geoff seems a very nice guy. My friend Tony Severs who is a sprightly 84 year old yachtsman told me on an evening that I had spent with him that he had met an English woman in Rustington that had a house in Cezais. He told me that he was walking along with a SuperU (a French supermarket) bag a woman wound down the window of her car and asked him which SuperU he used, they were both staggered when they found out they both used the same SuperU and had properties relatively close to one another (within 10 miles). Even though I hadn’t met her at the time I said “oh you must mean Phyllis” and Tony was stunned he asked me if I could arrange for an aperitif evening so that he could meet her again, I agreed to do what I could, I love his spirit.

After the meal people did a variety of things from playing cards or petanque (a bit like bowls only played with flat metal disks) to chatting or watching the specially erected big screen TV which was showing the Formula 1 grand Prix. I mingled and spent some time watching Eric play cards, and then I went and watched Christain play petanque. Every now and then the four players would stop for a break and a beer, I of course joined them, it would have been rude not to. It was a delightful way to spend my birthday. In the evening beans on toast were served on paper plates and I didn’t return home until it was getting dark, it was all in all a splendid day.