|
RapierFugue -> RE: Your ultimate wannahave (7/15/2011 2:14:15 AM)
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: BKSir
Well, actually, I've been to a few places kind of like that, and plan on mine being that way. There is, technically, a menu. Written on a blackboard. Essentially, the chef went to the market, said "hey, THIS looks amazing today, I'll cook it tonight." They tend to be not exactly inexpensive places, but sooooo worth it usually.
There's an amazing place that does just that in Perpignan. Even better, the owner (a member of the Slow Food Movement) has a huge, slightly run-down old house just outside town, with an enormous market garden running to several hectares, and almost all the fruit and veg the restaurant serves is from that (as well as their own olives, and thus olive oil); every morning the chef picks him up from "home" in a beautifully beat-up old Peugeot van, they walk through the garden together, see what looks good that day, pick it and box it, put it in the van, drive down the road to the local butcher, get what meat they need (all local produce), then on to the coast not far away, to buy fish off the boats coming in (and if the one port doesn't have what they need they can drive to another not 10 km away), thence to the restaurant, to start preparations for lunch, then later dinner.
Better yet, the owner's Basque, so you get some French dishes, some Basque, and some specifically Catalan (his mum's Catalan, and insists on at least one Catalan dish every day). It's not even that pricey. Not cheap, but once you realise the time and trouble that went to make it, and you taste the results, you don't mind paying, in the slightest. Amazing place. I also like the fact that they aren't precious about food; they're happy (indeed proud) to make "peasant" dishes, and none of it is what you'd call "foo-foo" stuff.
There's a "menu" on various blackboards, but after I'd been there twice I gave up and just told him what I really don't like (which isn't much, but he remembered for next time, which I thought was nice), then left the rest to them. The rule is that nothing they serve contains anything fresh that comes from anywhere more than an hour and a half's drive from the restaurant.
Best of all it's next to a river, so it's a lovely place to sit outside and watch the ducks (and the girls) go by, and not too hot, even in the scorching summer heat. I'll be going back there this autumn and I pray it's still there - the owner wasn't doing tremendous business, coz many of the tourists seem to prefer a more overtly upmarket place - not that this place is run-down, just that it has a very down-to-earth, non-fussy approach to food. My idea of heaven, but many folk seem to prefer something more directly "upmarket".
|
|
|
|
