Adventure #233: Fish La Boissonnerie (Paris)

We spent the morning visiting Musee d'Orsay. It was great for the kids to see some of Monet's water lily series after our recent visit to Monet's Garden in Giverny.

After the museum, we went for lunch at Fish La Boissonnerie in 6e, our final gut busting lunch in Paris before we leave. The restaurant is run by a Kiwi and a Cuban with an Englishman in the kitchen.....in Paris.....interesting. This set-up makes the restaurant particularly popular with English speakers.

Very interesting frontage.

Boiled egg with potato salad. Delicious.

Lamb liver with melon and pickled onions. A little taken aback when the dish first arrived.  The liver looked a bit dry. But it turned out great. The sweetness of the melon and the sourness of the pickled onion went really well with the liver.

Pork with vegetables on a sweet potato mash. Pork is moist and tasty. Went really well with the sweet mash.

Steak with parmesan polenta and courgettes. Beef is a mouth watering medium rare. Love the polenta.

Tuna with cabbage and cucumber with black current sauce. Another wonderful dish with still pink tuna.

Apricot crumble. Different but yummy.

Banana bread with chocolate ganache.

G wanted the cherries pannacotta but they ran out. G was really disappointed and must have looked the part coz the waitress came back with whatever they have left of this dish just for him!

Very good food in a cosy setting. 

Our last gourmet meal in Paris.....with preparation, the food we had on this trip is generally good. Very pleased but starting to miss Oriental food......... 

Adventure #226: Le Surcouf (Cancale)

We actually came to Cancale to have dinner at Le Surcouf but got distracted by the fresh oysters.  After the 2 dozen oysters, I just couldn't face dinner so we went for a long walk along the shore.  It was low tide and there was really nothing to see except boats "stranded" on the beach at low tide ......

Finally, after an hour or so, we decided to have an early dinner as there was not that much to do.

Still full from the oysters, I only wanted very little to eat, so I ordered the another gem of the French gastronomy which is the original fish soup or soupe de poissons. This fine and tasty soup was accompanied with a little pot of the garlicky saffron sauce known as rouille ('rust"), a mound of grated cheese, and a bowl of croutons.  Quite enough for me.

G had this raw scallop dish for starter which he said was rather good. I will take his word for it as I am not a fan of raw scallop.

G actually ordered the sole for himself but something was lost in translation and the restaurant split the sole into 2 portions (this is one) for the kids.

The older one had moules and it didn't disappoint.

This salmon was for the little one but with the orders all messed, we all ended up having a little of everything!

A couple of light desserts to finish off the meal.

Nothing much in Cancale except for the oysters.  Food at Le Surcouf was good, would have been better if we didn't already pig out on the oysters.

Adventure #225: Fresh Oysters (Cancale)

After St. Malo, we drove to Cancale for dinner.  Cancale is a holiday town with a street by the sea with holiday shops and restaurants.  Right at the corner of that street, where the lighthouse and jetty are, is a small oyster market made up of a handful of stores selling fresh oysters to eat there or to take away.

The fresh oysters were of varying sizes and ranges from 4 Euro a piece to 4 Euro a dozen! If you decide to eat there, the store keeper will open the oysters for you, serve the oysters on a tray with a lemon and a plastic knife for an extra 1 Euro.

We bought a dozen from this lady.

And we just ate them on the steps next to the market overlooking the oyster farms.

After eating, just throw the shells on the beach which was already covered.

After the initial dozen, we went back for another dozen. This time we had bigger ones for an extra Euro a dozen.

Men working the oyster farms

I am not much of an oyster fan but to eat oysters so fresh and in such a casual environment was such an unique experience. Not to mention the costs! Very glad we came. Now.....what are we going to do about dinner??? I guess we have to feed the kids!

Adventure #208: Ezo Seafood (Take 2) (Hirafu)

Ezo Seafood is another of our favourites and this time we went back twice in a week! Once by ourselves and once with the Chans.  We loved it so much, the older one has elevated this to top spot!

The photo we took of James the last time we were here wasn't that good, so we had to make sure this one does him justice.

I am not an oyster fan, but these fresh oysters were just FRESH!

Some uni to get the taste buds going.

And finally THIS is what we were waiting for.  Alaskan crab legs! This time we made sure everyone had at least 1 leg each! The meat so sweet and juicy and the tangy dipping sauce, just took this to a whole new level!

Clear clam soup, so fresh and so yummy! And great for such a cold night.

I tried the clam chowder on the second visit but I think I preferred the clear clam soup better.

Deep fried Smelt.  Delicious! So crispy.  The kids loved the the dipping sauce - thousand island with a spicy twist.

Braised rock fish, always a favourite with the kids to eat with their Japanese rice.

Potato wedges. Nice but have to admit the one at Bang Bang is still unbeatable.

Grilled squid, once again delicious.

Grilled salmon with a lemony sauce.  The fish was wonderful, particularly loved the sauce.

One of the kids wanted udon and for a seafood restaurant, the quality of the ubon is excellent!

Once again, we had so much to eat, we couldn't stuff ourselves with dessert. James gave the kids some free brownies to take home.  Suspect the brownies were homemade because they were, can't think of another word, delicious!!!

Since we all voted Ezo as our favourite restaurant in Hirafu, we will undoubtedly be back again next ski season!


Ezo Seafood
170-165 Yamada, Kutchan-cho
Abuta-gun, Hokkaido 044-0081
Japan
Tel: +81-136-22-3019

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Adventure #204: Restoran Long Grilled Fish Seafood (Jin Jang)

This December when we were home in KL, my brother Alex took us to his new found food joint in Jin Jang.  Don't think I have ever been to Jin Jang before!  Anyway, over the course of 2 weeks, we were there 3 times and here are some of the dishes we tried.

濕奶油日本螺 Clams in cream sauce, so sweet and delicious.  A must have!

鴛鴦腸 Intestines cooked 2 ways.  I preferred the deep fried ones.

有機豆付 Organic tofu, again cooked 2 ways.  Not much difference from a fried tofu, the colour though is rather unusual.  Again, preferred the dry one with dipping sauce which tasted rather like the cream sauce above.

We tried crabs cooked 3 different ways:

奶油蟹 Crab in cream sauce.  Yum!

燒蟹 BBQ crab. This is their signature dish.  Excellent! Another must have.

咸蛋黄炒蟹 Crab with salty egg.  This should have been a great dish but the egg yolk were stuck to the shell making it less tasty.

燒浦魚 BBQ stingray. Another good dish.

They have 2 fried rice. This is 海鮮炒飯 seafood fried rice.  This one had chopped salted fish on top, so can be a bit too salty.  The 啦啦炒飯 fried rice with clams was way better. Dry and full of flavour!

We also tried other non-seafood dishes but they were not good at all, especially the fried vegetables.  Suggest you only eat seafood dishes here.