French Food: Shattered Expecations

French Food… Where do I begin?

French food is viewed as the the pinnacle cuisine. Some of the best chefs in the world are trained in the French cuisine because the techniques and skills are admired all over the world. Even the Michelin guide favors French cuisine.

Le Cordon Bleu is a French Culinary school and that cooking class was amazing and I took a croissant cooking class, cant get more French than that.

I was very excited to go to France and try to food and be in one of the food capitals of the world.

I loved it immediately. There is something pure and amazing about having beautiful and tasty pastries everywhere, fresh baguettes in the boulangerie, quiche, anything you can think of, anywhere. It’s great.

But what’s the restaurant scene like? the most hit or miss experience I ever had.

When I was little, I thought that there was a secret to good food.  I would watch cooking shows and think “wow that must taste incredible, I wish I could taste it” and I would cook a lot and always wish it would taste better. Then, I went to San Francisco with my dad and ate at 3 different Michelin restaurants.  A 1, 2, and 3 star.  All of those restaurants were very good and creative. I really appreciate the creativity, thought and use of ingredients.  But not every bite was the best bite of food I ever had. The plates were beautiful. and the dishes were perfectly executed.  But we ate at a dumpling place (which now has a star but didn’t when we went) and it was one of my favorites even though it was simple.

But with all of those dishes I ate, I never tasted anything than blew me away. It was very good and I had never anything like it, the experience was incredible, I will never be able to recreate it but it wasn’t the flavor I was hoping for.

When I planned this trip, I was hoping to taste the magic.  But I don’t think French food has it for me. The French have a very specific taste.  And that taste is subtle.  I also learned that in my cooking class. When I went to LCB, the appetizer was disappointing to me.  The flavours were muted and simple.  I just thought I under seasoned it. The entrée was better but it was all things I have had before, just really well executed.

Then we went to a well known French Restaurant in Mont St. Michael (Le Mare Poulard), and I thought I would taste the magic. So I was expecting this meal to be the best food I have ever had. And it wasn’t. I didn’t like my starter so thank you Graham for switching with me. The mushrooms were too mushroomy and the egg was watery and made everything mushy.  The salmon did had the flavour punch I was looking for but not enough texture and the flavour was okay.  Ty got tartar and the beef chunks were too big. Flavour was good but not great. 

The next course was scallops with a lemon grass sauce.  I was expecting the lemon grass to sing and to be amazed but again, it was very subtle.  The scallops were cooked perfectly and had a very nice char flavour but again, it was okay.

Ty’s lamb was soft and tender but flavour was soft. 

Even the dessert was okay.  I had mango with a coconut panna cotta. The panna cotta had no sweetness. Just coconut which was okay. 

The most creative dish was the sweet omelette. The restaurant was known for omelette ( truffle omelette) but I was not paying 45 euros for one of them when my entire meal was 55 euro

The omelette had a really great fluffy texture and and the apple and pear was a nice complement. It was weird but I liked it.

But I don’t really get it.  None of these traditional French dishes were a wow from me. A lot of technique, sure, but technique can only make something taste so good.  I thought it would be the meal but it wasn’t and that’s okay.  French food is okay and it’s not my favorite. I appreciate the subtleties of flavour and the technique but I was a wow and I didn’t taste the magic.  

The next day we were going to Lyon, which is the culinary capital on France, and I was very excited about the food. As expected, the boulangeries and pastries were delicious but I was getting sick of the one dimensional food.

As we were walking, we came across a Vietnamese restaurant and Graham and I got very excited. Finally some familiar flavour. We saw that it would be open for dinner later so we walked around and would come back.

Turns out when we came back, the kitchen was closed and Graham and I were heart broken. I was not in the mood to pick another resturant and there are resturntas and paitos every where so Ty, its your turn.

I had nothing to do with the next decision.

Since we are in Lyon, every where we go, there is a restaurant with “Lyonaisse” sign. It look French, traditional, it much be good. This is where French food came from, its been good so far, what could go wrong?

Turns out litterly everything.

The menu is is in French so we have no idea what we are ordering. We have no wifi or data so we cant look anything up but we have google translate and a waiter that gave recommendations.

Ty ordered beef carpaccio, Graham ordered a rosette and I have no idea what I ordered.

It started ok. A rosette is just salami and pickles. Somewhat underwhelming, but that’s ok. Ty’s beef carpaccio wasn’t too bad, it was somewhat flavorless with a strange texture. Then I got served what Ty described as “A crime scene that will never be solved.” There were 3 pieces of a grey sausage, some grey lentils, and a tzatziki type sauce. The taste was edible, half decent even, but I lost my appetite instantly from the sight. We should have taken a picture. We should have remembered what it was called. We’re sorry, We don’t have the evidence of the depressed food that laid before us.

Spirits were still high. Lyon is the food capital of France after all, the best cuisine in the world according to some hoity toity people who we now have decided don’t know what their talking about. Ty and Graham were losing their minds laughing that I had a fish mousse of some sort coming my way, Graham blissfully unaware of the tragedy that would befall him.

Then the mains came. I’m literally sick writing about it a day later. My stomach still curls. But lets start with the only edible dish we received, Ty’s herby beef. A 1/3 inch thick slab of fatty gristle steak over salted to the moon and back, with soggy pissy vegetables. The fish mousse is exactly as it sounds. A mousse that tastes like fish and served in some sort of brown sauce. It is the same gross color and the fish egg concoction got mushy instantly and it was so bad. I fully lost my appetite after the main so this did not go well.

Graham got a sausage with potatoes and a mustard sauce. On the surface, it seemed like he had the safe dish. The potatoes were lovely. The sauce was good (relative to everything else here). The sausage. The sausage though. If you care to know, look up an Andouliette sausage. Its intestines, still in chewy chunk form, with no seasoning wrapped up in some sausage wrap. It tasted like they were still in the animal. The texture was gag worthy. Two bites in and that was that. This soulless grey lump staring at him, mocking him for the fact that this exists. A psycopath sitting a table away is gleefully enjoying their wrapped poop chutes. We have no idea how.

Desserts were a brilliantly delicious chocolate cake, an actually bad fruit tart, and a “floating island,” which is some whipped egg white type lump in a sea of oversweet sauce. After the fish mousse though, nobody wanted the marshmallow texture.

One disastrous meal later and we were ready to leave France. I wanted to leave the continent all together. We got out of there, went to the nearest bar, and slammed a beer. Went back to the hotel and ranted.

Literally the most disgusting meal we have all had. The worst part was the next day when we were passing patios and there are people every where enjoying fish mousse. I gag.

The next day, we had two lovely meals and guess what they were. Asian. We got Vietnamize and Thai fusion both times and it was fucking delicious.

Despite the negatives, there is good French food, we just found a lot of bad stuff. Over all, ill give the experience 5/10. I am not sure if I will seek out French food ever again but some of the stuff we ate was tasty.

No magic here but I am excited to go to Spain and try some new food.