Skip to main content

LA GALINIERE, CAPESTANG - RESTAURANT REVIEW

We decided to try out La Galiniere after living in the area for quite a while and somehow passing it by. That was probably a mistake. The softly lit room with well-spaced tables and a casual atmosphere provided a pleasant, leisurely paced afternoon meal that was as easy on the wallet as it was on the taste buds.

We never saw a menu, opting for the 15 euro formula of the day. Cathey started with the seafood tart with small side salad. These little tarts are ubiquitous near the Mediterranean and this one, with mussels and shrimp, was just fine. I had the Serrano ham with salad. And corn. The little niblets of corn in the salad were, to my memory, the first we've ever been served in France. Nice touch (I've since come to learn that corn is considered exotic and is used quite frequently in salads here. Who knew?) We both opted for the roasted chicken with red wine reduction. Cathey passed on the fish because it was done with saffron and Cathey does not prefer that combination. No worries. With frites and tomato Provencal, the chicken leg-with-thigh was tasty and filling. For dessert, Cathey went for the cheese plate - three small pieces with the feature being the bleu with fig compote. I had the chocolate soup. Well, you had to be there. YooHoo French style. With whipped cream.

With wine and a coffee for me at the finish, the total bill came to 31.60 euros. Well worth the price.

Read more of my reviews HERE.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

RESTAURANT TEN, UZES: RESTAURANT REVIEW

Ten sits just off the market square in Uzes, one of the prettiest villages in southern France. The newly renovated space is airy and comfortable with tables of sufficient size and sufficiently spaced to provide for a pleasant dining experience. Service was cheerful, fully bilingual, and attentive without being overbearing. The food presented well to both eye and tongue. And the rate of approximately 30 € per person for a party of five included starters, mains, a dessert or two, two bottles of local wine, and coffees at the finish. Reasonable if not cheap eats.  So why am I hesitant to give an unqualified thumbs up?  It took me a while to figure it out. Uzes is a quintessentially French village in a quintessentially French region of southern France. There are those who will say that the Languedoc is just as beautiful but less crowded and less expensive than its eastern neighbors. I know. I'm one of those people. But the fact remains that for many people, villages like Uzes are t

Kreuz Market vs. Smitty’s Market: Texas Barbecue in Lockhart

I was born and raised in New Jersey. I didn’t taste Texas barbecue until I was twenty-two years old. What the hell do I know about barbecue? And what could I add to the millions of words that have been written on the subject? Well, I know a bit about food. I’ve managed to check out a few of the finer joints in Texas – Sonny Bryan’s Smokehouse in Dallas, Joe Cotton’s in Robstown before the fire, the dear departed Williams Smokehouse in Houston, and the incomparable New Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Huntsville . So I can speak from a reasonably wide experience. This will not be a comprehensive discussion of the relative merits of Texas barbecue as opposed to the fare available in places like Memphis or the Carolinas. It’s simply a take on our recent visits to Lockhart and the relative merits of Smitty’s versus Kreuz from our point of view. I’ll get all over academic in a later post. On our way out to the ranch in Crystal City, we stopped at Smitty’s. You have to look

CHÉ OLIVE / LE ZINC, CREISSAN: RESTAURANT REVIEW

No, it's not Chez Olive. It is indeed Ché complete with red star and black beret. I have no idea why and I wasn't about to ask. The French are the French and not to be analyzed too closely when it comes to politics, especially these days. Creissan is the next town over from our village of Quarante. We pass through it often and Ché Olive is right there on the main road at the entrance to town. (One of the signs still says Le Zinc. Olive says he prefers Ché Olive though.) Olive opened it a couple of years ago after leaving the Bar 40, Quarante's basic local watering hole that's undergone a bit of a renaissance lately. We hadn't heard much about Ché Olive from our usual sources for dining recommendations. So we just kept passing by. For reasons not central to this review, we decided to stop in for lunch on a mid-week in late December. The bar is cozy, the restaurant open and bright and modern. Newly renovated and perhaps a bit sterile. We were the f