LE GRENIER DE PEPE, TOULOUSE: RESTAURANT REVIEW

Walking into the little space that Le Grenier de Pepe occupies just outside of the old town in Toulouse, you can believe that the dodads and gimcracks that make up the decor came down from someone's attic. Old tools, advertising plaques or plaques with humorous sayings, rusty lamps and broken clocks, all make for the type of atmosphere that some roadside restaurant chains in the US aim for but fail to pull off. In Pepe's Attic, it's genuine and it works.

We arrived at about 7:30 on a weekday evening without a reservation. Naughty children. And since we were a party of three, small two-person tables would have to be pushed together, leaving an empty place in a small room that probably needed to be filled in order to make the single sitting pay. After some thought, we were allowed in. We were fortunate. Within fifteen minutes, at least three other parties without reservations were turned away.

Le Grenier de Pepe advertises as a galette and fondue restaurant and those are your choices - an assortment of those fine savory French buckwheat galettes to choose from with crepes for dessert or fondues featuring either cheese or meats. Cathey chose the cheese fondue Normandy - a full pot combining livarot, camembert, Pont l'Eveque, and cider. Hot and tangy and cheesy good. Both Connie and I went for the meat, Connie the duck and beef for me. Connie's hotpot combined herbed cider, mine was white wine based. Connie's full duck breast was sliced quite thin and only required a few moments in the hot broth to cook through. Sweet, sweet duck. My beef was a bit chunky, requiring a bit longer to cook sufficiently, but well worth the wait. We shared from each other and we all agreed that the experience was unique, a fun and rewarding culinary find.

Fun? We were warned by our server that the cheese pot required constant stirring and that I, as the man at the table, was charged with the task. She would keep an eye on me, she said. And she did, pointing to her eye and back at me each time she bustled past our table. She also told us that if we didn't finish our entire meal, we would be required to do go back in the kitchen and do the dishes. Some might have found that sort of server interaction on the familiar side. We didn't and I think that she understood that.

Our dinners came with a choice of a salad or a charcuterie plate. Either made a satisfying start. The mains came with roasted potatoes. I finished with a couple of scoops of ice cream to ease my heated mouth. No other dessert. No coffees or digestifs. Rose en pichet for the girls and a beer for me. 80,50 euros total.

Well worth the price. Recommended.

Read the rest of my restaurant reviews HERE.

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

CONGRATULATIONS, DUNCAN AND FIONA: JUNE 1, 2019

We've known Duncan since he was about 5 and were honored to be invited to all of the festivities surrounding his wedding to Fiona. The wedding was held in a magazine converted to a military museum in Gosport. Duncan's dream...a wedding in a place where they used to blow things up. I've never been around so many uniforms. Live Long and Prosper! A kiss was the price to continue... That's Duncan's sister Clair arriving on the right. Grandparents...headed for 100 and sharp as tacks. Reception in an old magazine/museum. Mom baked the cake and made the ducks to order. Not from the wedding but seemed appropriate.

2004 BURGMAN 400 SPARK PLUG CHANGE

No, there won't be a video. Changing the spark plug was a relatively simple operation except for the fact that it was the first time that I took off any of my plastics. If you want a video tutorial, they're all over YouTube. I watched one before I got started AND I took my laptop into the garage and punched up the service manual. You can't be too prepared. And being prepared meant knowing that the fasteners holding the plastics together are likely to break when you mess with them. That's why I went to a dealer and picked up six before I started. Worked out well. Four broke. While I was buying parts, I made certain that I had all that I needed for my next oil change. And of course, I bought the plug, an NGK CR7E. The manual says to replace the plug every 7,500 miles. It's been a bit over 6,500. Close enough. My intention is to change the plug at every other oil change. The object of the exercise is to remove the left side leg shield to get at the spark plug. So,

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