LE COMPTOIR NATURE, LE SOMAIL: RESTAURANT REVIEW

If you live in our neck of the woods (Do French woods have necks?), and if you are into vide greniers (Car boot sales? Community yard sales?), then you've been to Le Somail. Twice every year, spring and fall, this quiet little community along the Canal du Midi is overrun with bargain hunters and with sellers both professional and private intent on convincing the assembled masses that their wares are indeed bargains. Tables line both sides of the Canal and the side streets of Le Somail for a couple of kilometers in total. It's a veritable smorgasbord for the discriminating trash hound.

We've had our share of luck. At various times, we've purchased a good-sized ceramic jardiniere to use as an umbrella stand in our entry hall, a collapsible wire egg basket that fits on top of the microwave but under the cabinet above, and there's a brass bell that we're going to use to replace our electronic doohicky as soon as I pull out my tools and figure out how to hang it.

Enter friends from Mexico. Cathey and Anna met at an exercise class at the Y in Allentown. Each having discerned that the other was an atypical Allentonian, they became friends. We became friends. And after retirement took us to different countries on different continents, we've kept in touch. Anna and husband Hank have even taken to visiting us here in the south of France in the fall around the time of Anna's birthday and mine.

This year, Anna's birthday day fell on a Monday. She asked us to choose a nice restaurant for lunch to celebrate. Monday? And the week of a bank holiday to boot? Every restaurant that I called was either closed or fully booked. I finally tried a restaurant that had been recommended to us but that we had never tried, Le Comptoir Nature in Le Somail. They were available. It seemed dangerous to book a birthday luncheon for a foodie friend at a restaurant that we didn't know. But what else could we do?

So. Monday. Off season. Quiet. The sun shining warm enough to dine outside. And without one of those vide greniers happening, no hustle and no bustle. Did it work for us?

It did indeed!

Check out the website HERE. The setting right beside the Canal provides a postcard view. The menu has something for everyone and is reasonably priced. And how many restaurants do you know that list the sources of their meats and veggies and ice cream and such? Often, both the region from which they come and the name of the producing farm or family are included. Take the duck tasting platter pictured below. The website even names the family that produces the cereals that were fed to the ducks raised 'at liberty' that provided the foie gras and the dried duck breasts. Also on the plate you'll find fritons - duck fat cracklings - creme brulee with foie gras at the bottom, organic lentils, onion confit, and a nicely dressed green salad. Price? 18€. Cathey ordered what amounted to a full-on Frenchified tapas plate with 10 or 11 different meat and veggie tastes - also 18€.

Don't wait for the next vide grenier. Worth a special trip.

Read all of my restaurant reviews HERE.

Duck Platter

Tasting Platter

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

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