Skip to main content

LAUZA, BORDEAUX: RESTAURANT QUICK TAKE

We chose the hottest day of the year to travel to Bordeaux. Of course. And the air-conditioned train conditioned the air to at least 30C if not higher. (85F for the Americans in the audience.) So after a five-hour ride - leaving a half-hour late and losing another half-hour on the way - we were hot and tired when we arrived in Bordeaux for our first ever visit. Hot and tired and hungry.

I had spent some time researching restaurants online before our arrival but none of my favored choices were in walking distance from our Airbnb. We were ready to eat and unpack and lie down RIGHT NOW. Two restaurants situated a couple of doors down didn't work for us. One was strictly Italian. Although at another time in another place it might have been an interesting choice, we didn't come to Bordeaux to eat Italian. The other had a simple card on the door: Dinner 60€. No menu. Wine included? Too much for a pig in a poke. So we set out walking down the block. It's an indication of how tired I was that I didn't bring along my tablet or camera.

Enter Lauza.

It's a narrow room and not too deep. Tables for maybe twenty-five or thirty covers. Nicely pointed old stone walls, simple furnishings, and American blues...not too loud...playing in the background. Was that ZZ Top? Pleasant staff. A young gent who practiced his English on us while we practiced our French on him and a young lady who performed all duties as well. Maybe a couple? Macht nichts.

We didn't go for the full dinner. Just one of the plates of the day. We both chose the pork and we were not disappointed. It may have been the best slice of pork that we've ever tasted. Tender and flavorful and a little ribbon of fat at the edges for moisture and cooked to perfection. We asked about it. The pork was from Aveyron as was the chef, who sourced the meat himself. Accompanied by perfectly roasted veggies, the plate addressed our hunger while satisfying our palate.

I couldn't resist dessert and Lauza delivered a fruity little concoction topped with a coffee-infused cream and a touch of chocolate just because I had asked if there was any chocolate on the menu.

Price? 82€ that included a bottle of wine that cost more than the pork plat du jour itself. City prices. But that's what we expected. Bordeaux is a city. And since all was proper, from greeting through service through preparation and execution, we have no complaints.

Recommended.

Find Lauza's website HERE. You can read more of my restaurant 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