All about the Bouchons, Baby!

Lyon is widely regarded as the Capital Gastronomique of France. According to the LP, "With lavish piggy-driven dishes, delicacies to savor, and a bounty of eating spaces, be it an old fashioned bistro with checked table cloths and slipper shuffling grandma, or smart minimalist space with state of the art furnishings and sleek city slicker crowd, this French cuisine king thrills."

We were promised trotters and offal. (Follow those links if you dare!) We were petrified. We were promised tablier de sapeur - cow stomach. We were shaking in our shoes. We were promised breakfasts of oysters and crisp white Cote de Rhone. Hmm... well that doesn't sound bad. Yes, we were warming up to the Lyonnaise style of cooking. So after a morning run, a delicious (free) breakfast in the Executive Lounge, and a long walk around town, we sat down for dejeuner (lunch) at Chez Paul.

Nicole did her best speaking French, while our waitress did her best speaking English. Jeremy, our beloved Creature of Comfort, chose to stay inside his English bubble. After a few words written on the red and white checked table cloth and Nicole's trusty iPod French Dictionary, all was well. And much to our delight, we were served the Menu of the Afternoon.

Lentils. Beans. Beets. Herring in oil. Pig Nose. PIG NOSE. Veal feet. VEAL FEET. Bread. A "pot" of local white wine, which for us, meant Beaujolais. Big bowls were placed on our table and we served ourselves. In hindsight, it is a miracle that we put any food on our plates!

The pig nose sort of looked like bacon. And if you didn't think about what you were eating, it was pretty good. Better than bacon, even. Perhaps more like Canadian Bacon? A bit more meaty. And fatty. And salty. The the veal feet? Um, they DEFINITELY looked like feet. Imagine putting your foot in a food processor. I swear it was straight cartilage. And mayonnaise. And salt. And the texture... Um, we were eating feet. Let's leave it at that. The herring. It was greasy slick! Tasted pretty good, especially when we didn't look at it. And relative to our other dishes, it was damn near comfort food! The lentils, beans, beets, and bread? Amazing. When we combined bites of the other stuff with the lentils and beans, we were a bit more confident with each bite.

As scary as the first course was, the second course was AMAZING. Jeremy had a huge andouillette sausage,  which is made from pig intestine. (Not your typical hot dog!) Nicole had a fish cake drenched in butter cream sauce. Honestly, we couldn't find any fish in the cake, but it was hard to not drink the butter cream sauce.

For the third course, we were presented with local cheeses. A creamy soft chive blend, and a local fromage that was a cross between brie and blue cheese. It was so delicious, it gave us chills. After the cheese, we were presented with a fourth course of more dessert. As with the first course, our waitress set each dish on the table and we served ourselves lovely prunes, a French version of Spanish flan, and *fancy* applesauce. Just when we thought we were done, we were handed a jar of digestive - sugar cubes soaked in a green liquor. Tongue numbing and really good!

All that eating definitely put us in a bit of a food coma. We walked around the city for a little while longer, but given the heat, we decided to head back to our hotel to watch Stage 5 of Le Tour and nap. We are now waking up to a tasting of Grenache Gris, a light, tart rose from Domaine de Mujolan. We'll head to dinner in a few. French Onion Soup, anyone?

A votre sante!

2010-07-08 - Lyon