google.com, pub-2557206291112451, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 Best Eating Out in Languedoc: September 2012
The restaurants recommended in this blog have all been visited by me and my wife and often with friends. We have visited them at least once. I only recommend restaurants that have a quality that, in my opinion, makes them worth a visit.
Some are world class restaurants, some are very simple, but the food is always worth the price and the chefs have prepared it with pride and love of good food.
The food is essential for being mentioned here. Minor problems when it comes to service and other things are mentioned but does not disqualify them from being recommended.
We have also eaten in some restaurants in the area that do not leave any memories worth writing about.
Finally we have been to very few bad restaurants and have been badly serviced in a few.
These three categories are marked differently in List of Restaurants.
marks our special restaurants. On the map they are found by the red marks and in the search term list under coup de ceur

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

LE JULES VERNE


LE JULES VERNE - Tour Eiffel, 75 007 Paris
Guide Michelin
We have a very nice memory from Restaurant Le Jules Verne in the Eiffel Tower – we had our wedding lunch there 20 years ago. We had planned to revisit the place a couple of years ago, but it is a bit too costly nowadays. A lunch on a weekend was 200 euros and 85 on weekdays.

If you however want to do something special it is a fantastic experience. Of course, the food is excellent and the venue could not be more special. What we appreciated was the unpretentious elegance without any kind of snobbery. The chef is one of France most well known Alain Ducasse.

Even if the food is top quality it is not because of that you go to this place. Just sitting there is an experience.

LATEST VISIT: Not recently
NUMBER OF VISITS: 1

Sunday, September 23, 2012

COCO SWEET


COCO SWEET - 4 Place Salvador Allende - 11200 Lézignan Corbières

Lezignan-Corbières does not have a lot of good restaurants. It is not too much to say that it is quite poor for a town of this size in this area. One place we have noticed and passed many times is Restaurant Coco Sweet, but has never been tempted to go in. A friend said it was good so we decided to try it.

It was a very nice experience! The first impression when we came through the door was how spacious the restaurant was and how well designed the interior areas were. It was quite full of people so we sat down and was immediately serviced by a very friendly and professional waiter.

The menu was not at all what we expected – it had a mixture of traditional dishes and more exotic food. Remarkable was their 800 grams entrecote, which must be enormous. I settled for the 300 grams version and the meat was absolutely excellent. The women had an exotic chicken-dish that was really good. The selection of local wines is good and the prizes very reasonable.

So why did we not go to this restaurant earlier? First of all it looks very small and a kind of provisional from the outside. The name of the restaurant does not make us think of a serious place that put their first interest on the food – nothing could be more wrong. Secondly they advertise themselves as “grill, glacier” that also give the wrong signals to us and finally the whole signage from the outside make you think of fast food, drinks with umbrellas and fancy ice-cream.

We are very happy to have found such a good and unprentetious restaurant within a few minutes from our home.

Report 2014: Friends have reported that the chef has left and the quality has become quite bad and so has the service.


WEB: http://www.cocosweet.net/
LATEST VISIT: 2013
NUMBER OF VISITS: >5


EN CATIMINI ♥

EN CATIMINI - Le Château 16, Place de la République, 11200 Ferrals-les-Corbières

Restaurant En Catimini has moved from Lezignan-Corbières to the little village Ferrals-les-Corbières and is now located in a beautifully renovated town-house in the center of the village. Our first visit was the result of an invitation from one of our favorite wine producers – Famille Fabre in Luc-sur-Orbieu.

The chef had prepared a gourmet dinner there the food and wine supported each other perfectly. To remember specially was the quail that was absolutely fantastic and the whole dinner was of very high gourmet quality.

We studied the standard menus for the restaurant and found a basically traditional kitchen for the region, but with quite a few innovative varieties that we have not seen before. It seems to be the best of the local combined with a lot of innovation and new thinking.

We were sitting in the little garden there they also grow some of the products they use in the kitchen. They have an impressive wine list with local wines to very reasonable prizes. The service is friendly and professional and we will certainly come back to this restaurant.


Revisited in May 2013: It is mostly something that is not so good when you eat at a restaurant. We could not find anything the second time we visited En Catimini in Ferrals de Corbières. We decided to try one of the little more expensive menus for 40 euros as we had a simple but very good wine-testing menu the first time.  We were sitting in the beautiful garden there it was sheltered despite the little windy weather.

The chef takes her inspiration from traditional French cuisine but shows a great deal of innovation and creativity. This is a very good concept as it suits both traditionalist, who likes more generous food and the modern gourmand that love the new way of playing with texture, tastes and aesthetics. All dishes we got fulfilled both these preferences. Exceptional was the starter Sushi Catalane, based on smoked duck. We both had file of duck as main course. It was perfectly grilled and tender and juicy inside, accompanied with perfectly cooked vegetables. The cheese was a pure (potkäse) of blue cheese flavored with Calvados and served with strings of apple, peppery rocket salad and endive leaves. My cafe gourmand was overwhelming – a little of everything as it is. My wife got 40 cm of lovely chocolate mousse.

Besides having a good lunch we learned about a few new wines both with the food and afterwards when the owner and I discussed the virtue of different AOP Corbières Boutenac wines. It is possible to buy most high quality wines from the area here at the same price as at the producer’s. Served at the table the prize is double, which is a moderate profit compared to Sweden where 300% ad on would not be unusual in a gourmet restaurant.
We are so happy to have another great restaurant within 15 minutes from our home.

Revisited June 2013: We decided to eat Sunday lunch with some American friends They had never visited the restaurant and loved to go here as we had talked about how good it is. This time we had their least expensive menu. The starters were as always superb, but unfortunately the mains did not live up to our expectations. The “tête de veau” that  two of was not made in a way we liked. The mixed grill of fish was, as the leg of duck, dry. For dessert three of us had “ile flottante” and the vanilla sauce was very nice with a taste of orange flowers, but the egg white was a bit tough and not soft as I should be. We were not satisfied something that we could have accepted if we had not taken friends to the restaurant.

Revisited April 2014: If last time was a kind of mishap, this time was absolutely perfect. We had a birthday lunch for a friend and were five in the party. Gain three of us had the sushi catalane and it was delicious and even more elaborated, both aesthetically and taste wise since the first time we had it. The giant shrimps were also very good according to the rest of the party. Our friend who loves traditional food had veal kidney, which according to them was an absolute dream. Our piece of pork was tasty, tender and very elaborated.
The quality continued all through the lunch and they made a great effort to customize the dishes to my wife that have to follow certain restrictions.

The service is very professional and friendly and we enjoyed the meal very much all of us. For the first time we were sitting inside in the nicely renovated dining-room.

Revisited July 2014: The lunch of the day with our friends Anne and Janne. We were sitting in the fabulous garden in the shade. The temperature out in the street was 35 but here it was lovely. The food was excellent as usual an we all had frog legs in tarragon sauce for starters and three of us settled for rabbit and one for fish. Service could not be better. One of us have special preferences of medical reasons, which was met in every detail.

Revisited July 2017: We have not visited the restaurant for a while – there are so many good places to go in the area, but En Catimini is always on our favorite list. We went there with our grand-children and their parents. It was perfect to sit in the garden with the boys. As always, the food was excellent and specially the children liked the special children’s menu. They have really managed to prepare food that attract both the eye and the pallet of children. The boys said they were not hungry, but soon the plate was empty.

Revisited May 2018 (Piece-day WW2): As always a fantastic reception and the food was as good as it always is. We bought a case of a very nice dry Gewurztraminer from a local producer. It is nice to have such a good restaurant just 10 minutes from home. It will be even better in the summer when we can sit in the beautiful garden. 
 
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/pages/En-catimini-resto/112350452127606
LATEST VISIT: May 2018
NUMBER OF VISITS: 7