CAFÈ DU PORT

CAFÈ DU PORT – Borne 436, Canal du Midi, Paraza

You can’t miss it when you come to Paraza. It is a small restaurant just at the Canal du Midi. The food is really good and the service friendly. We had nice salads and gazpacho for starters and the confit de canard for main was fantastic as the entrecote was. One of the best French fries we have had in the area.
For you who has a problem with French. The owner is English so you will get what you think you have ordered.


WEB: http://www.cafeduport.com
LATEST VISIT: July 2017
NUMBER OF VISITS: 1

LA GUINGUETTE

LA GUINGUETTE – Rue de la Fontaine Fraîche, 11200 Argens Minervois

This restaurant on the banks of Canal du Midi is very rustic and charming. It is the first time we visited it, but we have got good recommendations from many friends to go there. We were not disappointed. The food is traditional and well-made and the atmosphere is very pleasant. You sit outside under large parasols. It is nice to see the canal boats passing by while listening to old French chansons in the background. For the first time we had grilled Camembert cheese on toast with tomatoes and garlic. It sounds weird, but is really delicious. Try it for starter or as a small dish – it is quite filling.
They have a good selection of local wines at a good price and in the summer they have concerts in the evening.

WEB: http://www.laguinguette-restaurant.com/
Latest visit: June 2017
Number of visits: 2

L’Ô à la BOUCHE

L'Ô à la BOUCHE - 4 Allée de Cyprés, 11 120 Le Somail

Once it was a pizzeria, which we have visited, but with the new owner it is upgraded to quite a pleasant restaurant. The style of the place is really much more interesting than before and the first thing I notices entering the restaurant was the fantastic selection of very classy malt whiskeys.

Another first impression is the owner who is styled like a homeless teenager that have been sleeping under a bridge for a couple of weeks. All right for young people perhaps, but when you are over 50 and run a restaurant it is something else in my opinion, but I am sure some people think it is just right. Anyhow – the food is good at its best but the quality is a little uneven and overpriced compared to what you can get in the area. Possibly because of the location on the banks of Canal du Midi with all foreign tourists that have to stay close to their boat.

Our entrecôte was really good and tender and my wife’s turbot was good as well, but mine that was slightly smaller was over-cooked. So was the lobster one of our friends eat. The service was very nice and we got four glasses of sparkling for free because we had an anniversary. We will certainly return to this place as Le Somail is a great place and the owner is a pleasant guy despite his “modern” looks.

WEB: http://www.loalabouche.fr/
Latest visit: January 2016
Number of visits: 1

AUBERGE DU SOMAIL

AUBERGE DU SOMAIL, 1, chemin de Halage, Le Somail

Canal du Midi is really popular among tourists. French people are in minority in restaurants there Dutch, English and German are common languages. As always in these places it is quite uncertain to find a good quality, restaurant in the summer. Mostly the quality is mediocre because the customers will just visit once anyway.
We have however visited the restaurant Auberge du Somail a few times and the quality of the food is quite good. The salads are generous and the meat is tender. The service is also fairly good, but it takes quite a time sometimes even outside rush-hour. This time the person who serves us addressed us in Norwegian when he heard us talking Swedish. It was quite nice for both us and him to be able to communicate in our native languages.
The only irritating thing was the dog of the house that was running around the tables begging for food. He did not - excuse me - look very healthy and scratched himself viciously all the time. It really affected my appetite and I was thinking of what kind of bugs had caused his hair to fall off in parts.
If you happens to be in Le Somail, this is a god place to eat.

Web: http://www.aubergedusomail.com/
Latest visit: July 2017
Number of visits: 6

AU LAVOIR

AU LAVOIR, Rue du Lavoir, 34440 Colombiers

I never stop being surprised about all these gourmet restaurants that one can find in the smallest villages in France. A few days ago we visited the restaurant Au Lavoir in Colombiers, a little village along Canal de Midi.

It was really a nice surprise. The restaurant was very nicely decorated in a subtle way. The food was excellent, with a few dishes that we don’t find in most restaurants. Of course foie gras was present in many dishes, both in starters and main courses. I had a fried fresh foie gras as this is not always present on menus. The ladies, Anna, Ann-Katrin and my wife were more traditional and had foie gras the traditional way. None of us were disappointed. Two of us had pigeon and two of us had lamb. I notices that they also had wild duck on the menu and many other things to try for next time. The cheese trolley was impressive, full of beautifully aged cheese. I myself had a delicious desert.

The only complain I have is the prize of the wine. Most restaurants here add 100% on the prize from the vine-yard, but her it was at least 200% add-on. I do not appreciate that in the middle of a wine district. The prize of the food was however correct and there was both two set menus and one choice were you could choose one, two, three or four courses from the “a la carte” selection. All four was 35 euros.

Revisited January 2015: We were five very demanding people celebrating my wife's birthday. We all agreed that it was the best meal we have got for a very long time.

Revisted January 2017: Like always a fantastic experience with excellence food and good friends

Revisited March 2018: Disappointment! We had my birthday lunch here today as it is a favorite. It has changed a lot in a year. Foie gras for starter was overcooked until it has shrunk into a little lump. The plate for the second course was so stained and greasy so we lost the appetite for it. The before fantastic desert was totally changed into something much simpler. The pieces of cheese from the trolley was cut without removing the dry part of the cheese that occur when it is left in air for a while.
Minor problems was that they did not offer us to taste the wine before poring and that their understanding for our complaints were minor. About the stained plate they said that some fingerprints were normal on a plate. We said that fingerprints do not normally stick.
They charged us a little less than normal prize despite we did not ask for it, which was good.

Web: http://www.au-lavoir.com/
Latest visit: March 2018
Number of visits: 9

LA PENICHE

LA PENICHE - 19, quai des Tonneliers, 11200 Homps

As we did not want to disturb Restaurant En Bonne Compagnie across the canal we went to La Pénich that we had been to a couple of times before and found quite pleasant. The service is good and friendly. Many of the staff can speak English which is almost necessary around the Canal du Midi nowadays. The food is good and it is the kind of no-nonsense cuisine that you might appreciate for lunch. They have a large selection of pizzas and a couple of set menus with traditional French food.

There is an inside restaurant and a few tables on the side of Canal du Midi. The main part of the restaurant is in the back garden which is divided into one open part there you can smoke and a glass-walled part what is possible to cover if the sun is to disturbing.

WEB: http://www.restaurantlapeniche.fr/
LATEST VISIT: 2013
NUMBER OF VISITS: 3
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EN BONNE COMPAGNIE

EN BONNE COMPAGNIE – 6 Quai des Negociants, 11200 Homps

The restaurant is located just at the side of Canal du Midi in Homps. Homps has a number of restaurants, some just open in the summer but this place is open all year. The place is unpretentious but the in-door dining room is very nicely renovated in modern style. The food is French, made with quite a lot of ambition, but still the prizes are affordable. The owners are English that makes it easy for those who still are a little nervous for ordering in French.

Homps (pronounced “omps”, with a short  “o” as in “off”) is one the many beautiful places along Canal du Midi. It is the home of the sparkling wine Chevalier de Malte, that Swedish readers might remember as the first drinkable and affordable sparkling wine that we could buy in Sweden.

Trying to revisit in September 2013: The outside restaurant had more than 12 free seats and it was totally empty inside so we decided to eat here. We were ingnored when we came 15 minutes past 1 on a Thursday. Finally we stopped the owner and asked her if we could get something to eat. "20 minutes waiting", she snapped - no welcome, no smile, just a very stressed body-language and an angry face. "Waiting for what?", we asked. "To order", she said, "we have many customers". We were not in a hurry so we could have sat down with a drink and talked for a while, but it was so obvious she did not want any more customers that day. We did not want to disturb her so we left for Restaurant La Péniche across the canal, where we were welcomed with a smile, despite a very busy restaurant. I do not think we will make her life more difficult by visiting her  restaurant in the future.

Revisited September 2014: Invited by English friends that assured us that the angry co-owner was not around any more we gave it a new chance. The food is quite good and the service friendly nowadays. If you are looking for a restaurant there you do not risk to meet any French people and everybody speak English, this is the place.

WEB: http://www.en-bonne-compagnie.com/
LATEST VISIT: 2014
NUMBER OF VISITS: 2
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L'AUBERGE DE LA CROISADE ♥

L'AUBERGE de la CROISADE - 34 310 Cruzy

The restaurant is beautifully located on the Canal de Midi. Their speciality is fish but they also serve excellent meat dishes. They offer a number of set menus to surprisingly reasonable prices. The service is very friendly and there is no problem if you have special demands. They are more than ready to alter the set menues to your liking. They have a large selection of local wines to affordable prices.
The most expensive menu - Lo Regal - is of seven courses and cost around 50 Euros. It is a lot of exellent food so you have to be very hungry and have a lot of time, Their three course lunch menu is under 20 Euros including a glass of wine and coffee.

At our first visit we were a birthday party of six people. The meal started with a taster which was a fluffy foam or rather purée made of fish and herbs. It should be spread on pieces of bread. This was just to warm up our taste buds a bit. Then of course obligatory homemade Foie Gras, which was perfect with unusual accessories as artichoke, sprouts in balsamic vinegar and some other odd thing. Too large portions though.

The third dish was a very nice fish in a tomato sauce and tapenade. After the fish we had a tiny little dish to make room in our stomach. It was lemon sorbet with a little Eau de Vie Langedocien. Then came the main course! Half the party had glazed veal liver and the other half had the lamb racks. Both were served with a polenta that was stirred together with cream and grated parmesan cheese to make it lighter than polenta normally is. Both dishes were very good but did not have to be so rich.

After this we had the small cheese plate, which contained a series of cheeses with an ash-rolled chèvre, a Tomme, something I forgot, a Camembert, and finally a Roquefort stirred with cream and muscat wine in a brown bread with figs. It should be eaten in that order. After this I was quite full so I thought Café Gourmande should be something little. That was a mistake, but it was fantastic. We washed all this down with white wine from the grapes Rolle and Viogner and a red Saint-Chinian wine from Château Prieuré des Morgues.

Revisited 2012 to try the lunch menu: It was excellent as we expected.
Revisited July 2013: Excellent food and friendly service as always!
Revisited June 2014: Very nice food and perfect and friendly service as usual. My wife's cod had a few parts that were not properly cooked which we told the head-waiter. He compensated us with two glasses of very nice sparkling wine even if we did not asked for any compensation. At this restaurant they are always willing to meet my wife's problem with sugar and sweet fruits. This time they prepared a lovely dessert on fresh kiwi for her. We like this place better and better.
Revisited twice in April 2015: Excellent the first time and good the next time.
Revisited July 2018: This is always a place that delivers and lives up to expectations.

WEB: http://www.auberge-de-la-croisade.com/index.php?page=accueil
LATEST VISIT: July 2018
NUMBER OF VISITS: 8

Reasons for the ♥:
Fantastic set menus and always high gourmet quality to a reasonable price. The service is very friendly and makes you happy even on a bad day.