Chips

... and i'm not talking about two cheesy smiling highway patrolemen on bikes...
I'm talking about crisps actually, not chips.
In English english, the picture above is one of a crisp. A chip is a french fry in US english, or a frite in french. [But just to confuse us beyond the point of reason, they call a crisp a chip.] ...
confused ?
don't be, because chips are also chips/crisps in England... whatever...
Having grown up in London, i have been used to a whole variety of flavoured crisps... [my favorite being cheese and onion], so you can imagine my amazement when I came to France [just a few miles acress the Channel] an saw that only had saltd crisps...
that was years ago...
since then they have managed a few boring flavours... but they have also manages to import all sorts of crisps to liven up the all too dull crisp shelve in the supermarket...
Bref, the one above is a sweet chili crips made by TYRRELL ...
Brilliant, light, very crisp, thin, tasty... whhat else does one want from a piece of deep fried potato ?

not for the squeamish

The andouillette ...
The french answer to haggis.
Pure pork, sometimes veal.
There are two ways to prepare these sausages. The whole difference lies in the fact that the sausage retains it's skin without splitting.
1. On the grill. you have to be careful as the skin tends to split easily when it's too cooked, so best grill on a low heat.
2. Lison's recipe. Melt up alarge chunck of butter in a shallow pan. Throw in the andouillettes with an egg cup's worth of white wine, and let them simmer gently. Once the white wine has evaporated, add hallf an egg cup of calvados, and let the whole thing to simmer for another 15/20 minutes.
Simple no?
Obvioulsly, they must be accompanied with forked mashed potatoes.

easy scallion pancakes

i spent the week end running through as many foodie blogs as possible.
it's amazing how many there are and the amount of time people have to nourrish their blogs. I must be in the wrong business...
anyway, one of the most common recipie when it comes to chinese food,is the scallion pancake.
piss easy to make, and yet so hard to get right.
mix 2 cups of flower and 1 cup of warm water.
Knead and let rest for a quater of an hour.
chop up a bunch of scallion as thinly as possible.
... 15 minutes later...
devide the pastry into 5 or 6 balls.
Flatten them out, then spread out some sesame oil & soya sauce over the surface.
sprinkle the scallion generously.
roll the pancake up.
once you have your long 'sausage', roll that up into a spiral, and flatten the whole thing out again.
fry on both sides for a couple of minutes...
yum
the next step would be to use the pancakes as a burrito and stff it with a stir fry of some sort.

a true surprise

OK, it doesn't look like much, but it's amazing.

A salmon tartar with some shredded veg & passion fruit.

What was the most amazing thing was the fact that the food was served

at a place called LE RESERVOIR , a small concert venue very similar to Dingwalls/Break for the Border with the velvety atmosphere of Ronnie Scott's,

the difference being that the food is of extremly high standards.

It isn't a cheap eatery (50/70 euros per head with the wine) but it's worth it.

Main courses are very elegant, and the meats are tender, lean, and of great quality.

Deserts were great... a farandole of caramel presented in different forms : ice cream, madeleine, flan...

(And dear reader, you must know that i do not have a sweet tooth. So for future reference, if i do indulge in desert commenting it's because it was either really good or a pile of shite.)

... and for those about to rock...