Restaurant review: L'Aquarius

Restaurant name: L'Aquarius
Cuisine: French (primarily seafood)
Location: Le Tréport, France
Date: August 2013
Occasion: Holidaying in France

Having arrived the day before, and having been to this part of France many many times before, we always knew that the problem would not be finding a restaurant but choosing between them.  The town, which is a popular tourist destination among the French (but thankfully not the English), is a fairly typical French seaside village comprised of cobbled streets and shadowed under tall cliffs behind.  The main promenade, overlooking the marina and fishing port, is stuffed full of restaurants (not to mention bars and 'tat' shops), all of which are, let's be honest, pretty good and pretty similar. 

Upon browsing the menus, as expected all of them advertised fairly good set menus, with the favourites universally being moules frites, plateaux de fruits de mer, soupe de poissons and a variety of fish - often sole meuniere or cabillaud (cod).  So how to differentiate?

Fortunately, years of experience does help a little, and some of them were clearly nicer looking than others.  That's not to say that it's all about decor and looking posh - far from it.  When I was much younger (i.e. sub 10), it used to be about whether or not a place had tablecloths - but I now know this is nowhere near accurate.  In my experience, some of the very finest places, with excellent food and the best atmosphere, are among the more downmarket and cheap looking.  So never judge a book by its cover or, in this case, a restaurant by its appearance.

On the first evening, having arrived fairly late, we chose reasonably quickly and stopped at a little place called Comptoirs de l'Ocean - a brightly coloured place both inside and out, adorned with purple, pink and pale blue curtains and with a variety of menus outside.  It was a very good meal, but I decided not to review it here - the moules frites that my companion had were, however, excellent, served in two marmites (rather than the usual one) and allowing a choice of sauces.

The second evening, therefore, we were a little less rushed and so a little more selective.  Having had a relaxing day wandering, we had been able to look at each place.  Eventually, we decided on L'Aquarius - a fairly small restaurant slightly further from the sea, and adorned with the more usual pale blues so often found in French seafood places.  Again, there were a variety of menus outside, advertising all the usual favourites.  Inside (which we chose because the evening sky was looking threatening) the decor was simple but comfortable, with wooden tables covered in simple red tablecloths and the usual nautical artwork on the walls.

Having chosen one of the medium-range set menus, my companion started with the Salade Parisienne - a simple but very appetising looking salad of cheese, ham and leaves - and I just had to go for the fruits de mer.  This, perhaps unsurprisingly, was excellent, containing the usual selection of oysters, prawns, sea snails, clams, whelks and a langoustine.  Experience has taught me that although these dishes always look enormous, there is actually a lot of shell so it's not a massive starter. 

Our main courses were equally good and were our favourites - sole meuniere for me and steak frites for my companion.  Although the latter was not quite as expected, coming in a pepper sauce (which she ordered and expected, but which was all over the meat) and with a potato rostie instead of frites.  I don't think she was too disappointed, however.  The sole was very good, being very lightly battered and then simply grilled with butter, with the flesh falling away from the bone and the spine easy to remove (as it should be). 

 

Finally, having already consumed more than we needed, we finished with a couple of light deserts - an ice cream with hot chocolate sauce for me, and a fruit salad for her.  Although I'm not usually a fan of ice cream, this one was excellent - with the chocolate sauce becoming chewy as it cooled and mixed with the melting vanilla ice cream.

All in all, an excellent meal.  As always, the set menus so often found in France are an extraordinarily good deal, and sometimes I wonder how the restaurants can afford to do it.  Not that I'm complaining, of course.

Restaurant review: Pepe Sale

Restaurant name: Pepe Sale
Cuisine: Italian/Sardinian
Location: Reading, UK
Date: August 2013
Occasion: None - just dinner out

This was not actually my first visit, that being several years ago when I first moved to Reading.  I couldn't remember much about it, least of all what the food was like, but I was surprised to think that I hadn't been back since.  Having eaten there now, I'm even more surprised I hadn't been back since that first time.

The restaurant is a reasonably small place, hidden on one of the back streets in town and not far from the theatre.  It's quite a way from many other restaurants in town, which is perhaps why I haven't been back.  From the outside, it's not particularly ostentatious or prominent - but it was certainly very busy by the end of the night, so clearly well known about.  A nice little bar by the main entrance, 4 or 5 tables near the door and then 3 steps down to a lot more tables.  We sat on the top level, by the large glass windows.

The menu was impressive, with all the usual Italian items as well as several other less familiar things.  I particularly remember the impressive choice of fish, always a favourite of mine.  The wine list was also quite impressive, but I'm afraid I don't remember what we had on this occasion - I believe it was a Sardinian white.

We started with carpaccio - mine a fish carpaccio (which was seasonally varying, and turned out to be salmon on this occasion) and the beef carpaccio for my companion.  Both were excellent, with generous portions (probably too much) as well as a significant amount of leaves.  I myself had had another beef carpaccio a couple of weeks earlier in London, but this one was much better - less dry, sliced very thinly, and accompanied by rocket and thin slices of cheese (almost certainly Parmesan).

The mains, however, were the star of the show.  Both myself and my companion are very fond of sea bass but she said she wanted it so, being the gentlemen that I am, I went for the sea bream instead.  This, I should say, was excellent - but, as it transpired, the bass was better, so I had much food envy.  I will have that next time!  The bream was done very simply in garlic, white wine and parsley, and filleted excellently.  The bass, however, was rather special.  The menu had described it as salt-baked, which I have seen done to other things (e.g. vegetables) but have never experienced it myself.  Once my dish had arrived, a large trolley was brought over holding what looked like an enormous mound of rice.  It turned out to be salt, and in front of our eyes the waiter expertly removed the fish from within, filleted and deboned it, and served with a drizzle of olive oil and lemon juice.  Absolutely superb, and probably the best sea bass we have ever tasted - the salt was not overpowering, instead simply flavouring the flesh.

My only regret, apart from not having it myself, was that we were too enthralled to take any photos for this blog.  Next time!

After all that, perhaps unsurprisingly, there was no room for deserts on this occasion.  We had our usual espresso which, as might be expected from an Italian, was pretty good.  Rather than trying a more normal Italian spirit, I went for a Sardinian Grappa which was actually rather pleasant, and without the usual burn of many Grappas.

So, all in all, an excellent meal.  The waiters were superb and very knowledgeable, particularly when filleting the fish.  So definitely a place to return to, very soon.

Hello

Hello and welcome to my new food blog!

I decided to create this in an effort to record some of my more memorable (for any reason, good or bad) foodie experiences.  Whether or not anyone ever reads these shall remain to be seen, but I hope so.  Ideally, it should be read alongside my other personal blog (at http://cjrwilliams.blogspot.co.uk/), the difference being the personal blog covers a variety of issues whereas this one focuses on food only - either eating out experiences or, occasionally, some of my own recipes and creations.

In terms of the eating out part, and commenting on restaurants, I did actually do this many years ago (before blogs were around), on my website http://www.met.rdg.ac.uk/~charlie/restaurants.html.  This, however, is very old now and has not been updated for several years, so I hope this blog will take up the baton.

And, in case anyone is wondering, "peripatetic" means a person who travels from place to place - a traveller, or wayfarer.  I thought this was rather appropriate.

Enjoy…