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.
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