Click on images below to enlarge:
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| Looking further south down Canal Saint Martin.
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| Dinner at L'Ambassade d'Auvergne
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| L'Ambassade
d'Auvergne, our dinner destination, was across the street from our
apartment. It serves food from the region of Auvergne.
| Another shot of the restaurant. I took this one on May 19th when we
tried to get in without reservations. I'm posting this duplicate shot
simply because I like its look: Di Yin reading the menu and the
bicyclist riding by.
| We sat upstairs. We liked the stained glass; I'm sad it didn't come out
well in this picture. The stained glass covers the whole window.
Incidentally, the chairs were comfortable.
| Di Yin, before dinner.
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| Basic rustic bread to start.
| Accompanied by pork liver pate and fresh butter. (I say fresh for a
reason: you can taste it.)
| "Cassolette de Fonds d'Artichauts Poeles a l'Auvergnate (Artichoke Heart
Cassolette with Ham and Laguiole cheese)" (a dish on their list of
regional specialties). Big artichoke hearts with ham in wine. The
sauce was great. The artichoke hearts were large and substantial (as
you can see in this picture). They required chewing--this surprised me.
| "Salade Tiede de Lentilles Vertes du Puy (Green Lentils Salad with
Bacon)" (another dish on their list of regional specialties). A warm
lentil salad with bacon. Quite good. The bacon made every bite better.
The dish
smelled great and kept its odor throughout the meal. Also, we
appreciate the note of mustard in the salad.
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| "Magret de Canard & Aligot (Roast Duck Breast with Aligot)" (a main dish
on their list of regional specialties). Aligot is like stretchy,
cheesy, mashed potatoes. It was too cheesy for Di Yin. We both liked
the duck; the skin was definitely good. Di Yin said, "the duck made a
good sacrifice."
| "Saucisse de Parlan & Aligot (Country Sausage with Aligot)" (another
main dish on their list of regional specialties). The chewy pork
sausage was tougher than most.
| The waiter cooks the algot. Halfway through the cooking, he came over
to do a little performance art and show how it looks.
| Yup, it's stretchy.
This and the previous picture were taken by Di
Yin, who's very good at taking food serving action shots.
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| Di Yin and I posed with our main dishes. Also note the
lentil-and-bacon salad: they presented it in a huge bowl, in effect
giving us a limitless amount. We imagine they took the leftovers and
served them to other patrons later.
| Chocolate mousse for dessert. This was rich, thick, creamy, and great.
Notice again how they gave us a huge bowl. I think it was two-thirds
full when we got it. We ate a lot. Di Yin imagines they clean it up
slightly and give it to later customers.
| At left, caramel ice cream. Too caramelly for me, but I'm not a caramel
person. Di Yin thought the caramel was good but Bi-Rite's, a San
Francisco joint noted for its excellent ice cream, salted caramel is
better. But even if I'm not a caramel person, I thought it worked great
on the mousse.
At top, macaroon pistachio ice cream. Di Yin said, "quite good." I
thought it was alright.
At right, strawberry sorbet. This was really strawberry-y. It worked
great with the mint.
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| Fodder for Saint Eustache Apse Image
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