Albi Again – Tuesday, Oct 23rd

The best city in the area, the one that gets our vote anyway, is Albi.  It’s big enough to have interesting retail.  Also big in the sense of having a good number of touristic sites.  Cute winding little roads (or streets) through the old part of town.  And, enough of a population density to have good restaurants.  It’s less than 30 minutes from our house in Gaillac, which is another benefit. 

So, we decide to head back over, to try out our second Michelin starred restaurant experience of the trip.  We’ve chosen to go to l'Esprit du Vin.  I call to ask for a reservation, they propose 1pm, but I counter at 12.  We want to do some walking around before lunch, and enough places close at noon that otherwise we’ll just be looking through windows.

We time our arrival in the city to around 11 and take our walk.  From there, we end up at the restaurant where we are the second couple to be seated (by the end of the meal there are perhaps 20 people having lunch, probably because it’s a weekday and off season).  Our first choice is the menu.  Like everywhere else, there is a menu of the day.  It’s less expensive, but it also restricts our choices.  And here we’re willing to place ourselves in the chef’s hands.  This restaurant especially invites that with a "menu" that proposes you tell your waiter what you don’t like and the chef will create dishes especially for you.  Nothing to choose.  No specifics, only your preferences (you pick which 'menu' you want simply by the price you want to pay).  Intriguing, so, we do it.  And as I discuss my list of dislikes with the waiter, which I think of as simple (nothing that lived in the water), provokes a laugh from the couple at the other table.

After ordering, I go to the rest room.  Just outside, our waiter introduces me to the chef.  I’m not sure what to do, to shake hands or to apologize for being a picky eater.  So I say hello, thanks, and then move on.

The meal is great.  Without doubt, the best of our trip.  Maxine will describe our meal but will tell you in advance that she can’t do justice to the accompanying sauces, not sure how to describe them!:

• 3 amuse bouche – parmesan-crusted fried olives, guacamole with salmon caviar, goat cheese dusted with chocolate.  Note:  everyone received these.
• Additional amuse bouche -- Poached quail egg on bed of watercress sauce (our table only)
• Cream of cepe soup with walnut foam.  MP note – I don’t even like mushroom soup and this was amazing!  Maybe the key is find really good mushrooms/cepes.
• Foie gras with grilled mushrooms (2 different kinds) and artichoke hearts.  Very earthy and fall-like.
• Grilled beef with accompanying vegetables – baby zucchini, carrots, mushrooms, snow peas, fennel, edible flowers – and apple compote with floregano (a green flower that tastes like herb/oregano).  The beef and veggies were delicious but the apple was a strange taste with it.  I guess we’re more accustomed to apple with pork rather than beef.
• Chocolate mousse on a stick with chocolate coating and pear sauce,  also walnut cake with chocolate sauce
• Pear ice cream on a bed of Armagnac granite (Maxine’s favorite and something she plans to try to recreate at home)
• Coffee with assorted homemade chocolates

We stop one last time at the Gaillac wine producers place, the Maison des Vins.  This is our 4th visit, and second visit to the woman who's now working the counter.  In all that time, there've only been 2 other people who stop in.  We get the sense that she isn't getting many customers and especially not many enthusiastic, repeat, Californians.  She speaks very very little English but is actively interested in being helpful, looking words up in her dictionary at one point to explain something to us.  We taste the last of our wines, and after buying a bottle of wine, she presents us with a souvenir corkscrew.  I'd seen them in their case for 5E.  We're touched at the gesture and once more grateful for the small experiences.

Later on Tuesday, we have drinks with our landlord on her terrace.  She made a lovely selection of hors d’oeuvres and we shared a bottle of wine together.  We’ve been here for three weeks but haven’t had a chance to really visit together since the night we arrived (and we don’t remember much about that night given our jet-lagged state).  It was very nice to get to know each other better.  She is British and has lived here full-time for three years now.  Her house was originally a farm building.  She showed us pictures of its original condition – what a renovation.  We’re impressed that she could visualize the potential in the house.

Our day ends quietly.  A light meal, some reading, then sleep in this old stone building that we’ve been calling home for over three weeks now.

 

Some pictures from Albi: