The Miserable Meal
I found the food diary that I’d kept when I was taking a module called the Sociology of Food in university, and it’s inspired me to write about the food I ate during my weekend trip to Lyon with my friend Steph.
You’d think in France, we wouldn’t have a problem finding food. And it did seem so at first. I saw a Relay outlet at the train station near our hotel, and got all excited because I subsisted on ham & cheese Relay baguettes when in Disneyland for two days and I thought it to be Da Bomb, cos it was cheap and it tasted great. But when I checked out the baguettes in these relay outlets, they were more expensive than I'd remembered so I wasn't about to buy one. Moreover, I thought perhaps it was cheap only relative to Disneyland food, and possibly delicious because we were ravenous. We got some recommendations from the hotel staff (who introduced us to some apparently local food such as salade lyonnaise, somethingorother lyonnaise, some frog leg sort of dish, and Tarte tatin) and set off, opting to take the bus. HOWEVER, we ran into some trouble regarding our unvalidated tickets (we’re tourists! We don’t know anything about your transport system, you bunch of corrupted, money-faced conductors), and when we got to the first restaurant, we were told that it was fully booked. They recommended us another restaurant a few streets down, so that’s where we headed, and we realised to our delight that this was a Michelin starred restaurant! But it was full too, no surprises there. On the bright side (or maybe not, given what happened after), we could make a reservation for dinner so that’s what we did.
After that, we headed for the other side of the town where there was a restaurant that Steph’s friend recommended. When we got there, it was half empty so we trooped in, thankful that we would be getting a meal at last, but oh no! They were closed!
So we traipsed through the streets, more or less having given up on getting a proper meal and just banking on being served a gastronomical dinner. We passed several chocolatiers and patisseries, and we got one macaron each, while I got a Nutella crepe and Steph got some weird chocolate pudding.
We visited a church (where we took pictures with mops of hair in front of our faces - well, Steph’s face, really. She started a fashion trend) and went to see the Roman ruins (these were the ruins that made me set my sights on Lyon. I have to say that they were not THAT impressive; I was hoping for more artefacts).
We headed back to the middle island, where we strolled around and looked for other rpotential restaurants or ice-cream parlours to try, and then window-shopped at this interesting shop which sells pasta making machines and other food wares.
We then trudged to the restaurant. We stopped by an Italian restaurant that appeared to have many accolades. It was completely empty as it wasn't opened for business yet, and when we went in the snooty angmoh seemed very reluctant to serve us and he very quickly told us that it was fully booked. Then we entered the restaurant we reserved. The waitress remembered Steph’s name, which was very sweet and welcoming. She then proceeded to give us the low-down on the menu, and we decided we’d order the Salade Lyonnaise, which was one of Lynn’s specialties, and then the quenelle.
The Salade Lyonnaise was good! I finished almost everything, except for the fatty parts of the meat. Steph suddenly asked if there was alcohol in the dish, and I said I couldn't taste any. She then clarified that she thought so cos I was very red in the face, hahaha. It was only after the mentioned that I realised that hey, yeah, she was kinda pink too. Next came the quenelle. It looked interesting, like two big buns in some gravy that looked like curry. And given my Singaporean food-loving heart, I thought it looked good - I always dip my bread in curry anyway.
So I took a bit of the bun, only to realise that it was not bread. It was meat, but the processed kind. Something quite like fish cakes. The quenelle came with a bowl of rice, which I took only a few spoonfuls of. The gravy with the rice was good, but to eat the deceptively-bun-looking fishcakey was really tough. I didn’t even finish half when I decided to cut my losses, as it were.
We asked for the cheese, just a small mouthful. One was cheese with garlic, and the other was cheese to be eaten with sugar. Mine was the sugar one, and we didn’t manage to finish the sample-sized ones we were given.
So then last was ice-cream. Ah! How can you go wrong with ice-cream? We were so thrilled! Here, we'd be stepping on home ground, especially with my one year's experience of working at an ice-cream parlour. We confidently asked for the next course. ... Only to find a blood red sort of sorbet being set in front of us. Berries. I ordinarily like berries; Steph does not. Both of us didn't like this one: it was so sour that we had to grimace after each tiny spoonful. Although to be fair, as Steph said, it truly does clear the palate.
After that we were full and really quite nauseated from the meal, so I suggested walking home (also because I was keen to avoid a run-in with those carrion conductors). It was a long walk back, down dark streets that were at times slightly alarming, but not without beauty - the view across the river was lovely. And then we went back to our room and collapsed.
The next morning (after a pretty decent night's sleep notwithstanding dusty pillows with a singular strand of pubic hair beneath them) we were determined to not be caught off guard by poor food choices, so we spent a looong time asking the concierge (same dude as the previous morning) about places to go for breakfast and also some places of interest to visit (Steph researched on some special underpass thingamajigs and a fountain). He was superbly industrious and kept googling, and even printed out places to go. Trouble is, he was a little slow because he was very thorough, so he gave us many many choices and kept some guests waiting for their cab.
We wanted to check out a genuine patisserie for breakfast, and avoid the carrion again, so we took the scuttle service (ie our legs) to where the shop was. Only we never made it there. We got distracted by a row of cars parked outside an industrial looking building that I thought was a car showroom, but it was really an indoor market, something like the Takashimaya food hall you'd see in Japan. There were many people doing their marketing there, and we oohed and ahhed at some of the patisseries, which had macarons. We decided to buy two petit caneles and one medium sized tarte tatin, and we got the shopkeeper to cut the tart in half so we could share. The petit canele had a texture a little like niangao, and it also had alcohol, according to Steph. And the tarte tatin was good! I liked it, as it was sweet.
We then walked further along, and we came across a small local and quiet bakery with tarts of many different kind. They had a mini range of tarts, and we thought it would be good to get those because then we'd be able to try a huge variety! I mistakenly took the price per mini-tart to be €0,50, and of course our auntie souls were delighted. We plotted to get about four mini tarts each, only to realise that actually each tart was €1,10. Not. Cheap. So then we cut it down to two tarts per pax. I chose the meringue looking one, plus one with three raspberries. Steph, on the other hand, went with a walnut one plus the famous praline tart we've been seeing everywhere. We then painstakingly divided each tart into halves so we could sample all four. The lemon meringue tart was great, as was the praline one (although the pink still scares me off). The raspberry one was not bad, and the walnut was great.
By the time we'd finished, we reached the pharmacy of the previous night (where I found a toothpaste that was named Marvin and where there was the slowest. Moving. Queue. Ever.). Turn out it was just round the corner of the chocolate ball shop the concierge recommended and we went in for a look. It seemed very atas! We took one each of the bestselling chocolate ball, then happily guzzled it down. It was sweet, so I liked it. We then nosed about at Starbucks cos I wanted to check out their cards (none were on display) and Steph considered buying some packages of caneles but decided against it. We then went to see the fountain, which was under maintenance. They'd removed all the figurines.
Then we went to see the special underpasses (for the life of me I cannot remember what they were called), and discovered a funky staircase that was apparently a tourist attraction and we stumbled upon it like the blurkids we are. There, Steph was shocked by the quickness at which an old man and his ladder elevated themselves. Because I hadn't realised what we'd seen WERE the underpasses, I made us climb all the way up the hill, until we got to the newer part of town where the residences were.
We took a walk, exploring the street markets and taking pictures with strawberries and a shopkeeper who wanted to mime poking Steph's cheek (don't ask us why).
We then decided to eat at one of the first cafés we saw. We were given the French menu where we only recognised confit and profiterole. We tried to order but the server thought we wanted English menus, so he brought us two, only these English menus had no profiteroles in them. So when we ordered we asked them for profiteroles as our dessert. I ordered the confit and Steph the salade lyonnaise (again). It was my second duck confit on the trip and the better one (although both are much better than Saveur, which has pretty much gone down the drain). So savoury and I loved the potatoes! Steph's salade lyonnaise was of some standard too. Then came our profiteroles. They were apparently huge by profiteroles, but we're just nice for me. Loved the chocolate and vanilla ice-cream and puff-bun, though they were nothing spectacular, just very pleasant in a peasant way. It was the best meal we'd had in France, and we spent it observing the parental skills of the various couples next to us. (There was a baby who just kept staring and smiling at us, so utterly adorbs.)
We then decided to head back to our hotel, but using public transport, as the trauma had worn off somewhat. When purchasing tickets at the station we realised that actually, the bus driver hadn't cheated us. We made sure to validate our ticket and got back to a bus stop near our hotel, where I decided I wanted to check out their mall, which was a huge disappointment because it was a Sunday and everything was closed apart from the cinemas. Yet there were loads of people loitering around! Cannot believe it, they really seemed to have nothing better to do. Then we winged it back to our hotel, considered the menu of the restaurant with the nice name card, but concluded it was too expensive and we hadn't enough time anyway. So we went to the toilet instead. And therein concludes our French gastronomic journey.