We like to eat. And on a vacation, we figure that anything that you have to do 3 times a day oughtta be good.
For new readers, we spent a month celebrating our 5th anniversary in France (click on Paris, Provence and Provence 2 in the categories to read about it.) and I'm adding the occasional post--like this one about a restaurant called Mistral Gourmand in St. Remy--as time allows.
The call the fierce winds in Provence the Mistral and Gouramand literally means "greedy eater", but people choose to read the word in a more positive light.
Down the street from our hotel we found this sweet little restaurant that appeared to be a favorite lunch place of the local professionals. There were seats for no more than about 18 people, with a mirror on one wall so I could watch the diners behind me as they worked their way through a leisurely 90 minute lunch.
With encouragement from Chris ("take a picture!") I can show you a bit of our wonderful meal. I'll start with dessert (which is sometimes the way I eat at home--I mean if you save dessert for last, sometimes you're too full, but if you start with dessert, you never have to miss it.)
We split what they called a deconstructed lemon tart. All the parts were there, but arranged as a lovely pudding with accessories of lemon peel, meringue, whipped cream and a cookie in place of a crust.
And here you can see that we fully deconstructed our deconstructed lemon tart.
We both went for the same entree of a succulent and spicy chicken curry (although I think they called it a chicken friccassee) and cocunut rice. Not Provencal in origin obviously, but why be a purist?
And the house red (or did we have a rose?) was always good and cheap in Provence.
As a southern boy, if I can't have pork products everyday, then something resembling a deviled egg will do. Here for the appetizer, eggs with homemade warm mayonnaise. Wow, this dish made me so happy.
And here a bit of decor--kitchen implements for light shades and in the mirror you can see that the walls are decorated with images from early 20th cent. prints.
Great food, terrific service, intimate, local atmosphere--I'd go back in a heartbeat.
Details:
cuisine du marche, vins de qualite selctionnes
12, av. Durand Maillanes
13210 St. Remy de Provence
04 90 92 14 65
