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Kaysersberg Part 2- Domaine Weinbach and Le Chambard

These two names are definitely worth a visit to Kaysersberg alone.

Our day began with a visit to the well known wine producer Domaine Weinbach. It is a beautiful winery run by mother Colette Faller and her daughters Catherine and Laurence. We were received by Catherine Faller who let us taste their rieslings, pinot gris and some outstanding gewurztraminers and noble grain wines. The wines are all different certainly, but overall have very elegant finish and so smooth I mentioned the word "buttery" many times, basically I found their wines all delicious and easy to drink.

Husband was pleased that I love the wines, he is not generally as enamored of white wine as I am, but he was very impressed too, and ordered a good selection.

Just a few hundred yards away is the hotel Le Chambard, where we had reservations at their 1- starred restaurant of the same name. Everything sounded delicious, we ordered one of their lunch menus and another of their tasting menu. Since the meal was way back in April, I can hardly remember what amuse-bouche we had, just that it was very appetising.

White asparagus with morels was an a-la-carte item but they let me substitute it for my set. Being in prime season, the asparagus were at peak perfection and it showed through the simple classical preparation.

Husband's appetiser had stuffed morels and a foamy egg. He said it was very good. I was too absorbed in my dish.

My main dish was an extravagant young rabbit prepared in the fashion of "lievre royale" (a rich autumn dish of wild hare cooked with its own blood) accompanied with truffled gnocchi. I don't usually like rabbit, this was very good though, being very moist and flavourful from the blood-sausage stuffing. I took my time to finish the dish, as husband had two dishes in his set.

First, steamed cod with pureed potatoes. V enjoyed the purist flavours a lot.

Then it was a rack of Limousin lamb with a thin-crusted tart of confited tomatoes and courgettes perfumed with fresh mint. A classic dish done really well, again, V loves lamb so she monopolised this dish as well.

Then it was time for cheese. Here we can see the room, decorated in understated style and running in a gallery arrangement so diners get quite a lot of privacy and space.
 

Desserts were also excellent, especially my little flambeed stuffed crepes.
 

The best part was yet to come. The sweet trolley. The home made caramels were delicious, as were the huge pink marshmallows knowned as guimaves.

We enjoyed ourselves very much- the unfussy approach to food, the discrete yet efficient service and the comfortable, unobstrusive dining room. If you ever find yourself in this picturesque village, do yourself a favour and have a leisurely meal here. 

Le Chambard

9-13 rue du Général de Gaulle, KJaysersberg, France

T: +33 (0) 3 89 47 10 17

Kaysersberg Part 1- Le Moreote

After our lovely lunch at Maison Kammerzell, we drove to our hotel in the picturesque village of Ribeauville. The hotel is situated on a hilltop overlooking the area's wineyards, every morning we woke up to gorgeous views. We spent far too many hours in their indoor pool and jacuzzi area, and nearly missed our dinner appointment.

Alsace is a beautiful region, and we visited quite a few more picturesque villages and towns, but Kaysersberg would be in my memory the longest, because we had not one, but two wonderful meals there. Here is the first. 

It was dusk when we first saw Kaysersberg. The buildings had none of the extravagant sculptural follies that we see a lot of in Paris, but are quite charming and pretty. 

Still, when I saw the exterior of Le Moreote, I had to suppress some giggles. Bunnies on window sills and painted figurines were the last thing I expected to see near a serious restaurant but it turned out that this is typical of the region.

The restaurant is not big, just enough covers for about 20 people. White tablecloth and modern flatware settle somewhat comfortably with the dated 80's decor, it felt like we were in somebody's converted living room. The lady of the house managed the front efficiently, the husband cooks. Thankfully the food was very agreeable, starting with amuse bouches of tomato gazpachos and mini flammekueches- local flatbreads topped with lardons, onions and cheese. We were to eat flammekueches a couple more times during the trip, mostly tasty if a bit too rich, these were especially light and delicious.

Asparagus was in season, so I had to have some. Very good, I'm not sure that we needed foie gras with white asparagus but we were on vacation after all. Husband's starter was a little cocotte nestling four little raviolis stuffed with snails and creamy foie gras, also very yummy. A bottle of Domaine Weinbach riesling grand cru 2007 was the perfect pairing.

My main course of fillet of lamb with sweetbreads and polenta was a surprise. I love lamb in springtime, and this was perfectly cooked, the sweetbreads looked a little overdone but were not, the meats hardly needing the lovely glazed sauce with its peppy fruit finish. The couscous was delicious too, mildly spiced in a style I am sure is not Alsacien but definitely complementing the lamb. V, lamb lover herself, enjoyed sharing this dish with me, as in she ate most of the lamb and I had to be content with the couscous.

 

Husband enjoyed too his scallops and polenta cakes served in a laksa-like gravy. The polenta cakes were surprisingly adaptable to the creamy and mildly spicy sauce.

We were too full for desserts, but were very pleased with our meal. This is a restaurant with a heart, we could really taste the passion and enthusiasm in each dish. The decor might be a little provincial, but the cooking was clearly in the major league. 

Le Moreote

12, rue du General Rieder, Kaysersberg

T: 03 89473908

Would you travel for cabbage?

Strasbourg, capital of Alsace region, is a little over two hours away from Paris by train. We took the morning train and arrived in time for lunch. Husband booked a table at Maison Kammerzell. The restaurant is situated in the main city square next to a cathedral, i.e. Tourist Central. From the outside it looked imposing and was starting to fill up with prosperous looking business people. The first thing that striked us was the efficient greet-and-show-to-table routine at the door, they found our online reservations detail very quickly and escorted us up the stairs to a nice corner table with a view of the cathedral.

The building is centuries old, the upstairs dining room had a mediaeval sumptuousness that is quite welcoming and reassuring.

The sun was shining and a glass of chilled gerwurztraminer seemed like the thing to drink and it was delicious. Escargots in lots of herbed garlicky butter also seemed right and husband enjoyed it very much.

The child had the kid's menu of knacks with fries. Rather good, she was very pleased with this dish, not surprisingly.

I did not want anything too heavy, so I ordered the salmon choucroute. I don't think I saw fish choucroute anywhere else, but it is the specialty dish in this restaurant.

What arrived was a sizeable mound of choucroute covered in beautifully cooked salmon. The fish was delicious, so was the slightly tangy buttery sauce that was poured over it, but it was the choucroute below that impressed me. It didn't look like much, just a pile of cooked cabbage, but the taste was amazingly complex. Crisper textured than the typical German style that I usually prefer, and very full bodied, full of deep intense savory flavours balanced just so of mild sweetness and acidity, a far cry from the rough and overly sour pickled cabbage that passes for choucroute in Paris.

It is quite mysterious to me how they make such delicious choucroute in Alsace, but talking to a wine producer a few days later (more of that in another post), she revealed that one of the steps involved steeping and rinsing the cabbage in the local wine.

Back to our meal. Husband had made dinner reservations for the same evening, so he advised me not to eat too much. I was getting quite full too, and regretfully left half of the wonderful choucroute on my plate.

He too, had a tough challenge in front of him. His meat choucroute plate had a glorious selection of sausages, including a very good boudin noir, ham and pork belly. All very tasty, with a different type of choucroute that was just as amazing as mine.

We had another choucroute meal on the last day of our trip, in another well-known restaurant about 45 minutes away from Strasbourg; that was nice and all, but I greatly preferred the Kammerzell version. Everytime I see the choucroute that is sold at my local market, I kick myself for not eating more when I was in the restaurant. Maybe one day I can convince husband to accompany me to Strasbourg just to eat there again. It is not too outrageous to make a day trip just to eat cabbage, or is it? 

Maison Kammerzell
16, place de la Cathédrale
67000 STRASBOURG
T : 33 (0)3 88 32 42 14

Noodle nirvana at Noble House Restaurant KL

When Second Sister suggested dinner at Noble House restaurant, the first thing our mother did was to ask her to make sure they would be serving their prawn noodles. The restaurant assured us that this dish is available everyday, and so it should, it is heaven in a bowl.

It combines one of my favourite noodles- the slippery smooth horfun, with an intensely prawn-enriched broth and a huge prawn full of gorgeous roe and plump sweet flesh. The aroma was amazing. Nobody said a word when they ate their noodles, we had to dedicate all our attention to inhaling the heady scents and enjoying every sensational bite. I gave it full marks, but my mother said it can sometimes get better!

The restaurant is one of the more upscale operations among the Oriental group of restaurants, as evidenced by touches such as a koi pond, valet parking, some attempts at landscaping and obviously reflected in their prices. On the night we visited, there was a company function in one section of the dining room upstairs, the emcee and their karaoke competition did bring the tone down and so did their closely spaced tables crammed full of hungry diners.

The food is the reason for their popularity, the dishes come fast and were consistently yummy, some more so than others, like tiny little birds deepfried whole and served with a well-balanced Thai pomelo salad. These birds are called Shatin chicken, my father explained that these are today's replacement for pigeons which are harder to come by. Asparagus sauteed with macadamia nuts and fresh lily bulbs was excellent, the portion being generous with lots of crunchy sweet lily bulbs which is an important criteria for me. I wanted char-siu, and it was super, being properly fatty and lean in good proportion with a sticky, charred glaze.

Oh dear, writing this is faraway Paris is torture, I will stop now....If you are in KL though, do yourself a favour and make time for a meal here.

NOBLE HOUSE
No.19, Jalan Delima, Off Jalan Imbi, 55100 Kuala Lumpur T: 03- 2145 8822

Sambal ikan bilis- so hot your ears will twitch!

I mentioned this dish a long time ago but these past few months, readers of my microblog and twitter  would have noticed how often sambal ikan bilis crops up in our meals. Last December my brother brought a batch over when he visited and I kept them in little packets in the freezer, they came in very handy for quick meals or whenever we wanted something very intensely spicy, savoury and sweet in a jiffy.

During my trip home in February, I finally had a chance to find out the recipe and watch my mother make it. My mother said also that she used the same sambal base to glaze fried chicken wings in a dish that my fourth sister named "the ear-twitching spicy chicken", because every time she ate it, the heat made her ears go all red and tingling.

The ikan bilis is important. Very fresh ones from a wholesaler whose turnover is fast, bring them home and pick off the heads and gut them. Nowadays it is possible to buy them already cleaned. Mother likes to rinse them briefly to render some saltiness out.

This is batch one. Ready for frying.

Fry the ikan bilis in small batches. Drain. Set aside. Repeat for batch 2. She did this in the kitchen at the back of the house, the smell of crisping fish hung in the still and humid air, driving the cats insane.

The other ingredients are onions, gula melaka and ground chilli. Dried chilli ground with a little water to make a wet paste, in this case it was slightly too wet. The sweetening ingredient is gula melaka, the local palm sugar lends a gentle caramel sweetness to offset the intense heat. The sugar should have been chopped up finer too, but she didn't remember to supervise the kitchen helper. Quantities unspecified, as Mother says, "it depends on how hot you like it".

At this stage, the ikan bilis would make a lovely snack with drinks, but I resisted from scoffing the lot.

The wok was cleaned and filled with a new batch of cooking oil. It is heated gently then she poured in a scary amount of the chilli paste.

The chilli is cooked slowly over a low fire, it got all bubbly and splutteringly hot so Mother put a plastic bag over her hand for protection. Excess oil was ladled out.

The sambal lava, after cooking for about 15 minutes and emanating pungent fumes, was then ready for coating the ikan bilis. Batch 1 went in, followed by the gula melaka. Stir to coat, breaking up any unsuitably large sugar pieces.
 

Batch 2 of ikan bilis went in. Mixed and stirred.
 

The onions go in last, and are cooked very briefly, just enough to soften them slightly yet retain a bit of crunch.
 

Ta-da! The sambal ikan bilis cooling on a large pan. It was then time for Mother & I to sit down and pack into little packets, ready for my plane journey the day after.

Heong Kee Seafood

I know this blog has been quiet. Thank you for coming back, I do still have goodies to share, it's just that there are so many other distractions in my life right now.

Coming up, a family recipe for my favourite sambal ikan bilis, and a wonderful trip to the Alsace region. Meanwhile, the next time you go to Selayang, you could do worse than head for this gem of a place.

My third sister has a friend, he's known to us as The Collagen Man because he runs a business selling collagen-based beauty supplements derived from seafood. Collagen Man's skin is radiant with a youthful firmness that Nicole Kidman would envy, and he attributes it to a collagen-rich diet. One really hot afternoon in February, he treated us to a seafood lunch.

Restoran Heong Kee Seafood is located about 45 mins away from KL city centre, near the Selayang Wholesale Market. It is the preferred meeting place for the seafood suppliers and dealers of the wholesale market; so how does it pass muster for this group of highly discerning customers?

To start, the menu is heavy on fish and other seafoods, all of tip top freshness. The cooking is deft and light. River fish tail steamed and doused in soy sauce was excellent, the flesh firm and silky with no discernible muddiness. The head was braised with bean paste sauce and was just as delicious.
 

Prawns steamed in eggwhite was another crowd pleaser, especially with the children.

 

Teochew fish porridge was delicious too. Rice cooked till broken but not too soft, with thin flavourful slivers of fish floating in a rich and clear fish-stock was very refreshing on a hot day.

There were other dishes, such as the requisite plate of sauteed green vegetables but the highlight though, was a collagen-packed dish of braised fish jaw and fish-maws. Random cubes of bamboo shoots provided contrast against the slight crunch of the fish maws and the slippery smoothness of fish cartilage and gelatin, all bathed in a really umami-rich sauce. We picked the bones clean, and licked our lips still sticky from all that natural glue. Yum yum!

Just don't tell Nicole Kidman the address...

Restoran Heong Kee Seafood

33,Jalan Sj 1,Taman Selayang Jaya, Batu Caves 52100

T: (60)3 61371098

Finally, some decent eats along Orchard Rd

It used to be that Orchard Rd was the place to shop, but not really for food other than predictable big chain offerings from the likes of Crystal Jade and Kuriya. Which kind of makes sense, the rent alone would put off many restaurant operators.

Now, the situation is better and it is possible to plan an indulgent afternoon of good eating plus the purchase of something frivolous. One such example is Suju at Mandarin Gallery. A friend had suggested Ippudo, but I was ambivalent after reading some reviews, plus the thought of waiting in the long queue was not an option with two restless little girls tagging along, so we settled for Suju which is a short walk away from Ippudon.

The restaurant had not fully settled in, during our meal the lights went out again and again and the service was all over the place. I didn't take any pictures but whatever we ate of their dinner set menus were delicious and cooked with care. I remember the quartet of appetisers, 4 little plates of light pretty food to tease the palate, and the beautifully grilled Gindara and a gorgeous tofu dessert. Well worth a return visit, providing they fix the power issues.

Duo Le at Orchard Central was not bad either. The building itself is a mystery to me, it seemed to be all long escalators and lifts that go nowhere. Serving Shaanxi cuisine which is unfamiliar to me, our group of makankakis made short work of the dishes that came in quick succession to our table. Cold chicken appetiser of chicken in a light piquant sauce was mouthwatering, as well as a chilled celery salad and refreshing liang pi (transparent noodles) salad.

One of my favourite dishes that evening was a DIY dish of mantou pockets stuffed a stirfry of chicken with fresh and preserved vegetables, I loved the abundance of crisp and crunchy vegetables and their contrasting textures with the slightly chewy bun.

The rest of the meal was not too memorable. Shaanxi cuisine as presented by Duo Le seemed to tread a safe but largely unexciting middle ground between the comparatively subtleness of Cantonese cuisine and the assertiveness Szechuan cuisine. It is not an unwelcome change, and I look forward to how the restaurant will evolve. 

By contrast, the Japanese restaurant next door, Ootoya, managed to impress in spite of its chain restaurant setting. The staff worked in a drilled, robotic way, the lighting was rather harsh and the noise level quite intolerable but the food more than compensated considering the variety and portion size. In fact we had so much difficulty deciding what to eat we had a bit of everything, including some very fresh fried oysters, baked scallops on rice and the child enjoyed very much her soup noodles.

Stuffed as we were, the dessert menu still managed to tempt with lots of our favourite sweets: chewy mochi with soy powder and red bean parfait, Japanised caramel pudding, matcha ice cream jazzed up with brown sugar syrup and even matcha panna cotta. Best of all, after all that indulgence, it was just a short walk away to the nearest retail fix!

Suju: #04-05/07 Mandarin Gallery, 333A Orchard Rd T: +65 6737 7764

Duo Le: #08-09/10 Orchard Central, 181 Orchard Rd T: +65 6509 8616

Ootoya: #08-12 Orchard Central, 181 Orchard Rd T: +65 6884 6901

JB Ah Meng & the three-storey noodlesticks

We were away most of February, and the break couldn't have come at a better time. This winter was particularly cold and harsh with lots of strong wind and near-zero humidity.

Back in Singapore, we ate well with very little effort. Within hours of landing, I received a message about a dinner gathering organised by A. At said dinner, we were joined by none other than local food hero KF Seetoh. Present as well were some longtime foodie friends and Makansutra forum veterans. Conversation, unsurprisingly, revolved around food, and the darling restaurant of the moment was discussed. None other than JB Ah Meng, where the food is good enough for Seetoh to introduce to Washington Post journalists. We quickly made plans to eat there two nights later.

To call it a restaurant would be giving it airs. JB Ah Meng occupies part of a coffee shop on Lorong 23, smack in the heart of the red-light district, but shop space is taken up by the kitchen. Customers sit on basic tables and chairs set out on the alleyway between shophouses. As Seetoh was expected, they put a pink plastic sheet on our table, i.e. we got VIP treatment (but I must clarify, everyone paid their share of the meal; other than a tablecloth we got the same treatment as every other customer).

The menu occupies one A4 sheet, mostly cooked-to-order dishes that is typical of the cze-char style in Johore Bahru. What stands out also is their down-to-earth prices, eating here is inexpensive.

 

Open kitchen existed long before they became fashionable in fine-dining restaurants. Looks like they favour Kikkoman and Pearl River sauces.

The food came out in quick succession, and were just as speedily devoured. Deep fried fish skin, which I observe has become the must-have dish on every cze char restaurant menu. This was excellent, the skin shatteringly crisp in parts not soaked up with the tongue-tingling dressing of the young papaya salad.

 

Underneath the mushrooms and braised chicken there lay a bed of silky transparent noodles, all the better to slurp with my dear.

 

What every customer come here for is their signature dish of "Sam lau maifan", literally translated as "three-storey rice noodles", the origins which I am ignorant of. What matters is that this was absolutely delicious.  I love my chow-maifan, and this ranks as one of the best I've eaten. The noodles were presented almost like an omelet, with loads of beautifully charred surfaces permeated with that intoxicating and desirable aroma of "wok-hei". They use a particularly finely stranded noodle which absorbs flavours well but is prone to breakage on handling, so to obtain such results need considerable skills.

A closer look at the noodles, all long and unbroken. Looks are not as important as taste, and the taste was very good.

 

Another interesting dish. Brinjal (eggplants) deepfried then cooked in a quasi-Sichuanese fish-fragrant style. The twist being that they have managed to make the brinjals taste like fish. Beyond their crisp exterior, the pieces of brinjals were delectably soft and fish-paste like inside.

 

Paparazzi shot. Lotus root chips with sugar peas for the obligatory vegetable course. Who were we kidding? This is not the place for spa cuisine. Most of the dishes here are deepfried or panfried, but never greasy or oily, with generous dashes of seasonings for maximal taste impact.

 

Pork chops marinated in fermented bean curd, then deepfried. Not as strongly flavoured as some local renditions can get, and strangely a bit dry in some parts.

Prawns coated in salted egg yolk and then deepfried is not considered exotic anymore, but what made this dish pop was the addition of sweet, crunchy kernels of corn in the batter. Not cardiologist approved obviously, but what a way to go eh?

 

This dish of tofu and taukan (compressed tofu skin) is very common in Malaysia but hardly known in Singapore, until now.  Every time we eat at any Chinese restaurant in KL with my family this would be a default order, we love the textural contrast between the silky soft tofu and the soft spongy layers of the taukan. 

 

Another typical Malaysian cze char dish- Stir fried yau mak (romaine lettuce) with fried dace. The crunchy sweet vegetables punched up with the smoky salty fish is not easy to get right. This time the vegetables were slightly overcooked and wet. 

There was more food. We ate, we drank, we reminisced, and then we ate some more. The street life unfolded around us, and we speculated on the goings-on around us. Good company and good food go hand-in-hand in making a good meal, and this was a great start to our holidays.

JB Ah Meng: New Good Place Eating House, 2 Geylang Lorong 3. Dinners only.

Les Cocottes de Christian Constant

Les Cocottes is a restaurant in the Christian Constant empire and for this reason alone we have not visited earlier. After a disastrous dinner at Les Fables de Fontaine and an overpriced yet lacklustre lunch at Café Christian Constant, husband refused to give them another chance. Even though I keep hearing many good things about Les Cocottes. No, no, no.

Until I put my foot down last Saturday. It was nearly 1 p.m. and we had dropped the dogs off at the groomers. The alternative was to eat at yet another questionable touristy or indifferent cafe along rue Cler, so husband reluctantly agreed to drop me off so I could line up for a table. A 30 minute wait turned into a 15 minute wait, so he had one less thing to grumble about.

It was all counter seating. Granted, the three of us were at a table, but it was a high table. Green walls and yellow lighting made it impossible to take decent pictures. Plastic place mats and lightweight water glasses on pale wood surfaces send out a no-nonsense message. There is zero atmosphere, the food is the main focus.

From the starters options, I ordered a ravioli of langoustines. It came covered in an intense seafood broth. The raviolis were highly delicious, boasting silky slippery skins and generous fillings of sweet langoustine flesh. Husband was silent, he was concentrating on the pate campagne made according to a recipe the great man learnt when he was a young apprentice. The child had a ham omelet, she ate half of it, which meant it was ok.

The mains are served in Staub cocottes, hence the name of the restaurant. I initially wanted the special of the day. Stuffed cabbages. However, they had run out. As a back up plan, I settled for their caramelised potato stuffed with pig trotters. What came was three boatlets made of slow cooked potatoes stuffed with an insanely rich meatball that was less meat than melting fats and sticky gelatine. The only accompaniment that made sense was a good bunch of undressed rocket leaves.

Awesome is an overused word but this was a knockout dish. Many mid-priced restaurants in the city put things on the menu that demonstrates their cleverness in turning very cheap ingredients like pork belly and tough cuts of meat into grandma's special braise or hachi parmentiers (and make their best profits, no doubt) but this takes the top prize. Three pieces were overkill though, I would be satisfied with a one-piece appetiser serving.

Another pet gripe of mine is to see scallops presented in menus as carpaccio, which conjures in my mind too much unnecessary handling of the delicate flesh, not to mention fobbing off customer with one or two scallops at unreasonable price. French scallops, the ones that come in pink shells, are not expensive in winter and should be enjoyed in bounty. At Les Cocottes, they do it right, a good demi-dozen panfried quickly and served with a lemony gratin of endives. This dish effectively put to rest any of husband's lingering doubts.

I ordered dessert. Gaufres are like waffles, and mine came with chantilly cream and salted butter caramel sauce. It was without fault, the gaufres golden and crisp, the cream at least 2 inches high and the caramel totally gorgeous and plentiful in its own little jug.

The food is very good. Unpretentious good food that charms first-time visitors and draw back regulars. Here's looking forward to Mimi and Rufus's next grooming session!

Les Cocottes de Christian Constant

135 rue St Dominique

No reservations. Closed Sundays.

Les Galettes des Rois 2010

It's nearly the end of January already. Only a few more days to eat galette des rois. This year we ate about 6 of them and by now I am completely sick of them. Here's my round-down of our favourites.

My neighbourhood patisserie Malitourne manages to surprise us every year with their reliably consistent textbook rendition. Crisp, airy puff pastry casing, check. Good quality frangipane, rich and fragrant without that overwhelming fake note, check. Good price, check, although at 14.50 euros for a 4-person cake it is more expensive than our last comparison test two years ago. 

What I had intended to do this year was to test the latest trend in this traditional cake. Like substituting frangipane with apples (Dalloyau) which made me wonder if that doesn't make it an apple pie instead. I read about Lenotre having a rhum-baba version and was curious to try it, unfortunately we left it a little late, they stopped selling this limited edition item within two weeks. Still, husband humoured me by bringing home their regular version.

Nice couronne. Galette impressively tall. Pity about the pedestrian paper bag though, not too classy.

I warmed it a little too long in the oven hence the darkened edges. The puff pastry was so light and thin it shattered upon contact with the blade of a knife. The frangipane was generous and of very fine quality without being cloying. The feve was very shiny too. Coming in at 22 euros makes it a treat for special occasions.

Until I washed the feve and discovered the heart stamps. Awww....

What we managed to do was to get to Pierre Herme quite early on in the season and they had two special versions. First was the "Pralinée". I got the version for one which means it doesn't have a feve. 

The filling is of hazelnuts and caramel, seriously delicious. Layers of nutty buttery sweetness shot through with a faint salty bitter edge. If it was not for our small family I would have bought a bigger cake. The instruction was to eat it unwarmed, otherwise the hazelnut filling would melt. 

Their other special was une galette made in the flavours of their famous confection Ispahan. I love the Ispahan especially their ice cream which is available in hotter weather but sometimes it doesn't translate well e.g. in croissants. Giving it benefit of doubt we brought one home. A 4-person portion cost something like 32 euros, this had better be good.

Thank goodness it was. The almond paste was there in the background, but played second fiddle to the gorgeous fruity flavours of the raspberries and rose-scented lychees. It was a marvelous and exotic treat, made all the more so accompanied by a pot of good tea and looking out into the cold and dark city. We shared the other half, still warm, with the gardienne and her husband, they too loved it.

I have to admit though, the reason I was so into these galettes is the feves. It brings out the "masak-masak' inclination in me. Here we have a collection from the past three years. The well-known patisseries have more elegant feves, e.g. the miniature of Pierre Herme's Plenitude confection but I love the nostalgic whimsy of the little sheep and milk jug too.  Rufus was no doubt considering if Bambi was actually edible.