Well, at first I thought I was doomed to a night in Dijon after taking a colleague’s dossier to help him out during our busy November season. Dijon, lying in the middle of Bourgogne, renown and beloved wine region of France and a wine-lovers and gourmand’s hub for all things glorious in French cuisine. Despite this I have somehow had a terrible dislike for Dijon these past years having passed through multiple times and been repeatedly disappointed. I happened to be pleasantly surprised this evening and of course won over again by half-assed, snobbish French hospitality and full-assed awesome food and wine.
So here I am at the La Flambée, a hotel I booked on a whim on Logishotels.com this afternoon five minutes before I hit the road. I was first surprised at the goofy architecture of the lodge; curved wood roofs, a detached restaurant, and wall paper covered in little ribbons and crimson drapes that made me feel I was about to go on stage at a cabaret at any moment. Oh, and spiral staircases in a tower leading to my room.
My waiter was a pear shaped, coke-bottled glasses wearing 60 year old professional with a wicked limp. He corrected my pronunciation of my wine order straight off the bat, telling me it was not a “sick” wine but a Maladiere. (“malade” means sick, and Maladiere is the appellation) I am pretty sure he cut me off though before I got out the “-iere” part. Pfff….anyway. The battle was on to prove I wasn’t a total American douche nozzle. I began to pick his brain on every aspect of the meal, restaurant history, and find out more about the wine appellations and grape sorts of my curious, blind wine order.
My menu was restricted to the “Soiree Etape”, which means that the meal and my breakfast are part of the room price at 93 Euros. So my options on starters were limited to 10 items, the plate to 5 options, and cheese or dessert.
Entree: Œuf en meurette.
Plat: Bœuf Bourguignon a l’ancien.
Dessert : 3 cheese plate
Dessert 2 : whisky
I began per usual with a cold croly, Heineken. Why Heineken in France? Simply because I hate French beer and Heineken is damn good. I ordered a half bottle of wine from the Bourgogne red list without consulting the sommelier because frankly I like surprises and in general most Burgundy reds in the Cote de Beaune or Cote de Nuit should just be trusted anyway. The appellation was Santenay Maladiere 2007, 1st Cru Controlee (Domaine Prieur-Brunet), from the Cote de Beaune. The grape is Pinot Noir. The wine was quite strong at 13.5 %, but not strong bodied. Light colored wine, with very little fruity aromas or tannins. Robust, but so dangerously drinkable. This is typical of Cote de Beaune, whereas Cote de Nuit tend to have more tannins and fruity aromas.
For my entree I chose Œuf en Meurette, a typical, warm burgundy entree consisting of 2 poached eggs over garlic toasted bread, floating over the meurette sauce. Meurette sauce is the same sauce you get in Boeuf Bourguignon: red burgundy wine with white pearl onions, lardons, shallots, and mixed spices. The sauce was very rich as it should be, I didn’t need to add any salt, and it went perfectly with the beer and my first tasting of the Santenay Maladiere.
The boeuf bourguignon was served with roasted eggplant and a side of pommes de terre au gratin dauphinois. The beef was everything it should be, no knife necessary. The potatoes were screaming butter on the first bite, but that all melted away into approval seconds later. I never realized that roasted eggplant might have a bitter taste? I wasn’t sure, but after several bites was convinced that it might be true. The little pot of Dijon mustard and some salt masked this just fine. My eggplant experience extends only to Baba Ghanoush where the garlic, salt, lemon, and tahini mask any bitterness.
Excellent dish.
Excellent dish.
For dessert I had a cheese plate to complement the last crumbs of bread and remaining red on the table. 1 slice of Brie, 1 slice of Camembert, 1 slice of Bourgogne cremeux (spicy and sharp)
My digestive was a local “whisky” called Marc de Bourgogne, made with grapes and stems of grapes instead of grains. It is distilled just as a whisky and stored in oak barrels. Marc de “whatever” is common all over France, varying on the grape strains to give unique flavors. Marc de Champagne, Marc de Jura, Cognac….same family. The French like grapes and stay away from grain whiskeys.
Food: ****
Service:****
Price: *****
You can't beat Soiree Etape in France, but they are really hit and miss. This was a total hit, so for 1 night, dinner, and breakfast in a beautiful hotel, 93 euros is outstanding. I highly recommend this place if ever in Dijon region.
I felt like I was there! Do you have pictures of the interior? Love the snooty waiter part where he didn't even let you finish your "iere" Pfft! the French, ya gotta love em.
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Loved learning the new word appellation. In my Webster’s New World, Third edition, the entry below appellation was the French two-word phrase, appellation controlee (in ‘controlee’ imagine the circumflex accent over the second ‘o’ and the acute apex accent over the first ‘e’). This definition said it was a designation on the label of certain French wines, brandies, etc. guaranteeing (controlling) that the contents of the bottle meet certain standards for carrying that name on the bottle - i.e., type of grape, vineyard location, method of production and alcoholic content. Which you already knew all that, certainly (bien sur?)
And a definite ‘pfff’ to that waiter with the wicked limp for being so impertinently impatient with a paying guest.
When I read that the pommes de terre au gratin were made with dauphinois, my glands did begin to water. That’s my favorite cheese as of late.
Your tastebuds are more refined than mine. I’ve never picked up that eggplant was bitter, but then I do have an affinity to the strong and bitter tastes. Arugula and radicchio add such a nice contrast to a green salad. Your reference to your limited eggplant experience, Baba Ghanoush, brought to mind one of my favorites. You’ll have to try Moussaka and Caponata for some more eggplant renditions which appear in our house on a not too irregular basis. No bitterness in those entrees; lots of sweetness to savor.
Now on to my pet peeve in writing which I see cropping up among the best. In your final paragraph where you discuss when the restaurant was first built, then burned, then rebuilt by the Compagnons… Your next sentence reads,
“This is a group of traveling craftsmen that go through apprenticeships and then master their craft while on their journeys.” The preferred pronoun is ‘who’ because it obviously refers back to people rather than things, like so: “This is a group of traveling craftsmen who go through apprenticeships and then master their craft while on their journeys.”
Not that the word ‘that’ cannot refer to a person as in the following demonstrative statement, designating the person mentioned or understood, “That is Mary.” Obviously ‘Who is Mary,’ works grammatically, logically, phonetically, and on a poetic level, but using ‘who’ changes the whole meaning. Even if we expanded the statement to read ‘That woman is Mary,’ we still want to stick with ‘that’ and not ‘who.’
Your statement is not so demonstrative and benefits from using ‘who’ rather than ‘that’ to refer back to those traveling journeymen. I’m still trying to get the 65 year old attorney in our writers’ group to clean up his act. He is a flagrant abuser; using ‘that’ instead of ‘who’ and he’s been writing professional briefs for years along with his boring science fiction stories. ‘That vs Who’ and my second pet peeve, getting people to drive the speed limit on these curving mountain roads. My work is never done.
Love you lots and have a nice visit this Christmas in Manti with your family.
Why have we not been treated to these offerings more often? Get writing, or should I say get eating! I'd like to see a report from each of the restos in Vieux Lyon, where, hopefully, you wont get food poisoning.
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