Paris via Rennes

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It was a little hard getting up this morning and finishing the blog from yesterday. After I posted the Blog, we went down to breakfast. We were the first one in the breakfast room. They had two choices a full “American Buffet” means eggs, and meat or the continental. We didn’t see any reason to pay 6 euros more a piece just to get eggs, when everything else they had was sufficient. The special bonus of the day was the world-Famous St. Malo butter, best butter ever. The coffee was also good and strong, but not much driving today since our first stop was Rennes and that is where we were ending the driving portion of the trip.

The drive to Rennes was fairly easy, and after only three wrong turns found the parking garage that was most central for a few hours of exploring the city. It was a humid and cloudy day, and a few sprinkles here and there. There was a good breeze now and then so while I was still wet, from the humidity I was cool at the same time.

Rennes, unexpectedly is making the, consider retiring here list. It is a college town, so the population swells during the school year, but the rest of the year is not as crowded. It was a fairly quite city center, they had suffered a fair amount of vandalism form the retirement change protests, but it still had a lot of classic French charm, with a touch of Tudor England. We just walked around with no particular purpose other than to check the place out. There is a fairly good public transportation system including a underground that goes right to the train station.

It is very walkable, with some hilly sections and the bike lanes are well marked and established. Where we parked is the central market, which was not open today, but it was about the same size as the one in La Rochelle.

The only real thing on the agenda was to have our last crepe/galette for lunch. I did a quick Creperie google map search and amazingly it led us to a Michelin recommended creperie. We arrived a few minutes before it opened, and there was already a line. It had to be good. It did not disappoint.

The name of the creperie is Saint Georges Creperie, so all of the crepes have the name George in them, including Boy George and a George Clooney, we ordered neither. I had a Georges Lautner, a famous French Film maker, I have no idea what films he has done. The galette was buckwheat of course, perfectly cooked and really crispy, on top, not in, was buttered mashed potatoes, scallops and Guemene Andouille (more like a bacon than sausage.) Jerry had a Georges Carpentier, (French Boxer) crispy buckwheat galette stuffed with raclette cheese, speck ham, egg and potatoes, lots of cheese. They were both very good, and yes probably some of the best we have had.

We then split a Brettone, a sweet crepe. It was artfully done, not just a crepe folded over with stuff in it but done in the shape of a bag with pears, salted caramel, and caramel ice cream in the center. A wonderful creation.

After lunch it was a walk back to the car and the to return the car at the train station. This part was a bit frustrating. The only instructions we were given. was to park the car in a Europcar spot at the train station on the 9^th floor of the parking garage. Finding the parking garage was the first trick getting into it was the hardest trick. Google Maps did a valent effort is guiding us there, with a few ok several reroutes. When we did get to the garage, there was construction everywhere and absolutely no signage for rental car return. We did make our way into the garage, but how to get to the 9^th floor? Thankfully, there were parking attendants at the entrance and 10 minutes later Jerry came back with the instructions. There was a code we needed to access the rental car return area; do you think they gave us that information when we picked up the car? Well, NO they did not.

Finally in the garage, we wound our way to the 9^th floor and got the very last spot to return a car. The fun did not stop here, there was no attendant, no sign saying where to actually give them the keys back, so off to the train station we went. We didn’t see an elevator and the thought of lugging our luggage down 9 flights of stairs was not appealing, I would have just thrown them over the edge. But we did finally find the elevator, again no signs in French or English.

The final trick was finding the actual rental car office. The train station in Rennes is simply not big on signage for everything, latter it took Jerry 10 minutes to find the bathroom. The car safely checked in, we then headed down to the tracks to await our train. We spent the first 10 minutes staring at the wrong sign, arrivals was not going to help us.

At last, the track was announced, and we made it safely on the train. It was very crowded as it was coming from the Coast, so it was pretty full already. We were lucky and found plenty of storage racks left. When I got to our seats, there were two businessmen sitting in them, I in the best French I could, said these were our seats. At first they just pointed to the empty seat in front of them and said sit there, I just said, no, I am traveling with someone, please move. Move they did.

The train ride was quick, we both slept most of the way. It was our first time in second class, and up until retirement date, it is our last. Very hard seats and not a lot of leg room. It is the first time I can safely say, Acela business class is much more comfortable than TGV second glass.

The final leg of the day’s journey was the cab to the hotel. We were able to find one that could accommodate all of our luggage and 30 minutes later arrived at the hotel. This is where we were rewarded for all of the prior discomforts we may have experienced during this trip.

Membership has its benefits. We have been IHG members and Hilton Honor’s members for years. ON this trip we cashed in points to get to very nice rooms free for our last two nights of the trip. Here in Paris, we are at Le Grand Hotel Intercontinental, and Grand it is. The luggage was immediately dealt with and arrived at our room 10 minutes after we checked in. They upgraded us to a premier room, even though we used points in the first place. When we walked in, the room was huge, fresh strawberries were waiting for us. It’s the kind of room you don’t really want to leave. They even added the 45 euro a person breakfast free of charge to our reservation. Unfortunately, we have to leave to early to take advantage of that.

All we had time for in Paris on our last night was dinner. We choose as our final Paris meal a place we have been several times and was very close to our hotel. Chez Monsieur, the first time we were there it was called the Royal Madeleine, since it is just steps away from the Madeline. The place has not really changed much other than the name, since the first time we visited. We even got the same table we had the very first time we were there.

Some Parisian restaurants that have the space of a particular habit of seating all of the English-speaking people in the same area, Chez Monsieur is one of these establishments. I don’t know if they are being rude, or just making sure the server assigned to that section speaks English. In any event tow other couples (much older than us and much more money) we seated in the same room, they were also staying at the same hotel, the difference was they paid, we used points.

I already knew what was going to happen before were ever got there. I have been looking forward to this dinner the entire trip. We had been in France for three weeks, and maybe you didn’t notice the one thing I have not yet had is Escargot, well that ended now. Before moving on, just going to get the disappointment of the evening out of the way right now. Jerry had classic steak frites with Béarnaise sauce. First, the steak while cooked correctly was really dry, so the Béarnaise was very much needed, unfortunately, it was not even close to what a Béarnaise should be. Even the server, tasted it, and said “this is not Béarnaise, it is scrambled eggs with butter.” They made an entirely fresh batch, which was ok, but still, and I say this wall all modestly, not even close to what I can make.

The rest of the meal was great, well except for the four very obnoxious men at the table next to us, the entire time nothing but the orange man was discussed. That aside, back to the meal.

I of course started with 6 Escargots Ail, perfectly cooked in a wonderful pesto sauce. Jerry had white asparagus in a light vinaigrette. You already know what Jerry had for his main (clearly not the dish of the day.) I had Veau Blanquette (or as they say Royal Blanquette.) This is a wonderful veal stew done in a cream sauce. The first time I ever had this dish was here in 2019, I was so inspired by the dish, when we got home, I looked it up in my “Mastering the art of French Cooking” by Julia Child, and made the dish myself. It was the most popular dish that evening, the copper pots were flowing out of the kitchen. While it tasted just as I remembered, their were a few execution errors, the bacon lardons were not properly cut, still had some bone, and it did lack just a touch of depth, still good, but again, I can make this dish better.

We did have a great bottle of Right Bank Bordeaux as 2008 St. Julien. It made everything better. The server was very apologetic about the Béarnaise, so offered us a nice Armagnac at the end of dinner. This is when we got an opportunity to talk with him. Turns out, like everywhere else, staffing is a huge problem. The front of the house normally has 8, they had 3. Worse, the kitchen normally has 7, they have three. Covid has taken a terrible toll on the service industry and it may take years for it to fully come back, or a new approach is going to have to be found. It is surprising that the staffing issue would be this bad in France, after all they are paid a living wage and get healthcare. Not like in the United States, where in some states servers make as little as $2.50 an hour because their tips are counted towards reaching minimum wage, and of course next to know service industry worker gets healthcare.

After dinner, it was a nice walk back to the hotel, and finished off the bottle of White Chateauneuf-du-Pape we had purchased at Chateau Fortia just for this occasion.

Au revoir Paris, until next time, which is in 6 months.

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Photos

Georges Carpentier
Dish of the Day