Grenoble

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Today starts the main reason for coming to France for this trip. It is time to start the research of which village or city will become our future home. This section of the trip is also a week of one nighters, in several different cities. All of them are not potential future homes, but several are a possibility. The next few days the title of the days entry will be the City we spend the night. The first stop is Grenoble.

Before I get into the day’s events, of which there were not many, just a few musings on Lyon. The most important is that Lyon has completely redeemed herself from our first trip. Better hotel, better food, and just an overall nice experience. The breakfast crowd each morning was a hoot, all retired couples traveling the world. The first morning we sat next to a couple that chose Lyon as their retirement home. The transitioned from the US to France they said was not has hard as you might expect. They gave us some useful hints. However, even with that positive recommendation, Lyon is not the place for us. Mainly, it is just too big. We are not looking to move to a large city but would much prefer a small community of less than 50,000 inhabitants. It is a pretty green city; in fact, it will be the law that everyone must compost. In short, Lyon is a great place to visit, but not to live.

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Today started like every other day, croissants and coffee. Then came the first test for any traveler picking up the rental car. Just finding the office was not particularly easy, we were 30 minutes behind schedule before we ever picked up the car. But wait, it gets better, getting back to the hotel to pick up our luggage took another 45 minutes. Google Maps was always 10 seconds behind, so we kept missing our turns. We did finally manage to get back to the hotel, load up the car, and get on the road to Grenoble.

Why Grenoble, you might ask? It is a good question to ask. I am not sure I have a good answer. Before coming here, the only thing I knew about Grenoble was that the 1968 Olympics were there and it’s where Peggy Fleming won her Olympic Figure Skating Gold Medal. It is surrounded by the French Alpes, so it is a beautiful setting. It is also a very big University City, so very much the hipster/college vibe (feel free to read between the lines there). It is definitely a very Green city, tons of green space, buildings built with efficiency in mind and low impact on the environment. The big negative is that the historic old section is very small, and the vast majority of the city is very modern.

It was a quick 90-minute drive and we got there just a few minutes before our lunch reservation on the top of the hill overlooking the city. Instead of going to the hotel to park and store luggage, we found a parking lot next to the tram that took you to the top. We certainly were not going to walk up, so the tram was the only option. It was a beautiful trip up then a 350-meter walk to the restaurant. My feet were still aching from our miles of walking in Paris, but the walk to the restaurant was well worth the discomfort. It is almost always worth the pain for the view.

We had made a reservation for Chez Per la Gras. It has been in the same family for 4 or 5 generations and every main course comes with dauphinoise potatoes and has for 116 years. We had a great window seat with a view of the city and the Alpes. The restaurant was filled mainly with local’s and very few tourists, in fact, I am pretty sure we were the only ones speaking English. The service was great, the view spectacular, this can at times mean the food will be subpar, as they rely on the view. This was not the case with Per Gras. The food was wonderful from beginning to end, including the bread, which is much heartier than that found in Paris or Lyon.

We went with the Menu of the day, entrée, plat and dessert plus a glass of wine for 33 euros. We did start with a nice crisp cold Rosé. The starter was a venison terrine with black trumpet mushrooms. Basically, a country stile pate with deer instead of pork, chicken or duck. The main was Hake Filet with leeks sautéed in butter with a very light curry sauce, of course the Gratin Dauphinois, (the best of the trip so far.) With all of that we had a really nice light crisp white Burgundy, Chardonnay as it is supposed to taste, not the wood and butter of your typical Napa Chardonnay. The meal ended with the chef’s selection for dessert and thankfully it is strawberry season in France. Dessert was a wonderful strawberry coulis over perfect crunchy meringue.

So how do you end the best lunch of the trip so far? With a walk back down to the bottom of the mountain of course. This has always been the plan, and it was even my idea. However, Goggle Maps lies. It appeared to be a gentle switch back to the bottom, the signs said only 30 minutes. It is only 30 minutes if you are 12. We began the descent, the path was rocky and not easily traversed for those of us with back, knee and ankle issues. Two hours later, and not broken bones, we arrived at the bottom. I would love to say we were no worse for wear, but that would be a fat lie. The pain we both experienced was intense, but we manage hobble (well Jerry didn’t hopple, god forbid he show any sign of weakness, I am not so valiant, didn’t complain, but you clearly new I was in pain. I felt like the 100-year-old man from “Laugh in” (again a reference that is likely lost on most of you reading this.) Back to the car we found our way to the hotel parking and checked in.

There was more planned for the afternoon, I had planned a little walking tour of the old town and a visit to the mountaineer museum, none of which happened because the slow winding journey down the mountain was anything but. By the time we got to the hotel, we had just enough time to unpack and take unplanned showers as we were soaked through from our gentle walk down. No, it wasn’t from rain. Our dinner reservations are normally at 8, but I forgot that during the week of one night one city I made them a half hour earlier. I had to call to change it to 8, and they were very understanding.

Luckily enough for us, the restaurant was only a 5-minute walk, well 5 minutes turned in to 15, as we got lost, or Grenoble has a very odd since of time per google. This was a jacket night and one of the nicer places we had on our Itinerary.

Le Fantin Latour

I could spend several paragraphs blogging about this dinner. Was it the best meal we have ever had, no, but it was a very nice experience. I am typically not a huge fan of French Nouvelle style food. It usually means very small portions with lots of experiments going on the plate, and foam and more foam. Chef Stephane, knows how to combine food and art and still have substance to the dish. From the Amuse Buse through the dessert course each was very good. Yes, there was a miss here and here on ingredients I don’t care for, but the flavor profile was still outstanding.

There were a few tasting menus to choose from, all of which were total surprises to the diner, no menu and no hint of what each course would be. They did of course check the allergies to make sure they didn’t kill you. The most humorous thing on the menu was what allergies they could not or maybe would not accommodate, or as they put it the cannot “tolerate lactose allergies and vegans.” Can anyone really tolerate vegan’s, they make it impossible to cook a meal. There was no formal wine pairing, but the Sommelier did have several suggestions that would work with the entire meal. We chose a Grand Gru Pinot Gris, from the Alsace region. It was the best Pinot Gris I have ever had, and it worked with every course. The best way to go through the menu is to just list what we had. Before that a mention of the bread course, well it was there through out, but it was served with a mound of house made butter made with a hint of saffron.

Amuse Buse

Three different things far to hard to describe, but asparagus & fennel, poached egg with Maple, and I really can’t even remember the third.

First Course

Spring Ratatouille: Deconstructed, crispy tender confit vegetables (even beat juice) with ground Ivy and exotic vinaigrette.

Second Course

White Tender Asparagus with Grenobloise sauce, bay leaf and mace.

Third Course

Scallops in the shell, flavored with juniper and Amalfi Lemon Zest (cooked to perfection.)

Then the refreshing break to cleanse your palate. Three layers in a glass, cardamom (and I believe mango), strawberry, green asparagus juices. It certainly cleansed your palate.

Fourth

Vercors Trout. Emulsion with primrose roots. This was a miss for me, I am not now or will I ever be a fan for trout, or any freshwater fish. Jerry loved it.

Cheese Course

Five regional cheeses, some goat, sheep and cow. Will never remember what the all were called.

Final course

Cedrat Carpaccio, apple brunoise, mascarpone, shortbread and rau-ram (don’t ask me what rau-ram is, all I know is it tasted good.)

Dinner was a three hour affair, relaxing, yet we were very tired and sore from our march down the mountain. All the was left was to walk very slowly back to the hotel and collapse.

Next up my favorite wine region, Chateauneuf-du Pape.

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Photos

Scallops
Dish of the Day