Tracking down the good stuff in Lyon!

---

November 7



It’s 5 o’clock and Susan has settled herself in front of the window so she can watch people going home from work, as she says, “before it gets to dark for me to criticise what they’re wearing.” She has a glass of really good cotes du Rhone and her notebook and is perfectly content. Thus do I have a few minutes to indulge my hobby, which you are reading. Although I do tend to get carried away, and worked on the Michelin blog yesterday until almost 1 p.m.

Which meant that we were just about starving by the time, we found our way to Les Halles Paul Bocuse, a gastronomic tribute the Lyon’s most recent world-beating chef, M. Bocuse whose face smiles out benevolently from a giant fresco across the street from the centre named for him. It contains dozens or restaurants and food shops and is about a 40 minute walk, pleasant enough, but hunger pangs were panging away when we finally found the one spot that was serving neither sandwiches nor breathtakingly overpriced food.

Maybe hunger is the best sauce, because lunch was a revelation. At a restaurant which specialises in truffles, they had a 15 euro special: half a chicken breast in a morel cream sauce with potatoes au gratin. A table for two? Of course, monsieur, does either of these suit? Two specials? Right away!

These enormous plates arrive, a huge “supreme de volaille” on a lake of mushroom sauce. The potatoes came in their own cast iron skillets. The meal was amazing. The mushroom sauce was a revelation of fungussy goodness and the potatoes were the best we have ever eaten. It was delicious. The balance between cream, potato, and cheese (I asked what kind it was but could not understand the answer, even repeated twice, so gave up in embarrassment.)

Right, foodies. I know what you’re thinking: it was prepared in advance and reheated. Yeah, absolutely. There is no way that they had time to do the order from scratch in the time it took. I DON’T CARE!!! It was GREAT!

Then we stopped at a cheese store and picked up a lovely little soft cheese round which was stuffed with a generous helping of black truffle bits. Which we had for lunch today with an excellent gluten free bread, picked up this morning from a specialist bakery all the way back across the Rhone river and just a couple of blocks from Les Halles and vanilla pear jam which was in our fridge.

(We will ignore the story of dinner last night at an alleged Lebanese restaurant which, like its equally touristy Indian counterpart on Sunday, suffers from the belief that bland is a flavor).

Today’s frustration: we tracked down the twinned museums of fabrics and decorative arts, and sauntered over in a light rain to find the blessed place is closed for two days so they can set up an Yves St. Lauren retrospective which opens on Saturday. Susan is all excited about making a pilgrimage to marvel at it, so I guess I’d better make sure we get tickets. You do realize this means that I have to go BACK to a fashion museum, right? For a SECOND time? Gonna blow my street cred as a macho, insensitive husband all to hell. Damn.

The darkness has fallen and the pedestrian rush hour is over. Susan’s work done, she is deep in her ipad. She does love having a view of the street. She has spend so many mornings at the window that she is starting to recognize some of the neighbors as they take their kids off to school.

We have rescheduled our tour with the nice volunteer lady for Saturday morning, and will meet up with a friend of Monique, my hairdresser, for lunch on Wednesday. It is a beautiful place (prettier than Paris!) and, now that I am starting to get the hang of eating here, I am very glad we came. (Although it would be nice if my weird little cold would crawl off and die. Weird? Yeah, that’s the word. I have almost no symptoms while we are out walking around for hours. Try to lie down at the apartment and away we go. I have read that exercise kills germs. I didn’t realize that it also discouraged them!)

A bientot.

Tim

---

Photos

Susan likes this fountain
It was bought cheap because the town that ordered it didn't want it!

A big flower thing
Oooookay. Guess someone likes it.

On the banks of the Saone
Not as pretty as the Rhone in yesterday's sunshine, but still not bad