To-die-for dinner at Au Tout Petit in Avignon

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Geo: 43.9486, 4.80597

I'm so sad that I didn't bring my camera to our special "splurge" belated birthday dinner. It was so beautifully presented! We went to a hole-in-the-wall place with 8 tables that came highly recommended. Those people were right. It was a world-class meal and exceptionally reasonably priced by French standards. I'm not sure how he's paying the bills with only 8 tables, but my hat is off to the chef/owner. It's a good thing we made reservations because we saw more than one couple turned away tonight. In fact, when we asked if we needed reservations, the owner said, "Oh yeah!"

Lucy started with the trio of salmon: mousse, tartare and smoked. I had a vegetable terrine with parmesan cheese and tandoori flavor with parmesan cheese ice cream. The tandoori flavor was very subtle and the ice cream was a nice counter point, I thought. Dill was also a player in this dish. I tried Lucy's salmon and it was excellent. The mousse spread on bread was particularly good.

For her main course Lucy had sea bream filets and scallops on fish mousse, cardomon flavor and Norway lobster cream. I had tartiflette with fresh salmon, reblochon cheese and potatoes. It came in a little ceramic pot, rather like a classic French onion soup with the cheese melted on top. It was hot and creamy and very filling. I felt bad leaving some of it to go back to the kitchen, but a girl has to leave room for dessert! Also, the half bottle of Cotes du Rhone we were sharing was going down pretty smoothly.

Lucy's dessert was definitely the more visually compelling. She had three scoops of house-made ice cream: gingerbread, Calisson and banana flambee, which were accented with a little kumquat and a slice of star fruit. It was lovely. Mine looked a little like breakfast cereal, but it was wonderful: chocolate raviolis in a white chocolate sauce with flambeed banana ice cream served on the side. The raviolis were garnished with petit strawberry and a yellow raspberry. It was all just perfect and a superb choice for our big dinner out. Recommend highly! At $27 Euro each, it was a steal compared to every place around it.

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