Le Picotin, Toulouse

Le Picotin is one of the coolest and most original restaurants I went to while I was in Toulouse; I found it, like most of my other favourites, by careful perusal of what came to be my restaurant bible, a book called "Le Petit Tou" which was given to me for free by the Erasmus society! Never has a free gift enhanced my life so much.

The entrance - tucked away down a little road. You'd never find it if you didn't know it was there!

My first trip was with my friend Olivia, and after that I took just about every visitor I had there, so it was only fitting that James should try it at the end of our interrail trip.

The interior of the place is really nice - it's in the cellar of the building and looks cosy, but also has some really cool exposed brickwork.

The main idiosyncrasy of this restaurant, however, is that no knives and forks are given to you - you have to eat with your hands! As I mentioned in my blog post about The Bird, I am averse to using knives and forks anyway unless absolutely essential, so places which actively discourage (or ban!) their use are ideal for me. They even give you bibs to put around your neck!

You get given a menu, but the only thing you choose is the main; you get a platter of various interesting nibbles for starter, and chocolate fondue and fruit for pudding (they allow you a knife to cut the fruit but that's it!). For main, you choose your meat; duck skewers, pork ribs, quail, or chicken, or you can have a selection of three. After all my visits I had honed my favourites, so went for duck, a rib, and chicken, and James had the same. Oh, and you can also have unlimited wine and soft drinks for an extra 5 euros, which we did! When my dad took advantage of this offer he most definitely came away drunk, although he still denies that fact!

A goat's cheese dip appetiser  - obviously not my favourite thing about the restaurant, but James loved it!

Peachy aperitif

The starter - cold meat, tomato and mozzarella, cheese shaped into a flower (when I first went there I thought it was an actual flower!), melon, vegetable "acras" (a bit like vegetable bhajis?!), and little muffins with roquefort and bacon, along with a spicy dip and aioli. It was great, but I was a bit disappointed as on all my other visits the muffins had snails in for that authentic French feeling, and instead of the melon they served duck hearts in a moules marinières type sauce, and they were flambéed!

What could have/should have been

Upon my "mais c'est différent!" remark, they explained that it was because it was summer which I guess is fair enough, but still a shame! Now onto the mains...

Duck skewers

Chicken

Ribs

Some of the best chips I have ever had!

Curry sauce and pepper sauce

My full meat ensemble

At this point in the meal you become extremely glad of your bib, because tearing apart meat with your hands can lead to messy results, especially duck which is cooked rare (I did have a visit where I had blood dripping down my wrist - lovely!). However, it's all so good that you don't mind the mess and the hard work it is to actually eat your meat. The chicken has crispy skin, the pork rib is soft and fatty (I like fat!) and falls off the bone, and the duck is perfectly cooked and tasty. The chips are salty and soft and both the sauces are amazing with any of the meat or chips, or even the salad which I dipped in them at the end!!

After this I'm always SO full, but you have to make sure you squeeze in pudding  (especially as it's included in the price!)! Plus you're dipping fruit into the chocolate, so that makes it healthy....

Sweet little fondue set

The even-less-of-a-diet option - marshmallows

I might get one of these signs printed for my house...

The other really nice thing about this place is that it's just run by two people (I think they might be brother and sister but that's a complete guess!) and they seem to take turns cooking/waiting. Even nicer was that after a year and 3 months of being back in England, they recognised me when I came in with James! It's probably a sign that I went there too much when I was in Toulouse, but I thought it was really friendly and shows they care about their customers!

A few pictures from other visits:

With Olivia on our first visit!

With a big group of Erasmus friends!

With Tanya on her visit!

And there were at least 4 other times I can remember going....no wonder they recognised me!