L'Aubrac, Toulouse

The penultimate instalment in my Toulouse posts, L'Aubrac is a really cool restaurant filled with rugby memorabilia, and serving huge amounts of classic southern French food.

I was first attracted to it by the promise of an all you can eat starter if you get the "formule" - and it definitely didn't disappoint.

You get brought a huge basket of meat

Pretty much a brick sized slab of pâté

Butter and pickles (I LOVE pickles so that is an amazing addition)

And a basket of freshly baked bread

And you're free to cut, spread and eat to your heart's content! They even keep topping up the basket of bread - I think we went through three this time!

The pâté is one of the best I've had (sadly I have never thought to ask what it is, but I think it's probably "Pâté de Campagne) and all of the meats are delicious (I think the big one in the middle was my favourite); I probably could have carried on eating them all night. However, having learnt from past errors (I was so full after my first time here that I could barely walk and had to get a taxi home) I decided to pace myself.  

After you've finished this, you might have thought it was time for the main course, but no. They bring out more (coarse) pâté and different ham!

Me and my dad both think the coarse pâté looks a bit like cat food but he was brave and tried some and said it was good!

Now, after eating more than I probably would in a typical day just from the starter, the mains come out

Toulouse sausage and chips

The chips aren't the best, but the Toulouse sausage (an appropriate choice) is garlicky, herby and flavoursome. And after the starter I didn't even feel like I needed the main to be amazing - it's not cordon bleu food, it's just homely and filling which was perfect.

For pudding you can choose from either unlimited cheeses (so pretty much like the starter but with cheese), or sorbet or ice cream. Seeing as strong cheeses are the one thing I can't tolerate, and also after unlimited meats and a main anyone who can do more unlimited food must have a stomach of steel (or not be making the most of all you can eat), we both went for sorbet (lemon and raspberry) it was delicious and a refreshing end to a meat heavy meal!

Shiny and happy

I'd recommend this restaurant to anyone who can make the most of all you can eat, who wants to try typical southern French food and/or who likes rubgy, as it's so rugby themed!

A couple of photos from our first visit there:

If only I was still this tanned..

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Loch Fyne, Reading

My first post about a restaurant in Reading! One of my least favourite things about Reading is that most of the restaurants are chains - I don't have anything against chains per se, but it can get really boring. It's just more fun to go somewhere a bit quirky which you wouldn't find anywhere else, which was why I loved Toulouse so much as almost all the restaurants were completely individual!

Anyway, there are a few chain restaurants in Reading that I do love, Loch Fyne being one of them (Bill's and Las Iguanas being another two, for anyone interested!), so when I got an email from Loch Fyne saying that they were doing a preview night of their new menu, I was quick to book a table.

The menu was only £19.95 for three courses (a bargain by Loch Fyne price standards!), and featured a small selection of dishes which will be on their new menu.

A menu that I took home and now has pride of place on my menu wall (also featuring Dinner by Heston, Meat Liquor and any other paper menus I have managed to steal)

For starter both James and I went for the tempura battered soft shell crab:

It was really good, non greasy, batter and every now and again you got a burst of coriander which is my absolute favourite herb, so it was delicious! I wasn't overly keen on the marmalade though (it was a bit too sour and sticky) so I might have preferred a sweet chilli sauce.

My dad had the chicken liver parfait...

...which was very rich and creamy just as you'd expect! And my mum had the Pan fried bream fillet:

I had to look up what brandade was - apparently it's a mix of salt cod and olive oil and is usually eaten with bread, hence the bread base here. My mum really enjoyed it and said the bream was lovely.

For main, James and I chose the same again (my dad was saying it was a smart move of James' as he then didn't have to wait for me to take a picture of his meal before he could eat!!) - the chorizo and monkfish risotto:

I think chorizo is one of my favourite ingredients as it can liven up any meal (although Christopher would disagree and thinks it is overused!!) and it was no exception here. It was beautifully spicy and matched the meaty monkfish really well. Also they weren't stingy with either the monkfish or the chorizo, which was something I had been worried about! Lovely soft and creamy risotto too.

My dad went for duck (as you do in a fish restaurant)

Again, he got lucky with the side of creamy mash (I really must have some soon!), and also said the duck was delicious - although he did have it well done which I would not have had!!

My mum went for the tuna, which would have been my second choice after the risotto:

The tuna was very rare which my mum said scared her a bit at first, but she actually really liked it in the end (another convert!). It seemed like a really light and well balanced and flavoured dish.

Now onto pudding, which sadly we weren't quite as pleased with....

My mum and I both went for sticky toffee which was the best of the bunch

I actually thought it was great, and the only complaint my mum had was that there wasn't enough sauce, which I can sort of see but also she is obsessed with sauce and would probably just drink it out of a glass!

The more negative comments came from James' chocolate tart and my dad's rhubarb and custard cheesecake.

Despite looking pretty (in the tart's case, not quite sure if the cheesecake deserves that accolade), my dad said the cheesecake was bland and hardly tasted of rhubarb, and James' tart really was not good. Both me and my mum tried a bit and the chocolate filling was a foam like texture, and was really bitter - it wasn't great at all.

However, overall the meal was very nice and good value for money, the interior of the restaurant is lovely, and the service was very good. Loch Fyne in Reading is situated just next to the river but away from the main group of restaurants on the riverside, and is an absolutely lovely building.

Blurry photos but look how nice it looks at night!

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Le Bruit qui Court, Toulouse

Another instalment in my Toulouse reminiscent blog posts - Le Bruit qui Court.

Just a stone's throw from the Place du Capitole, and near the Garonne, le Bruit qui Court is a lovely little restaurant with exposed brickwork (like the Picotin!), pretty paintings and fairy lights. I first went there when it was my friend Fran's 21st, and her parents were kind enough to take a group of us out for a meal.

Looking burnt even though it was only March - those were the days!

I sadly dropped the photo taking baton that night, but here is one Rachel took of our mains (pork ribs and mash)

It is very nicely presented food, and also most of the menu provides a twist on classic French food, as well as having some other options, like tapas for starter!

I also went there with my dad and Aunty Nicky and Uncle Francis when they came to visit me.

A flattering photo of all

Again, I don't have the greatest photos from this visit, but the following will give a general idea!

Tapas starter

Delicious fish stew - look at the tiny lobster!

My dad enjoyed it so much on that visit that we booked it for his final night in Toulouse. We both started off with the tapas starter again (but the tapas were different this time!)

Gazpacho, white fish, prawns and aioli, and melon and serrano ham

I loved the prawns the most but my dad wasn't so keen, and I had to deshell the only one he ate for him! But it was a bonus for me as I got the others he didn't eat.

For main I went for the fish of the day, which was white fish (the waiter didn't say which one but it was quite meaty so perhaps monkfish?!), wrapped in serrano ham, wrapped in pastry, with a mango sauce.

Another little baby lobster!

It was delicious! I had been a bit worried the mango sauce might be too fruity and not go well with the fish, but it actually just had a burst of fruityness every now and again so wasn't too over the top. The little soufflé thing on the top right was also amazing, I wish I'd asked how they made it!

My dad had duck with an orange sauce - duck is a bit of a speciality around Toulouse so it was an appropriate choice!

He loved it, and I was jealous as it came with creamy mash, possibly one of the best comfort foods to ever grace the planet.

Interior of the restaurant

Puddings aren't the best photos as I felt that the other people in the restaurant might be getting annoyed by the incessant flash from my camera, but here we are:

My pannacotta with coulis and a sablé biscuit

My dad's lemon meringue pie

Very nice waiters, atmosphere, and most importantly, food!

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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!

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