La Couronne

One of my goals for France was to eat at at least one Michelin Stared restaurant. When we were looking for a lunch spot we came across La Couronne, and it had a fixed price menu:

La Couronne website

We had a bottle of Chateau Beauregard Ducasse 2008 graves grand vin de Bordeaux which was very good. We both picked the mushrooms to start with, and then split our choices so we tasted both options for main and dessert. The entrees were both under cooked – cold on the inside which suggested they’d been reheated rather than prepared freshly. The dishes came out with silver domes over the plates which I associate only with episodes of the muppets and not actual meals. That combined with the masses of signed celebrity photographs gave the whole place an almost kitsch atmosphere. The wait staff also turned up with some sort of firework/sparkler for two tables who were celebrating a 60th wedding anniversary and a birthday. The mains were both excellent, the desserts adequate. All in all not exactly what I had anticipated. The average age of the other diners there was 20 years older than us which reinforced the sense of faded former glory.

The gentleman who was celebrating his wedding anniversary chatted to Rosie a bit after we had had our desserts. I found out later that he had said: that he thought the secret of their wedding length was never having children. That his siblings had plenty of children so it was ok as they still got to have children in their life. That their parents weren’t wild about him spending too much time with them because “he told the truth too much”. He also said that he was in remarkable good health and that this had improved recently for no reason he could identify. He even went to his priest and asked him about it and the priest wouldn’t take any divine credit for it! What does it mean if a priest won’t take credit for a miracle?

Sprightly old geezer conversations aside, overall it was a bit of a disappointment. Vowed to try somewhere Michelin starred in Paris, and also find out exactly what was involved in the Michelin star system.

Rouen Graffiti II

A Visit To Rouen

Rouen
Spent a day in Rouen, Normandy, after the far too early start (metro to the right station then another train for an hour and a half). I wanted to see some of non-Paris France, and though I had hoped to travel south as well it didn’t end up happening.

Among other things Rouen is notable for being a big centre for the Normans, the place where Joan of Arc was imprisoned and executed. The Anglo heritage was visible in the half timbered style architecture in places. The immense age of some of the buildings was hard to grasp. This one is from 953. I kept re-reading it thinking it was missing a digit.

Rouen also has several gothic cathedrals. We visited two: Rouen cathedral and St Ouen abbey. They’re immense, and would have taken long labour and great expense to construct, and I find it hard to imagine the mindset that wanted to keep on building them. At the end of the day the brasserie we waited in before the train left (Le Metropole) turned out to be one that Simone de Beavouir and Jean-paul Sartre frequented when Sartre was teaching locally.

Despite Rouen being where Marcel Duchamp went to school I found the Musee des Beaux Arts average, though to be fair after 6 days of non stop musee crawling in Paris just about anything would look poor in comparison.

Bought a second hand book in French (Henri Michaux ‘La Nuit Remue’) as part of my ‘create reasons to be motivated to learn French’ plan. I wonder if Gallimard’s (the publisher’s) house style for the design is as iconic in France as the orange jacketed Penguins are in England and the former colonies. Is buying a book in a language you can’t read a sign of worsening bibliomania?

Rouen Graffiti