First meal out was to Bill's Café in Reading with my former housemate Georgia (of Great Cupcake Trail fame). It's a chain, but not one with branches all over the country so it still manages to retain a fairly individual appeal. The food was beautiful - Georgia had a chicken and chorizo burger and I eventually decided on a normal burger, mostly because their skin-on chips came so highly recommended! It was absolutely delicious and very filling, but I just about managed to make room for their vanilla pannacotta (and I was very glad I did too). It was a fairly reasonable meal, coming to about £20 a head for drinks, bread, main and pudding. The appeal of Bill's is that as well as being a café, they also sell some really lovely produce - perfect for the foodie in your life. Georgia went for a veritable brick of chocolate that's designed to be melted to be hot chocolate. Unsurprisingly, I didn't get a look in! I bought my mum a jar of sloe gin and gooseberry jam, partially because as a family we are partial to a good G&T, partially because my mother is a long-time fan of gooseberries, but mostly because it was such an unusual combination that I'd never seen before.
The next meal out was to a lovely vegetarian place called The Plant Café in Exeter when I went to visit an old schoolfriend who's studying down there. I had an absolutely gorgeous tomato, pesto and goat's cheese tart which seemed a bit pricey at just over £7 - but then the waitress brought it out and I saw the mix of salads they'd piled alongside and suddenly £7 didn't seem too unreasonable! Lentil salad, couscous, lettuce leaves - if someone had told me that eating vegetables could mean this, it wouldn't have taken me so long to warm up to the idea of them! The café is in a prime spot, just along the Cathedral Green, and I'm sure it'd be lovely to sit outside when the weather is warmer, but our napkins and bits of salad were flying away with the February breeze so we retreated to the warmth of the café pretty sharpish!
Once I got back to Cheltenham and took my friend out for her first Nando's (and she calls herself a student...), I was determined that I'd make it to my favourite restaurant in town, Storyteller. It's sort of become a tradition for my parents and I to go there every year for my birthday, and while that could be a bit tedious, they change the menu often enough that, while theoretically you could have the same thing every time, there's always something new on offer. I was brave and went for a rabbit casserole, which was really delicious but a bit of faff to make sure all the little bones were removed, followed by a zingy lemon tart. There's a reason I ask to go back there every year.
After a few days at home, it was time for the parents and I to head down to Montpellier again, and you couldn't have asked for more of a difference in the weather. The first meal we had was at Hippo, which is a fairly popular 'steakhouse' chain in France - but don't be fooled, the number of locations in no way means that the quality is anything other than superb. Even better (in my father's eyes, anyway), sides and sauces are 'à volonté', so you can just keep ordering chips, ratatouille, green beans, baked potatoes and sauces until you explode! Sometimes it's nice to know that there's a failsafe place you can go for when you can't be bothered or don't have the time to explore the independent restaurants. We went back there on the Sunday afternoon before my parents flew back home.
We seemed to accidentally return to the places we'd been to in August, but such is the joy of the French restaurant - they rarely keep the menu the same over the seasons. After being slightly disappointed that so few restaurants in Antigone, the area where my parents' hotel was situated, were open due to the school winter holidays, we ventured into the town and returned to 'Andromaque', a restaurant we'd enjoyed back in August. It was lovely then to sit outside, and it was lovely in February to sit inside! As it's in the old town, the dining room was underground, and the vaulted ceilings were lit beautifully. Far from being cold and harsh, the soft armchairs made it feel welcoming and the three of us felt like it would be far too easy to just fall asleep after dinner! I had a goat's cheese salad to start, followed by a lovely fillet of salmon with a gorgeous risotto. Pudding was absolutely heaven - a salted caramel 'moelleux' that just oozed caramel when you touched a fork to it and tasted like a melted Daim bar.
The next day we set off to explore Nimes, a Roman town just half an hour's train ride from Montpellier. After trying to remember my way around from my whistlestop tour earlier this year, we ended up picking a fairly innocuous-looking café-patisserie purely out of hunger and relative proximity to where we were. What a fantastic choice we made. The confit du canard I had just fell off the bone, but what was more delicious was the pudding. As part of the lunchtime 'prix fixe' menu, one of the options was a 'patisserie du choix'. Looking through the list of what they could potentially offer, I immediately set my heart on something called 'cacaoyer'. It sounded divine - standard patisserie sponge base, chocolate mousse, salted caramel ganache (can you tell I'm on a salted caramel kick?), more chocolate nom - I don't remember what it was called exactly - and then dusted with cocoa. In case you didn't have enough chocolate. As we went to order, the waitress suggested we take a look at what patisseries they had on offer, so my father and I did as we were told. Mum had been fixed on a café gourmand - something of a phenomenon in French restaurants, where they give you an espresso and a selection of mini-puddings that can range from miniatures of the puddings they have on offer to teeny tiny little macaroons and madeleines. The inside was something to behold - it looked like they'd kept the interior pretty much as it was when it was first opened in 1850, with gold moldings and an beautiful mirror from wall-to-wall that reflected the most incredble selection of patisseries I'd ever seen - and yes, my 'cacaoyer' was there, and it was indeed the amazing-looking thing (there are no words to describe it) that had been brought to the gentleman at the table next to me. If I thought there were no words to describe it, that's nothing compared to my attempts to describe how it tasted. As if my parents were going to get so much as a crumb - that baby was all mine and my goodness was it good.
On the last night my parents had down with me, we were all a bit undecided as to where we wanted to go. We looked at a seafood restaurant nearby, but it was quite expensive and nothing really grabbed any of us; the creperie was full; the other creperie (one we'd been to in August and thoroughly enjoyed) was also full - so we went back to another restaurant we'd tried in August - Les Orchis, which is for some odd reason both a restaurant and florist. As you do. Despite not seeing anything that I liked the sound of in the seafood restaurant, I ended up having a very fishy dinner. Smoked salmon with a coconut pannacotta-ish thing to start, followed by whole sea bream. I was so sure I'd have beef, or lamb - until the waiter came around and I heard myself ordering 'le dorade'. It was a brave choice for me, as it involved removing the bones which I'd never attempted before, but it was definitely worth the effort. Pudding was a café gourmand, which I remembered as being fantastic the previous time we'd been there and definitely fell into the 'mini-puddings' category. A tiny tiramisu, a mini-mousse and an amazingly chocolately chocolate pot, rounded off by an espresso.
Which brings us to a few Tuesday nights ago, and the (civilised) celebration of my 21st birthday. Myself and three friends went to 'Bistrot de l'Ancien Courier', which I'd enjoyed back in August, quelle surprise, and which offers a reasonable prix fixe menu - any starter, main and pudding for €18.80. It being my 21st, I had a kir imperial (which was cava instead of champagne but let's not split hairs), as an aperitif. For the food, I had a lovely saumon mariné which was served with a honey and ginger dressing, a wonderful combination. Ellen had chevre chaud on gingerbread and pears, which was delicious from what I tried. For the main, it was the classic cuisse de canard, another beautiful duck which just slid off the bone and finally, pain perdu with salted caramel (my old favourite) and ice cream made from almond milk. After devouring the meal, faffing about with the bill (I'd like to apologise to the poor waitress who had to scoop up three euros' worth of 10 and 20 cent coins) and eventually rolling out of the door, we headed to our old favourite bar, Rebuffy, to grab a coffee and talk about the plans for the second, less sophisticated part of my 21st birthday without feeling like we were bringing down the tone of the location too much. It was a lovely way to spend my birthday, made even sweeter by the fact that the three of them had bought me a beautiful bouquet of carnations - and a single red rose. Say what you like about them, they're not so bad when it comes to it.
Bill's Cafe | www.bills-website.co.uk
Storyteller | www.storyteller.co.uk
Hippo | www.hippopotamus.fr/
Andromaque | www.restaurant-andromaque.fr
Orchis | www.restaurant-placestroch.com
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