samoussa love

Last night, G and I went to one of my two favourite restaurants ever (unfortunately, the other one is on the other side of the world, but then again, this one was on the other side of the world from me for a long time, and I've been to the other one more, so I guess it works out).  This is going to be a boring post.  It is going to involve me raving about how tasty my appetizer was.

Le Saint Sauvage is just around the corner from G's old apartment - one of its few virtues.  However, that is still not far from where we live now, though it now involves a short ride on the metro and a few minutes of walking.

This place is small.  The decor is quirky (Lamps held in cast iron hands.  Mirrors.  Lighting in strange colours.  Clear plastic chairs.  Red diner booths.  I got to sit in a huge wingbacked black fuzzy chair with a cushion. The menu featured some of these pictures - I especially liked the zebra and ostrich).  The food, however, is seriously good.

I forgot my camera, but I had my fancyphone.  We had a red lamp on the right side of the table.  There was a raspberry on everything.

I made G take pictures of his food too.

I am totally in love with my appetizer.  There were five little duck confit samosas.  There were, in the samosas, caramalized onions and raisins.  There were, outside the samosas, a few perfectly cooked vegetables (small pieces).  There was a lovely sauce (I believe the photo I took of the menu leads me to believe that is was a caramalized tomato sauce) with them.  And if that wasn't good enough (which it seriously was, I don't have the words to describe this for you), there was a carrot-ginger sorbet kind of thing on the side that was completely fantastic and went with the samosas totally perfectly and if I could only eat one thing for the next week, I would totally eat this.  It was heavenly.  I was trying to scoop up melted bits of the carrot-ginger stuff with my fork, which wasn't working very well, and a waiter (who had apparently been paying attention and noticed) brought me a spoon.  Yay!  There was a little foie gras sandwich and salad on the side - they were all right (which is to say, if I liked foie gras, which I don't much because mostly it tastes like fat, it would've been really good, but as it was, I had to admit it had its merits; the bread had some kind of spice that I almost recognize but couldn't quite place but went very well with the foie gras.  Salad is salad, though the dressing was very good).  G had some kind of muffin thing with three different kinds of foie gras in it - he liked it.

Quail.

Duck.

Main course was a bit of a let down - but then again, almost anything would've been after those samosas.  I may have said that they were really good a few times already (both last night and on this blog).  We each had one of the non-menued suggested plates - I had the quail and G had the duck.  I'm glad I got the quail - I tried  a mouthful of the duck, which was really good, but I liked the quail better.  It was on a fig sauce with (I think? I know they told me...) fried foie gras on top (not much, but it did go very well).  Very tasty - I'm sure I would've thought it was fantastic if I hadn't just had the samosas, but instead, I just thought it was really good. There were little mashed potato balls rolled in almonds and deep fried - very nice (I am so going to try to make something like this, though it won't possibly be anywhere near as good).  Also another little salad.

Our fabulous dessert.  I love the presentation here as well as the taste of the food.

By this time, we were pretty full (neither of us managed to *quite* finish), but well, we really wanted some dessert.  We split a chestnut parfait thing - fabulous.  The consistency of the chestnut part reminded me strongly of the Japanese confection yookan, which is something I adore - and this was chestnut flavored, which made it even better.  There was a cream topping on the parfait, and sesame and caramalized sugar crunchy things (very nice) and a sprig of mint leaf.  I figured, why not try it with, since it was there - I would never have thought to eat mint with chestnuts, but wow was it good.  So tasty.  Then the waiter told us about another one of the desserts - chocolate mousse and chocolate ganache and really really good.  Clearly, we are going to have to go back before they change the menu.

I think I'm done now.  Neither of us is eating much today (though I've never found that being really full the night before makes me completely unhungry the next day, G has had a cup of tea and nothing else all day - I had some scrambled eggs for lunch).

Last night, I dreamed at eating at a really good restaurant and then trying to explain to people why it was worth spending a bunch of money to do so... but those samosas (and the dessert) were pretty much worth the price of the meal, all by themselves.