mercredi 9 janvier 2013

Food snobbery

I wanted to wait until I received my Who's Who results to post tonight, but so far, USM has kept mum on the topic.

We have not posted in awhile, but, nothing remarkable has occurred lately. I still can't watch Downton Abbey. This fact leaves me heartbroken. :(

Today, we took our placement exams for our French classes. Justin did well (annoyingly as always). I lucked out and received the written and oral sections on food. In case anyone hasn't noticed, I love food. I especially love the french food traditions (it amuses me that fast food isn't very popular here). I had the pleasure of discussing food and entertaining in the US (meaning I got to criticize American culinary traditions. YAY for food snobbery!). In my opinion, I bombed the oral section spectacularly. I found the written section to be très simple! We shall see the results on Friday. We were nearly late for the bus this morning, meaning I missed breakfast and coffee. Therefore, I took my exam while hungry, under-caffeinated, and pissed off.

Food...ah food. That's why we're here, right (oh wait yea, and that language thing). On the day we met the other English-speakers of our group, Justin and I had lunch with Lovin and Katie. Both girls are wonderful and nice, and they have excellent French. We had lunch at a Vietnamese/Chinese/Laotian restaurant. The owner spoke very good English (I'm assuming if one is going to learn French, might as well tackle English as well), and the food was excellent. I had a vietnamese spicy soup for my appetizer (entrée for the french) and curried chicken for my main course (the plat principal). I ordered the cafe gourmande for dessert, which consisted of a brownie, a macaron, and these odd sweet sesame bites that I did not care for. Over all, the meal was delicious. I drank sparkling water with my meal as a wine list was not offered (for anyone reading Justin's posts, I do not drink beer. The beer here is very good, but I do not care for beer at all).

Last night, we had sushi (mostly due to the fact that it was one of the few places still open after 4 in the afternoon). I ordered a vegeterian roll (I'm trying really hard to stick with the veggies, but France is just not a vegeterian friendly place). The sushi was fresh and delicious, and it was prepared actual sushi size! For our American friends who eat sushi and are reading this, a piece of sushi should never, ever be too large to fit in your mouth. With portion sizes being much smaller here than in the US, the sushi was actual sushi size. :) We had water with our sushi due to the fact that the wine was oddly expensive in the sushi restaurant (one doesn't drink wine with asian food anyway).

Today, we had lunch at a pizza place that Justin wanted to try. He had the "Obama Pizza" (the restaurant was very American themed), and it was just the best thing I have ever tried. I regret not ordering it. I ordered lamb chops served with fries, and drank water (again, the wine was oddly expensive. We're going to stop frequenting international restaurants).

I'm going to let it sink in with my family that I ORDERED french fries, in a restaurant.

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Everyone ok now?

I wanted to try them here to see if they were better or worse or the same. I will say, I think they were much better, but I still do not care for them. The fries tasted like they were homemade, and they were much less salty than any french fries I have tried in the US. I do give the mustard sauce served with them two thumbs way, way up!
The lamb chops...yes. I know. I'm not supposed to eat meat, but lamb is my biggest vice. I love it. love love love it! I ordered the lamb well done (quit judging, I forgot the french word for "bloody." I won't forget again!), and it didn't completely ruin the taste. The chops were very good, and very tender! For dessert, I had the cafe gourmande again. The espresso was good, and they served it with a brownie (beginning to not care for the brownies served. Both times they were just...blah), some odd dessert that tasted a little boozy that I did not care for at all, and a doughnut with whipped cream. The doughnut was surprisingly delicious. It was obviously baked and not fried, and the consistency was much more of a cake. I thought it was excellent (and good for the French for putting the doughnut in its rightful place as a dessert, not a breakfast food!).

We did go to McDonald's tonight, but mostly for the free wifi. We ordered coffee, and I was greatly offended by drinking espresso from a paper cup. I will not be doing that again.

I'm super sleepy after a stressful day. I'm guessing the Who's Who results are just not coming today.

Bonne Nuit everyone!

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