will WE play in Peoria?

Kaitlyn spent the night at a friend’s house tonight (school vacation is still going on), so Bill and I got to go out for a grown-up dinner.

I called at lunchtime and managed to get a reservation at a restaurant several people have just raved about. The restaurant’s listing in my Grenoble Restaurant guide includes a full-page picture of seared scallops. Scallops. MMMM….. That was all I could think about all day long.

We got there and I anxiously opened the menu to find that the scallops are part of a menu that I didn’t want. (Restaurants in France group everything into menus…. which include several choices for each course… generally an appetizer… main dish or two…. cheese and dessert or cheese or dessert) Anyway, the menu that included the scallops included no appetizer I wanted, plus a cheese course and a dessert course. It was just too much.

“Order it a la carte.” Bill said. I had nearly settled on ordering just the scallops… no appetizer… and then maybe having dessert.

But when the waitress came to the table, I stunned myself and ordered off a different menu. The appetizer was some kind of cauliflower mousse with “perles de mer.” “Don’t do that.” Bill warned. He was right. It arrived at the table… a glass filled with the white puree mousse and generously topped with a pile of little orange fish eggs. I’ve always heard that caviar just tastes salty. So I tried a bite. It tastes like seawater mixed with fish. Nasty. I tried to pick at it but finally gave up, knowing that the waitress would want to know why I hadn’t eaten it. Which she did. I told her it was too strong for me. Then I crossed my fingers and hoped really hard that I’d like my main dish: fish. What was I thinking? It came out and looked ok… if you ignored the shiny skin it was cooked in. I hate when they do it. But at least it didn’t come out with its head still on or something completely horrifying like that. I peeled off the skin and tried the fish. It was ok. Not bad. Not really good. Just…. ok. Bill was over on his side of the table ooh-ing and aaah-ing over his scallops. After I’d made my ordering debacle, he ordered exactly what he wanted… a la carte. He gave me one of his scallops to try. I really did make a horrible ordering mistake.

For dessert, I was not going to cheat myself out of something good again. I ordered the candied chestnut mousse. And loved every bite of it. The chestnut liquor they brought with the bill was good, too.

At least the meal ended on a good note.

I want to go back. And order a la carte.

Bill says he’d rather go someplace else.

AAAAAAAHHH!!

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