Florence/Rome/Paris May2013 - 5

Back to Paris after the BBQ, dropped our luggage at the hotel, met our friends, and together immediately drove off to Honfleur! Love how familiar all these feel..

Charming place which we're always so proud to show off to our friends. 3rd time back here at restaurant Sa.Qua.Na and it's still as good and as value for money as ever. The half menu lunch at 68eur is already enough to wow our tummies. Very easy to drive to from Paris. Trust me that it won't disappoint!

Finally returned to our oh-so-dear Paris for the remaining leg of the trip. Stayed at Adagio hotel near the La Fayette and the location is super perfect. Access to shopping and very importantly to the metro. For one dinner, we wandered randomly to a nearby Korean restaurant which serves pretty good grills.

Roland Garros hohoho. Never to be missed. And again, showing off our favourite restaurant L'Ogre. Heavenly roast suckling pig and cote du beouf!!! Walk it off along the Seine and take in the lovely night scene. What a perfect end to the day.

Honfleur/Le Havre/Etretat (15-16April11)

The day after we returned from the South of France trip, we drove 2 hours up north with Charmaine to Honfleur for a lunch at Sa.Qua.Na, our favorite restaurant in France. I have to mention this place again because I love it too much. They offer a menu of either 5 courses for 65€ or 9 courses for 95€ whereby the entire table has to be served the same menu. However, I can safely tell you that the 5-course menu is more than enough. Both come with an amuse-bouche which is the pancake/tart-looking thing in the photo below. A weird, heavy amuse-bouche one might say, but when you put it in your mouth, you'll be utterly surprised at the lightness & fluffiness of it! The tinge of truffle aroma is just heavenly. Thus we have crowned this the single best dish of the restaurant which is to.die.for and to.crave.for. Their slow-cooked fishes and pigeons are also awesome. Do look back on my previous post (tagged Honfleur) for more descriptions made during my 1st trip there.

Afterwards, we headed to Le Havre via a 2km-long bridge called Pont de Normandie. Le Havre, which translates simply to "the harbour or the port", is "a city of the Haute-Normandie region (declared in 2005 a UNESCO World Heritage Site) with a port that's the second busiest in France (after Marseille)". We stayed a night there but I wouldn't recommend going there at this time because much of the city is undergoing construction to make way for new tram lines. The only thing we did was to walk around the city center (where the shops and bars are) which was quite charming. You can read more about it here.

The following day, we drove another 45 minutes from Le Havre to a place called Étretat. It is best known for its cliffs, which I was most attracted to because Claude Monet illustrated them in several of his paintings! Here are 2 paintings which you can compare against my photos :) The ones on the left is called Porte d'Aval and on the right Porte d'Amont with Manneport behind it. I hope I got them right.

Left: Source [http://givernews.com/?Balade-en-normandie]
Right: Source [http://www.culture.gouv.fr/public/mistral/joconde_fr?ACTION=CHERCHER&FIELD_1=AUTR&VALUE_1=MONET%20Claude&DOM=All&REL_SPECIFIC=1&IMAGE_ONLY=CHECKED]

We "trekked" up the Porte d'Aval for a better view of the beach, the cliffs on the other side, and the town. Love it. To end the visit nicely, we had shellfishes and wine at a restaurant by the beach. The mussels were quite bad though so choose the oysters and the likes instead.

Sa.Qua.Na (1st visit)

Took a trip up to Deauville again, this time stopping by Honfleur first for lunch at a Michelin 2-starred restaurant. Superb food. One of the better restaurants I've tried so far in France, and very reasonably-priced too! Took their "half" set menu at 65€ pp. (Menu at the end of this post but it's in French).

1. Some pancake thing with truffle oil. 2 to 1 pancake. We were a lil worried initially as it looked heavy. But no, it was so light and aromatic that we finished it in no time.. Impressed right from the start!
2. Nice presentation

3. I love the creamy medium-done cod fish (hidden beneath the greens) although the others thought it was alright. With minced duck innards (i think), fried bread crusts and cod foamed cream.
4. Salmon. Very fresh and soft. With tempura which complemented the fish very well.

5. Main dish - the best pigeon everyone at the table has ever had. Too awesome for words.
6. Cheese platter

7. Now that we've arrived at our 6th course, we definitely didn't think this tart crepe dessert could fit anywhere in stomach! Hesitation hesitation. And so the glutton (namely me), did the test run. I took a bite and boy was I surprised. The passion fruit-flavored cream was wayyy lighter and yummier than expected. I just continued eating and the others immediately followed suit. Everybody finished their share. :)
8. More desserts. At this point, all of us thought our tummies have reached their limits. But guess what, we still managed to eat them all! Tsk tsk. Cappuccino ice cream and raspberry sorbet. Oh, save for the fact that we "took away" the caramel cake.

Took a total of 4 hours to finish this lunch. How absurd but necessary! A real keeper. What still amazes me is how we managed to polish off every course. I guess it just shows how well-balanced the dishes were.

Name: Sa.Qua.Na

Website: http://www.alexandre-bourdas.com/

Location: 22 place Hamelin, 14600 Honfleur

Expenditure: 80€ pp with wine & coffee

After the crazy lunch, we had to take a walk around the yacht area which was rather lively that day. There were stalls with smoked fish, smoked salmon, oysters etc. but nah, no chance.

Road Trip (1) - Honfleur/Saint-Malo

Road-trip day 1 (sat)

Went on a road-trip to Normandy/Brittany area. Destination is at Saint-Malo (4-hour drive from Paris) but we detoured for a stopover lunch at Honfleur. Nice boaty place to bum around for a few hours.. Had lunch at a restaurant called 'Le Bistro Du Port' but service was slow and food kinda cmi.. not well worth the money. If you're there, walk in a little more and you'll get to a boat-anchoring area surrounded by numerous lil cafes.

Reached Saint-Malo in the evening and was pleasantly greeted by a vast blue beach sight. Stayed at 'Hotel Ibis' which boasts an exceptional sea view from some of the rooms! Unfortunately our triple-bed rooms were located at the opposite side. Clean, no frills, cheap and great view. Definitely a keeper.

Took a breezy walk along the coast (wide beach cos of the super low tide) from the hotel to the city centre (about 10-15 mins). Felt so relaxed and free. Had dinner at 'Le Bistro De Jean' which served really good starters! Main courses like beef, duck and lamb were not bad but the fish was disappointing.

Name: Le Bistro De Jean (reservations recommended)

Location:  6 rue de la Corne de Cerf, Intra Muros, 35400 Saint-Malo

Expenditure: 140€

The walk back to the hotel was uber freezing at 11deg! (summer now mind you) So cold that mei mei cried. Poor thing...