visit to the Atlantic, sort of---part 1, food

Actually, we did see the Atlantic beach at St. Jean De Luz, and, I suppose, again at Bayonne (after a fashion, not up close and personal) and had glimpses again on the drive home. Rather like we saw the Mediterranean when we were in the Cote d'Azur. St. Jean de Luz and Bayonne are down there in Navarre in Basque country (still haven't figured out the boundaries of Basque country, but I guess the best way to tell is by looking at village names for those that are clearly neither French nor Spanish), on the Atlantic coast by the border with Spain. We weren't but a couple of miles from Spain, if that, and we foolishly made the trip in only one day...

Menu

It's a serious resort area. Not like Cannes, with BP's all over the place, but a serious and seriously expensive resort area. Beach lined with hotels, just like in Nice. We got there and were starving (took twice as long to drive as I'd calculated, sorry about that). The centers of these ancient towns are all small, which is a blessing. I'd made a list of restaurants, and we found one post-haste. It was full and fully-booked (not the same thing). Ended up on the terrace down the road a piece at what appeared to be a real dive, a sleazy bar. We were, however, desperate for food and drink. The menu was, of course, written in seriously bad handwriting on a chalkboard that they carry around, and all of the fish over here are different species but similar to fish we have in the US, so I'm always having trouble. It's usually more or less okay if I can look at it, because it'll look similar to something I know BUT...

moules farcies (stuffed mussels)

gazpacho

On top of which, we're in Basque country, you see, and when the waiter was talking to us, it was supposedly French, but I couldn't understand a word, and he of course spoke no English. He did understand me. Phil ordered two from the Appetizer list, gazpacho and stuffed mussels. I ordered this dish that I THOUGHT he said had fish in it and asparagus and moules (mussels) and green peas and was a "marmite", which can mean any number of things.

marmite

Hey, this is wrapping better than I expected. Not that it's good, but....So the menu you can see above. The mussels around here right now are those tiny ones, and the "farce" (stuffing) was mostly finely chopped mushrooms, I think, with some breadcrumbs, Italian parsley and, I suspect, some esplette, which is this kind of pepper found in Basque and used a lot. It's actually quite nice stuff. And my marmite turned out to be some really, REALLY good fish broth that was seriously yellow, probably from that fake saffron they have (MUCH cheaper than the real stuff, and good but not AS good). It had in it lots of things: potatoes, which Phil refused to acknowledge as potatoes until I gave him one; several steaks of this white fish; tiny mussels; canned green peas and canned white asparagus (those skinny white things you can see on top there...); a boiled egg in the middle there; and some other unidentifiable pieces of food. It was actually really, really good. Phil ate some of it; I ate basically every drop of the rest except for fish bones, mussel shells, and the egg yolk. It was good. Well, maybe not so much the canned asparagus and green peas, which I object to on principle and didn't eat either.

We each had a glass of rose with the meal; it's not as good as the vin de table rose you get all around Perigord, but it was okay. Found a couple more restaurants that were on my list as we wandered around the old port area, but left before dinnertime...