Haute Cuisine and the Cyclist

The restaurant at Le Candie, our chateau in Chambery, is among the finest in Chambery, and our tour guides took advantage of this fact by arranging for us to have dinner there on Tuesday night.  It featured traditional French haute cuisine with 2 entrée options for the menu du jour—rabbit et al, and a fish (dorado) et al.  After a beer on the gracious patio, we moved inside for dinner at 7:45 PM and began with a tiny twisted glass cup, featuring the chef’s espresso bisque as an appetizer, and a single roll, without butter, carefully placed on our plate by the waiter. About a half hour later, our second course arrived, which was a shot glass-sized portion of quail egg in broth and a small tumbler of a custard.  Some of our group opted for 3 pieces of white asparagus topped by a thin piece of salty fish instead.  We finished this course in 3 minutes, and about 15 min. later the waiter, sensing our restlessness, came back to offer us another roll.  At approximately 9:15 PM, the entrée arrived (see picture of dorado--it's the dark strips alongside the two cheese raviolis).  At 10:00 PM, Rich discovered a basket of bread in the adjacent room, and we commissioned 19 year-old Nick to deliver it to us.  He received severe looks from some native French diners in the room.  Perhaps hastened by the purloined bread, the waiter delivered course no. 4, the fromage selection, at 10:15 PM, and at 10:30 PM a number of us gave up on course no. 5, dessert, and retired, our appetites tempered but not satisfied, to our rooms.  We heard later that dessert was tiny but excellent.  The price was 80 euros/person, which included 3 half-glasses of wine matched to each main course.

 

Apart from providing a quintessential  French experience and a favorite talking point for the next couple days, we find the main value of the meal was to impress on us the misfit between cycling and haute cuisine.  Cyclists want food, lots of food, in a hurry.  Healthy, well-prepared food is even better.  Then we go to bed.  Now, as we travel through France, we put a premium on beer, pizza, salad, frites and 10 euro plat du jours from cafes and brasseries, food that arrives fast and reloads the tank fully.