The Meal...

Before the meal, a small rant..

Well, while sort of mopping up my Wales notes and images, I am sitting here watching the (American) football games, specifically the team from Washington and the Vikings from Minnesota.  I’m sorry, when I was coaching Hockey, there was a saying we used to preach to our teams (and I’ve heard it repeated other places) that “there is no “I” in team”.  Apart from being literally correct, it is a good concept.  It isn’t called a “team sport” for nothing. Too bad it doesn’t seem to take root in the National Football Team.   The current game is (for a change) rather high scoring, and each and every touchdown, regardless of the color of the jersey, the person pounds his chest, points to himself, exhorts the crowd to cheer him, and generally tries to draw as much attention to himself as possible.  Me!!  And it doesn’t only involve the players on the offensive side of the ball.  A linesman, or maybe a backer manages to tackle a runner in the backfield, and you would think it was the game saving play in the Super Bowl.  Prancing, gloating, standing over the downed player staring him down.  Me!! It’s all ABOUT ME!!  Look what I did!!  For some silly reason, I thought that that was what they are paid for.

In contrast, while in Cardiff, we had a chance to listen to a rehearsal of a choir associated with the local Rugby team. 

They were practicing singing the National Anthem of some of the teams they would be playing in friendly matches, like Fiji or South Africa.  In typical Welsh fashion when they took a break they came over us with their pints, and told us it was common practice to sing the Anthem of the opposing team before the match.  And, commonly afterwards “fans” from both sides gathered in pubs and enjoyed each others company.  What a concept.  And believe me, one of the things we learned is that there is fierce pride in their country, those Welshmen.

The Meal...

Speaking of Wales, you will note (maybe) that I have not said much about the food on the trip. I did fairly extensive research on restaurants in the various cities where we stayed, and found some pretty interesting venues.  In practice we didn’t have too many “free” evenings, as our travel hosts arranged for many group meals within the hotels in which we resided.   That dynamic probably deserves a whole column in itself, but we did have one meal on our own and that was outstanding.  It was on the third night of our trip, and was in the town of Deganwy, near Conwy. 

The place was called Paysanne, and featured French cuisine.  It received pretty positive reviews in TripAdvisor, which, incidentally seemed to cover the UK better than Yelp.  Anyway, I did the “contact us” tab on their website and to my surprise received a rapid reply that they would be looking for us, and commented that most of their guests came only a few miles to visit rather than our thousands.  So after a day of castle visiting we arranged for a taxi, and to our surprise it was just about outside walking distance.  The cab person didn’t seem to care.

The restaurant was located in kind of a series of row houses, and in fact I suspect that the space started out life as just that.  It was transformed into a restaurant but still showed the bones of its previous use.

We were seated in a corner table near the front by the person who had corresponded with me and noted he was glad we were there.  It turned out that he was the only person we saw in the front of the house all evening.  He was very friendly but not to the point of being intrusive.  He asked if we would care for a drink without any “taking care of you ..” foolishness.  Knowing that cocktails were practically unknown before dinner in the UK, I thought maybe a gin based one would be okay, and asked if I could have a martini.  Well, I was told, I don’t have any dry vermouth.   A bit unexpected, but a gin and tonic would be possible.  Fine.

Turning to the menu, we found some old friends there, like starters of POTAGE DU JOUR, TERRINE DE CAMPAGNE, as well as some new ones like CHAMPIGNON A LA PALFRAMAN (Roast field mushrooms stuffed with Stilton, bacon and onions and wrapped in puff pastry, served with a port Coulis), plus we were told there were Mussels Meuniere, fresh that day from Conwy, just across the river where we were earlier in the day.

I couldn’t pass those up, and MFO decided on the “a la Palframan”.  Mains were also classically French like Boeuf Bourgignon, Poulet Citron, and Porc a La Moutarde caught MFO’s eye (Caramelised fillet of Welsh Pork served with a creamy Dijon Mustard sauce with a baked apple stuffed with walnuts and sultanas).  The Poisson du Jour was a fillet of Plaice, which suited me just fine.   With the selections made, a Sancerre was certainly appropriate and was ordered.

Crusty bread accompanied the wine and helped pass the time until the starters arrived.  The mussels were served in the traditional blue pot and lid, and were probably the best I have ever had since Normandy.

And MFO’s mushroom dish was also lovely

It took me a while to plow through the mussels, but it would have been impolite to not finish them.

The main dishes were equally lovely with my fish unadorned with meaningless stuff, just fish and a sauce, simple.

And the pork was cooked and presented just right

All this time other guests arrived and we were struck by the fact that most were known, and treated like family.  Nobody was rushed, people just enjoying themselves along with good food in a pleasant place.  It is, after all what it’s all about.  That dinner will remain a standout in our memories of the journey.  We had other good food, but the whole experience was not equaled.  Oh yes, we indeed were

DFD