La vie Strasbourgeoise

Strasbourg has long been disputed over by France and Germany since the middle ages... Take a string from the middle of France and take it straight to the East and you'll hit Strasbourg. Only two and a half hours from Paris by TGV, you enter a city straight out of the fairytales of the Brothers Grimm.


The city clearly does not have the allure of la Vieille France but more of a rather large medieval german village. The distinct architecture of apparent wooden structures and crooked little paved roads make for an ambieance quite far from Paris. Plenty of color and canals with swans floating in them... You almost expect to see Pinocchio or Jack and his beanstalk chatting in a pottoresque square.

Even more particular is the cuisine. Strasbourg is well know for its very, very Deutsche-influenced fare. Here's a little recap of what we had.

We arrived around dinner-time and headed straight into a typical Winstub. This is their version of a traditional bistrot with regional dishes and specialities. The first thing I ordered was.. Beer! Of course! Météor beer, a local bière blonde which is really light and refreshing. Sad to say, it was probably the best thing I had that night. I wasn't too impressed with the food. Although I do like german-ish fare, this was sort of a frenchified version: heavy on the cream and butter.

I had a dish called Bouchées à la Reine which is a hearty, grandmother's recipe. It is made out of small chunks of veal and chicken in a mushroom cream sauce served with Spatzel (Alsatian pasta made with fresh cream).

It tasted like Campbells mushroom soup with chicken meat in it. A bit bland. I did like the Spatzel though...


The night was young and after another round of beer in another place, we conquered the city. Heading first to a place that wasn't so bad if it wasn't for the hard-core techno music called La Passerelle. Then to a place that turned out to be very fun: The Living Room. The nightscene is very underground, very east berlin and electro pop music. Not bad, not bad.

The next day started late with a nice Flammekeuch in the Petite France quarter. A Flammekeuch is an alsatian "pizza", square and thin with lots of cream... It literally means "flamed tarte". Washed down with beer after a night out... It does the trick!


We met up with some friends who knew more or less where to go. They live in Mulhouse, which is a city that's not too far away. One of them is a chocolatier. He makes decorations out of chocolate for different stores and pastry shops. Here's a sample of his work. A green tea macha chocolate cake that Chef Aaron had at the chocolate bar.

The culinary highlight of our trip was the fabulous dinner at Le Beurehiesel. Longtime planned and reserved in advance we had some excellent food despite my not so wise choice. (Sorry Nico!)
A large tabel of 12 between good friends, old and new, from Paris and Beyond. A nice little apéritif... Although I adore beer, Champagne is still always a lovely pleasure.

On the menu was an entrée that Chef Aaron has been talking about for ages: Cuisses de grenouille with a ravioli of caramelized onions. I have to admit that this was my first time to eat frogs' legs. I was never queasy about it but I just never had the chance to. It was succulent! Not much like chicken as everyone else says, but more like fish: monkfish in particular. A soft, melt-in-your-mouth white meat cooked in a hearty sauce made with chervil. The ravioli married well with the dish as it was quite salty and the onions tapered it off a bit. A crisp white wine: Rieseling if I'm not mistaken. A specialty of the region.

Here's where I went wrong. The Menu listed a Beackoff as a specialty. I wanted to take the poitrine de porc but was tempted to try all their specialties. Since it was for two, I convinced poor Nico (my seat mate) to share it with me. Everyone's dishes came, all looking excellent, well spiced and caramelized. very excited, everything looked like the type of cuisine I love.

Here comes the waiter. A giant pot, sealed by bread dough that had to be cut open. Everyone oohed and ahhed. He opens the lid and... pulls out a chicken white as a pasty northern european on a cold beach in february!
Oh no! The vegetables were very good, but I was disappointed to be having boiled chicken while everyone else had some succulent, juicy and hearty dish.



Fortunately the servings were large and lovely Stacey gave me almost a fourth of her pork, so did Victor. Beggars can't be choosers. I was peddling for bits and pieces of everyone else's dish. Poor Nico was being made fun of by Rachel who always happens to have better food than him.



The pork was excellent. Caramelized, crispy and fondant at the same time. A hint of sweet and the delicate scent of clove.


Desserts were very yummy though... Like I said, beer is everywhere. An excellent dessert made out of a beer brioche style pain perdu or french toast with beer ice cream! Yes beer ice cream. It was like taking cold, sweet beer. I wouldn't mind having a gallon at home!

I had a déclinaison café: three little desserts, all coffee and chocolate flavored. I really liked the one with praline the best. I'm sorry for my non descript dessert descriptions but I'm not much of a sweet tooth and I forgoe desserts more often than not.


That night, please don't ask where we went. A sketchy bar that seemed more like an socio-experimental enclosed environment infused with bad techno and nineties music straight from the set of the TV-Series Lost. It was so bizarre, we were quite drunk, that it was actually funny. Go-go dancers and all. Then we finished off at Seven. A more conventional club with fun pop music. Dancing till late, the boys drinking till late.

I was originally excited to go for a long awaited culinary feast. The weekend was meant to be about discovering new tastes and all the great food the Alsatian region is known for. In the culinary aspect, I was expecting much more. Even the Beurehiesel disappointed me in terms of ambience, service and detail (the waiter needed a bit of deo, poor guy, and the table setting was bit cheapy) The food was much blander than I expected and apart from the frog's legs and the pork... my favorite culinary delight was the yummy gingerbread cookies I took home. However, I had a blas!t Eveyone was happy to be all together, laughing in the streets and carrying each other home when we couldn't stand anymore. Crazy stories of base jumpers off the cathedral to solo wanderings after 5 am...La vie Strasbourgeoise is all about good friends, good laughs (or good giggles...) and a lot of alcohol. When's the next train???