Food Review on the food in Toulouse, France.

This it the first dinner meal in Toulouse that I had with my classmate Yong. It was unfortunate that I did not manage to take picture of the restaurants name. I will make another post on the restaurant. The menu that I took, was valued at 21.50 Euros consisting of one starter and one main course. Adding a dessert to the meal will cost an additional 4 Euros. To start it off, I will show you the pictures of the food that I had that night.

For the starter. Please click on the picture below to view the full size image.

         This is the first part of the course, the starter. It is a prawn and smoked salmon salad marinated in sour cream served with grissini (bread sticks), endive, as well as the delicious horse radish salad. I started by eating the components of the dish one by one, first I try the prawn without the sour cream dressing. The prawn is moist and tender, then I try another prawn with the smoked salmon as well as the sour cream. However there was still no wow factor yet. Until, I mixed the whole cup of prawn and salmon together (note that the salmon is inside the glass marinated with the sour cream mix) I scoop it out with the tea spoon and place it on the endive and then, Wow. Yes, finally a wow, the flavours and everything is combined beautifully. In my taste buds, I can literally taste the ocean, the creaminess of the sour cream, well combined as sour elements works darn well with seafood. I cant show you my facial expression after having that bite, sadly because no one was there to take photo of my face. But I can tell you that it was really worth trying.

 I moved on to the horse radish salad. It was something really of Japanese influence, as not many French people (in my opinion) would really use a horse radish in their cooking. I have to tell you that the crispy fresh salad goes really really well with the spicy horse radish vinegarette. Imagine the salad is crispy and sensual with the addition of savoury sweet and spicy sauce. All the flavour combination is really really good. I wasn't a fan of horse radish, but with this sort of combination, I turned out to be one out of the blue moon.

The main course of the meal is the infamous Duck leg confit that most of us know, it is a famous dish from France. What is all about the duck confit? Well to put it simple, it is all because of the cooking process. The duck leg is trimmed, and immersed in duck fat filled with massive amounts of vegetables, fragrant herbs and whole black peppers, while traditionally it is just baked in duck fat without any additional ingredients. It is then baked in a slow oven for over 4 hours under low temperature. Before serving, usually the duck leg is pan fried till golden brown with a crispy skin.

Okay enough of introduction of the dish. As you can see the dish here, the crispy duck leg confit is served with a side salad of red capcicum salsa, a braised vegetables on the left, as well as a huge jacket potato with sour cream. I cant help to wonder but the restaurant uses alot of sour cream in their dishes. If you look closely, you will be surprised as I was, Notice the birds eye chili just next to the duck leg? I was really really surprised to see that present on a French dish, as far as I know, its very rare for the chili to be utilised by French people. I was thinking to myself, is this a joke? because I really didn't expect this. But as I try eating the duck with the chili. I was left speechless and I felt like I was in space, literally speechless for awhile. It was the best combination of food that I have ever had. The delicious yet moist and crispy duck with the chili, its really a good combination. No wonder why the chef had chosen the birds eye chili and put it together with the duck. The other side dishes, the red capcicum salsa was sauteed lightly, preserving the most of the freshness and the juiciness within. The braised vegetables however is just so so, its flavourful but the texture is dull and unattractive on the plate together with the gold mine. Coming to the final one, the jacket potato, im surprised that the French will put tin foil on the plate with the food, back in Malaysia, we are educated not to put un-edible food on the plate. The potato was okay, and perhaps more of the sour cream would be better.

Overall my experience with the food here is excellent, 21.5 Euros is worth the while hunting for the restaurant, and its totally worth the money. Not to mention a brand new dining experience. I would put up images on the next post of the restaurant.