Cooling My Culinary Jets

(Be prepared for a long post.  It covers yesterday and half of today)

Maybe in my twenties or even thirties, perhaps my forties, a large plate of frogs’ legs, foie gras, veal brains in a rich broth, and wine to wash it all down with during a day would have been a piece of gateau.  At the age of 71, it is a different matter.

I limped through a baguette, butter, jam, and fresh fruit this morning for breakfast.  At 1pm I still wasn’t hungry, but off I went to Makphet, the number one TripAdvisor rated restaurant in Vientiane.  I went there because they serve Lao food which is considerably less rich than French cuisine.

I ate a plate of lemongrass chicken and washed it down with a 660 milliliter bottle of beer.  To save you the effort of putting that into ounces, it is about an ounce and a half shy of two bottles of beer in the states.  In hindsight, I probably should have stuck with water.  The beer made me lethargic, and I found myself sitting down to rest a bit to break up my walk to the hotel some 20 minutes away.

Speaking of hotels, whoever drew the map of downtown Vientiane must have been related to those folks who during WWII shifted around road signs to confuse the invading Germans.  You know, at the T intersection the road to Beaune goes to the left, so move the sign around and it points in the opposite direction.  Either that or it was a local project in a nut hatch to keep the inmates busy.

Repeatedly, and let me repeat that, I have gone in search of a restaurant shown at a location on the map only to find it two blocks away.  It is great for exercise but truly frustrating.  Take today, for example.  I am switching hotels.  The Villa Lao did not have a vacancy for the entire time I was to be here, so I booked in at the Sinnakhone for the rest of my stay. 

I spent a long time this morning locating the Sinnakhone on the aberration called a map.  I then went to that location and spent 40 minutes wandering about, finally stopping in at two other hotels to ask directions and, lo and behold, arrived at the doorstep of the hotel some six blocks away from where it was shown on a map.  What do these people smoke over here?

By the way, I am thinking about dredging up all my emails from prior trips, polishing them up, and publishing them in ebook form.   I think the title will be ‘Whining and Dining around the Planet’.  That reminds me, I thought about writing a book about our experiences over about our seven years in Argentina as vineyard owners.  That one was going to be titled ‘Don’t Make Me Cry Argentina.’ [Bryna’s title suggestion was ‘You Make Me Cry, Argentina.’] But, life moves on.

Where was I?  Oh, yes I was going to tell you about dinner.  I swore at lunch, actually after I awoke from an hour’s nap after lunch, that dinner was not to be.  I would rest my stomach.  

I moved to my new hotel late in the afternoon.  It just happens to sit in the heart of the restaurant district.  At about 7pm I went for a walk.  Four minutes later, I strolled by a restaurant that was in my top ten list.  As The New York Times review put it:  “FRENCH FANFARE: The French left more than half a century ago, but their legacy remains in the city’s stellar cuisine.  An intriguing newcomer is the casually chic bistro L’Adresse de Tinay.”

My stomach followed my nose into the restaurant .  Not two minutes later, a bubbly young woman appeared at my table to explain the menu.  She turned out to be the wife of the chef.  They are partners in the restaurant.

I needed no explanation.  During my first time through the menu, I had decided on the salade nicoise and the duck cassoulet.  And, of course, wine.  

An amusing bush was served first.  It was a shot glass of thick pureed gazpacho with crusty pieces of bread for dipping. 

Then came the salade nicoise.   It was a ‘pyramid affair’.  On top was  a rolled anchovy stuffed with a ripe olive tapenade.  That sat atop on a piece of tuna that had been seared but was still deep red on the inside.  The tuna sat on top of the greens.  The salad was ringed with quail eggs and cherry tomatoes which had been halved.

I savored the salad, and shortly after I had finished it, out came the cassoulet.  It consisted of a duck leg and thigh ‘confitted’ atop a mixture of beans.  Before these items had been plated, about a half ladle of sweet cream infused with garlic had been put on the plate, then the duck and beans placed over that.  A Gallic sausage rounded out the dish.  More crusty baguette and the rest of the carafe of wine helped finish the meal. 

The wife is made for the restaurant business.  Attentive to all the clientele, she runs a tight ship and has more energy than a three year old.  Sometime during one of her passes by my table I complimented her shoes.  She returned the compliment with a glass of lemoncello at the end of the meal.

Before going onward about food, I'll take you back to a chat I had at breakfast with a Frenchman yesterday who was spending several weeks in Laos on holiday.  He told me of two women discussing the types of books they liked to read.  One said she adored romance novels.  The other said she usually read books that started out with great anticipation but ended in disaster.  Her friend asked what types of books were they. Cookbooks, she replied.

Now, on to more eating.  Lunch today was at Bistro 22.  It lies outside the epicenter of Vientiane by 14 blocks or so from where most restaurants are located.  Nevertheless, it is strategically located because it is only a block and a half from the French Embassy.  Employees have a walk of but a few minutes to enjoy ‘home cooking’.

Lunch began with a chilled gazpacho soup redolent of lemon basil.  The slices of whole wheat baguette and delicious butter served as a nice accompaniment to the soup.

Next was the duck salad with pears.  A roasted duck breast was sliced and then the slices were laid upside a mound of greens.  Slices of poached pears ringed the mound of greens and duck slices.  The greens were dressed with a glossy mix of honey and other things I could not define.  The honey was so well balanced with the other dressing ingredients you knew it was in there only from the hint of sweetness.

After the salad (which I could not finish and it now sits happily in the fridge in my room) was poached Tilapia on a bed of rice.  Sounds fairly common doesn’t it.  However, the rice and fish sat in a large pool of sweet cream that had been infused with part of a vanilla bean.  And, the flavors get more complex.  The rice had raisins (or perhaps currants because they were very small) and tiny cubes of mango.  The mango was semi ripe so it had plenty texture and a bit of bite to it.  This is another dish I can’t wait to make when I get back.

Finally two crepes folded in quarters and bathed in caramel sauce with a dollop of whipped cream rounded out the meal.  I was so excited about the crepes it occurred to me only after they were half gone to take a picture of them.

Vive la France!