Transit in Lyon (or Gastroville) – May 2012

Lyon Panorama, view from Notre Dame de Fourvière
©M.Venables

During our brief stop in Lyon, we first stayed at our friends’ house in the Croix Rousse, a hilly area in the old part of town, which used to be working class, home of Lyon’s silk workers, and is now quite trendy. Well my friends and I used to live there, so the hipsters followed… naturally Just joking!

They had organised a little crêpe party for us, thanks to their awesome mini-crêpe machine, which allows everyone at the table to make their own crêpes and the hosts to enjoy themselves, instead of being stuck in the kitchen.

After many savoury ones (ham, cheese, mushrooms…), we attacked the sweet ones, with cooked apples, cream, which we then “flambé-ed” with Cointreau, it was pretty fun!

The magic bottle of Brittany salted butter caramel

The magic bottle of Bordeaux!

We were having a damn fine time. Until later in the night… “le drame”: I got sick like I hadn’t been sick since… ever! I cursed myself for indulging so much… It lasted all night, I didn’t sleep a wink and felt awful all day, which didn’t bode well for the dinner we had planned at a restaurant with all my friends, some of whom came to town just to catch up with us! But I soldiered on, our friend Gé made me a fortifying vegetable soup, and at dinner I managed to have a salad and a piece of bread, wouhou!

Beautiful fat Asparagus

We then went on to stay at my highschool friend, her husband and their young daughter in another part of Lyon. Like my other friends mentioned above, these guys are very French, in that they sure know where to find the best food! They also happen to have the best stocked freezer I’ve ever seen, filled to the brim with ice-creams and sorbets of all kinds! And not the “Streets” kind, only high-quality ice-cream… nice

The following day, they had prepared “just a simple lunch” for us (“à la bonne franquette!”): salad, asparagus, bread, cheese. Well I’ll have me simple lunches like that every day if I can, merci beaucoup! I hadn’t seen so many cheeses on the one table in a long time. Luckily by then I felt much better and was able to honour the beautiful spread our friends had prepared for us.

Just a small selection of cheeses: tommes de chêvre at various stages of ripeness and a beautiful piece of Roquefort Papillon

Saint Félicien (looking ready to escape its vessel!),
two majestic pieces of Comté,
a Coulommiers (bit similar to Brie),
and the less traditional but nonetheless enjoyable Babybel

But wait, there’s more! Cute little “bouchons” (corks) of Chêvre!

But then, later in the day, another “drame”… as we were watching the French presidential elections coverage, it was my partner’s turn to be violently sick! I thought: “Isn’t that overreacting a bit..?”, but it turned out it was more due to a virus… a theory proven right when the friend who first put us up called to say she was really sick too! I had contaminated everyone, poor things

The following day, my friend’s hubby still bought this lovely Red Praline Tart in case (remember the St-Genix brioche from my previous post? Same kind of pralines here). This is a specialty from Lyon, and this one was from the La Marquise Pâtisserie in the rue St-Jean, in the Vieux- Lyon quartier.

Praline Tart from La Marquise Patisserie, rue Saint Jean, Vieux Lyon

That tart was very nice, very sweet and almondy, although a small slice was more than enough for me at that stage!

Red Praline Tart from La Marquise Patisserie, rue Saint Jean, Vieux Lyon

So to wrap up, our stay in Lyon turned out not so much gastronomic as gastroenteritic unfortunately. Hence the lack of pictures, I was too busy feeling like m..rde! However, we are going back to Lyon for the World Pastry Cup at the end of January, so this time, I’ll make sure I take some pretty shots to put on this blog, as it really is a beautiful city!

Next and final stop of our trip: Paris, where we had a few days to recover from our ailments and where I promised myself that we would eat, visit and see a thousand things! At least!