So, she stopped at the l'Abbaye de Valloires, (Wiki page) where they have beautiful gardens. There is a rumor that they also have a restaurant where all the food is made from flowers and vegetables from the garden and they have...drum roll...natural wine. (I took this picture at the main entrance of l'Abbaye, but we had to get into the car and drive a little bit down the road to get to the restaurant.)Besides, it was lunch time. This is our classic MO for the trip. Sleep until 9ish. Have breakfast while we look at the map and decide which natural food and wine restaurants we can hit for lunch and dinner, while still visiting the obligatory B&Bs on the map. We climb into the car at lunch time and go have lunch. Sometimes, we have a 4-hour lunch. After all, we have to talk to the chef about each course and discuss which wine is best for each course and then take food porn pictures of everything and then the chef and his wife have to sit down with us at the table to have a glass or two with us and then they have to tell us about the best local places for wine and food and advise us on where to go for dinner. This is very, very important. And then, we have to cram in the B&B inspection visits in time to hit our natural food and wine restaurant for dinner. It's a tough job, but somebody has to do it.
We didn't take the time to visit the gardens at l'Abbaye, because we had our priorities and, um, work to do. We made a beeline to The Gardener's Table for our lunch. Oh boy. It was kind of a disaster. In order to get to the restaurant, you're forced to go through the gift shop, which was full of busloads of tourists, clamoring to buy flower-scented soaps, gardening books, post cards and whatever. It was terrible. Me and Galadriel hated this. Worse yet, the restaurant is in the back of this Altar of Needless Consumption, with just a little portable screen for separation. The noise was deafening.
Galadriel spied an outside terrace, where we ran for cover. There was a table available and a waitress brought us the plastic-coated menus. Galadriel asked her about natural wine and about the menu and the waitress had no idea if they had natural wine and had only a basic knowledge of the menu. Ugh. This did not bode well. You would think that she would be full of information and proud of what the restaurant had to offer, but non. So, we reluctantly ordered.
This is when we had a nice surprise. When the food and wine came, it was all an incredible work of art. And the food was amazing. It was such a shame that it was presented in this environment and we couldn't quite get past our original experience to really love the food. But you can see from the pictures how beautiful it was.
Here is the bread basket, with flowers embedded in the bread.
Here is the appetizer, with a shot for each of us of a nice sweet wine. There were spicy chapatis to dip in hummus and three types of herb or vegetable-stuffed breads to dip in a cool herbed cream sauce.
Here is the vegetable soup.
Here is the main course - roasted tomato, beet salad, fresh asparagus, hummus, grapes. I can't remember what was in the little red pot.
Here is the cheese. You can see how beautifully presented it was and it was really delicious. We just couldn't stand the atmosphere.
Just across the street was a chateau which was on Galadriel's list to visit, but there was a sign at the main gate telling us that the owner had died and they were having his funeral that day. So, walking in there and asking to inspect the beds and bathrooms didn't seem like the right thing to do.
Stay tuned for my next post, where I'll show you an incredible Japanese wilderness garden and B&B, right in the French countryside. When you enter the grounds, you completely forget where you are. À tout à l'heure!
