Weekend Cooking: Bastille Day Dinner

 On July 14, I saw a post on Facebook which talked about the fact that if you are in France on July 14 you would not be sharing greetings like Happy Bastille Day. Rather the French refer to the day as Quartorze Juilliet, July 14! 

Even with this in mind, I was really excited to attend a Bastille Day Dinner with around 100 other people, and what an amazing dinner we had. I went in expecting good food and wine and maybe something a little cultural and I was not disappointed. We had already been to a Japanese event at the club a few weeks ago where the executive chef had told us about his background in classical French cooking, before he ventured into the world of Japanese food, so it was not a surprise to see him in the room! Throughout the night he had conversations with all of the tables which was a fun touch!

The evening was billed as a five course dinner, but in actual fact it was 5 courses plus a couple of other bits and pieces. This started even before we entered the room where we were treated to a savoury puff alongside an amazing champagne/sparkling wine that I completely forgot to get the name of! It was such a nice wine. Once we entered the room the mood was set with a three piece band playing all sorts of French style café music, plus with lots of French flags around the room and red white and blue lighting. 

Before we even started the five courses there was an Amuse Bouche which was a Vol au Vent filled with chicken, mushroom, bacon and liberally dusted with truffles! It is, after all, truffle season!

No self respecting French dinner will start without bread, and this was no exception. The bread was okay but the Normandy butter! Oh my goodness, so good! The chef did warn us not to fill up too much on the bread because the rest of the dinner was still to come, but it was hard to resist that butter!

For the first course, we had a Salade Lyonnaise. The most interesting part of this was the oeuf poche. When the dish came to the table it looked a little like it had a little meat patty on the top but actually that was a egg that had been poached in red wine which is why it had the colouring. I have never had a poached egg like it

The second and third courses were the fish and mains, with the Daube de Boeuf being so tender, the Paris mash beautiful and the carrots lovely and sweet.

Then onto the cheese course, with house made lavash that was beautiful and crispy, quince paste (so good) which was the perfect accompaniment to the blue cheese and camembert which is hidden in the photo!

By this point we were getting pretty full, so when the dessert came out looking pretty as a picture, we were determined to give it every effort to finish it because it was so good! What we didn't know, was that there was one final flourish to the meal - a beautiful lemon tart! We probably didn't need it, but it was there and it looked so good that I had to eat it, and it was lovely!

When the chef came around to visit later in the evening we joked that there was going to be a bit of disappointment the next night when I had to prepare dinner because there was no way it was going to live up to the standard that he had set. 

In addition to the music provided by the trio, there were some performances from some can can dancers, who of course did the traditional dance, but also did some modern twists on can can. Here's a video to give you a taste. 

I can definitely see us attending this night again, although we might wait until July 14 is on a Saturday as going out on a school night is a challenge.

Weekly meals

Saturday - Tuscan Chicken Pasta Bake
Sunday -Leftovers 
Monday - Air Fryer Roast Pork (new)
Tuesday -  Out for dinner
Wednesday -Mushroom, Zucchini and Bacon pasta
Thursday - Japanese Pork Curry 
Friday - Leftovers