A trip to Laguiole wouldn’t be complete without visiting this world-famous knife maker’s factory – Laguiole Forge:
It’s always great to see a business go from a small local business to world domination:
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Laguiole Foundry
Laguiole
Thursday 28 July. We set off in our trusty steed – an Avis Opel Meriva. It’s a very comfortable car and swallowed up over 500litres of luggage for four people:
… For a day of wandering around the town of Laguiole. The town is known for its knife foundries, especially the Laguiole Foundry, but there are lots of others.
Michel Bras
Our first serious meal this trip is at Michel Bras. He’s a legend in cooking having invented much of what is done today in haute cuisine. In a quote attributed to Wiley Dufresne “he has been copied by every chef in the world. We’ve all taken a page out of the Bras book – the smear, the spoon drag, putting food on a plate like it fell off a tree.” Set on a hill the architecture and location is spectacular. Here’s a photo of it from the air. This blog has a great history of his achievements. And so it was, our first meal:
After a couple of amuse bouche and talking with the sommelier (there are three!) our first course arrived. This dish had probably over 10 different ingredients and to say eating a bowl of flowers and leaves never tasted better is an understatement. Every bite was different and unique, the combination of flavours and sauces never repeating itself. So if you enjoyed a mouthful you may never experience again!
The second dish as a just cooked piece of Turbot from Brittany. A beautiful delicate white fish. Sublime flavours:
Then a scarily big piece of duck foie gras. Perfectly cooked. Just a hint of pink when cut through and accompanied with baby blueberries. This went so well with a 2001 Château de Beaucastel Châteauneuf-du-Pape Blanc our sommelier had suggested:
I missed a photo of the next plate, a special ham (like the Gascoyne black pig tasted in Avignon) with poached pear. We switched to a Coche Dury burgundy which had been opened and breathing from the start. The next dish was a plate of baby peas with truffle:
The Coche Dury matched beautifully with the milk-fed lamb:
With the lamb a side dish of Aligot – mashed potato with cheese from Michel Bra’s mother arrived:
The savoury dishes done it was onto the cheese course. We selected 3 cheeses to taste – can’t remember the names – getting a bit blurry b:
There were three deserts:
Dinner done – we went into the lounge for a tea and more food!:
Avignon to Laguiole
27 July. Travel day from Avignon to Laguiole, about 300kms, where we’ve got some serious eating to do at Michel Bras. Our route takes us south west to Montpellier and then north west on the A75 to Lagioule passing through the beautiful Millau Viaduct.
Enroute was “eat in the car” lunch of baguette, serrano ham and comte bought at the deli counter of the local supermarket.
Prepaid mobile with 3G data in France
Despite lots of resources on the web, getting a prepaid SIM card with a data plan is still time consuming and frustrating. The Orange Mobicarte with the Internet Max data plan seems to be the most recommended so here are my tips if you’re going down this road:
– Go to an Orange shop and buy the Mobicarte (micro sim is available for iPhones) – 10 Euro
– Buy a top up – suggest 25 Euro if you’re going to use data and want some call credit. 15 Euro is a bit tight
– Now, call 225 to activate your SIM card. You need to do this once. When you call, you’ll hear a recorded message and then the call will hang up. You’ll then receive an SMS with a welcome message and the expiry date of your SIM card in six months time
– Now, call 224 to add your top up to your card. This is where it gets tricky if your French isn’t good. You will be prompted to key either 1 or 2, to topup by entering the 14 digits of the voucher and then #. There doesn’t seem to be any pattern on whether you’ll be asked for 1 or 2. I topped up 4 mobiles and there was no pattern. You may want to try topping up using the menu system by calling #123# but I didn’t use this method
– You will receive an SMS showing you the new balance of your mobile. You can always check by calling #123#
– To add Internet Max to your package, follow the helpful information here
– Another gotcha – there doesn’t seem to be an easy way to remove Internet Max. The link suggests dialling 220 will give you an option cancel or “supprimer”, but I’ve asked a few locals to see if they can find it and all have failed
– Above all, this will take at least an hour. Most Orange shops are busy with a queueing system. You need luck to get a person who can speak enough English and knows the Mobicarte product. I’ve been into two Orange shops and one of them was great, the other not so.