To begin: the restaurant isn't pretentious in the slightest. Rather, it's small, cosy, and yellow-painted inside. The table was already prepared with pickled yellow beets, olives, and black truffle butter, and the waiter immediately rocked up with a small, warm loaf of crusty French bread that they make themselves. Of course they make it themselves, it was fucking delicious! Not something you're going to find in a bakery here. And the truffle butter was just out of this world. We were in seventh heaven before we'd even ordered anything. Our waiter was a young kid from the Ukraine, who was adorable in a Anton Yelchin (RIP) type way, but also had kind of a thick accent that we had trouble deciphering--he'd ask me for my plate and I'd hand him my fork. You know what? That only made it feel more like we were really eating in a French restaurant (aside from his general politeness, of course).
Then, the menu! I copied the descriptions off their website so that I can conjure up these flavors in the future. Appetizer: I had "Sautéed French escargot (Burgundy) served with blue cheese (premium French “St. Agur”) and cognac sauce on herb accented puff pastry." Now, I was being pretty bold here; I've only had escargot once before in Paris, and did indeed send one flying across the table as I dug it out of its little shell. However, I was pleasantly surprised that these were already de-shelled and in that incredibly rich sauce (combined with the lower lighting, you could easily be eating a bit of calamari or clam or anything else a bit chewy; I'm not sure if there's a particular flavor to escargot themselves) and laying in the nest of the puff pastry. Sean chose as his appetizer "Chef Roy’s country style pork pate layered with armagnac infused cherries & house-cured foie gras, and served with cornichons, spiced shallot chutney, and dijon mustard." I'm not a fan of pate or foie gras, but Sean loves both and was very pleased.
After the salad course--very simply dressed, the tomatoes bursting with flavor--it was time for the main event. Sean chose "Pan-roasted five spice duck breast served with organic black rice, port wine infused cranberries, toasted organic pine nuts, and orange sauce." His dish was, in his opinion, very good. I didn't try it, even though I like duck well enough. Why? Because the first bite of my dish,
"Roasted center-cut pork rib chop (Berkshire, all natural) wrapped with jambon de Bayonne, and served with sautéed organic spinach, roasted Russian banana fingerling potatoes, crispy pancetta, fresh grapes, and port wine sauce" was, indeed, a religious experience. Muffled moans of pleasure were to be heard from my side of the table. The sauce was exquisite--there's no other way to describe it, warm and rich and electric with flavor. I understood once more the saying about the secret ingredient of French cooking being time, because that dish had clearly taken plenty. Dear God. Sean agreed, and acknowledged that this was a rare case in which I had chosen the better entree sight unseen!
After we polished off our plates, the remaining bit of French bread, and our bottle of wine (Cote du Rhone, not my favorite, but then I could never really warm up to French wines), and it time for our final selection of the evening: dessert. I'm not really a dessert fan, particularly not in restaurants; I'll have a brownie or ice cream or something, but I don't go in for pie, pastries, etc. And yet, I ate every bit of this dessert. Sean called it a 'deconstructed' apple tart; a thin rectagular raft of pastry on which the sliced apple was lying, drizzled with a caramel sauce, and accompanied by fresh-made Chantilly cream and blueberries. I ate the cream. I didn't even want to eat Chantilly cream while we were in Chantilly a couple of years ago, but at Le Petit, I ate it, and it was delicious, as the blueberries--perfectly firm and ripe!--burst in your mouth alongside each bit of cream.
Not only was the food wonderful, it was the perfect opportunity to reminisce about our trip to France, still one of our favorite trips, especially the Avignon-Bordeaux part. We brought up the Tripadvisor page for the B&B we stayed at in Naujan-et-Postillac and were thrilled to see that the English couple is still running it (and that it has an exceptionally high rating, with only a dozen out of over 500 reviews ranking it merely "Very Good" as opposed to all the "Excellents"). We talked about our night at La Poudette, the little house-restaurant out in the middle of nowhere that is another contender for Best Meal Ever, where the geese who ran across the drive as you walked up from the road were the same ones destined for the foie gras later. Sts-Maries-sur-la-mer, where the sky stayed streaked with light until almost 10 o'clock at night as we drove back to Avignon. Chateauneuf-du-Pape, a hilltop ruin buffeted by some of the strongest winds I've ever felt. The plane trees in Arles. The peaceful abbey of Senanque. The distant view of Mont Sainte-Victoire, even though we couldn't get up there. The friendly British couple we met in a restaurant in Avignon. So much beauty, so lush and verdant. I want to go again! Le sigh.
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