Lipitor here I come. Today's goals were: exercise and crêpes. After last night's supertraditional French heaviness, my gut was in a bit of a disarray this morning. So, unbreakfasted, I took a big ol' walk up on the ramparts of St. Malo.
...and by 3 o'clock or so I was finally able to think about eating something. That something would not be Colin, for obvious reasons....
But rather un galette avec jambon ou fromage. The establishment that generated this puppy might have been the slowest and most inefficient street food vendor I've ever seen, a husband and wife who made it look as if this was their first time in the kitchen together, or possibly their first time in a kitchen at all.
But at 3pm your choices are limited. Anyway, standing around for 20 minutes was only a problem because my blood sugar gauge had dipped into the red. Once in my hands, the galette was light, crispy, hammy, and just cheesy enough. Werry nice. Then, some more walking...
And then a brief siesta at the hotel, after which I emerged to find the beach looking like this:
I really wanted some more Cancale oysters after Saturday's "best oysters ever" meal (in Brest, which I haven't written about yet), but I couldn't get into anywhere for dinner. OK, I only tried Le Brick, but the others on my list were very obviously full of happy diners. In fact, I can't believe how full the resturants are in general here...it's supposed to be off-season, isn't it? Yesterday, Monday, everything was packed out totally. And they're all French people it seems...I haven't heard a word of English since I've been here.
Anyway, but, so...maybe not getting in anywhere was what they call a blessing in etc., forcing me to eat responsibly. At this point I decided to make today a 100% crêpe day, oh just call me the Crêped Crusader ha ha etc. etc. etc.
I knew nothing about any of the 17,000 crêperies in town. I made a semi-random selection, Crêperie La Brigantine, chosen because their interesting menu featured andouille, which I understood to be different than andouillette. Thus, here we have a very blurry galette with andouille, caramelized onions, and cheese:
And you know what? If there's a difference between andouille and andouillette, I can't tell you what it is. This was pure tripe. Ha. No, it was very tasty, but, yeah...I should've gotten something else, it was very much like the gas station andouillette from last week and you know my purpose here is to eat broadly....
I also had the traditional accompaniment to galettes, cidre brut served in a vessel similar to a coffee cup called a bolée.
And then came one of the better things I've eaten in the past couple weeks: a crêpe with toasted almonds, honey, and caramelized apples. Doesn't sound like much, but it was superduper.
The great thing about galettes and crêpes is that they take up a lot of surface area, so they look like an actual meal, and they take a while to eat, but they're wafer-thin so they're not a belly bomb.
Another interesting note: these galettes and crêpes came out of the kitchen piping hot and crispy literally two minutes after I ordered them....my entire dinner could've been over in less than 7 minutes if I'd so desired.
But I did not so desire. I tried to do my bottle of cidre proud, and mostly succeeded. All in all, this was good eating. I've not yet mentioned how downright reasonable everything has been pricewise (except my train ticket home I just found out...ouch!!). Dinner at Duchesse Anne was something like 70 euros for three courses and a great bottle of wine. This dinner was under 20 and included a bottle of cidre brut. Nice one! So, next goal: more oysters.
