Farewell fish

Another memorable one

It is not that food is great in France, there is also that rather immaterial aspect of it, how easy it is the relation of great food with the "garçon", the guests, and the scenery.  That is, you can get great meals in natural settings without any sense of the extraordinary, as it you were expected to have great dishes everyday of your life as a matter of fact. As my departure was nearing it was time to start farewells, and to experience this again, far from the affectations of multi-starred joints, or the ignorance of the Caracas "mesonero" who even in fancy joints has little idea of what s/he is serving.

I was treated for dinner date at a famous local eatery, Chez H., specialized in fishy stuff, something that we are rather deprived in Venezuela where fish is deeply fried in the vain hope of hiding the dubious freshness of the creature.  Let's just say that in Venezuela today I only eat fish at Urrutia or when in Margarita.

The menu was rather brief: a half dozen of shell based appetizers (and foie gras, of course), another half dozen of fish entries (and one steak for those in pain) and fabulous deserts to compensate (my choice been a creme de marrons ice cream bathed in Armagnac).  We settled to share mussels and oysters baked with foie gras ans Sauternes (I do not like raw oysters, so sue me!).

Since my relatives have been habitués for decades there, we get special advice when choosing our courses depending of the best catch of the day.  Being only three sitting, a baked turbot for three was the best choice for the night.  One caught, not raised, by the way.  Now, to illustrate my point at the start I include two pictures below, the first one when the fish arrived, and the second one when the "garçon" had finished splitting it into three portions, in a couple of minutes, if that much, as if nothing, not forgetting to carve out the "cheek" of the fish.  I found ONLY 1 spine in my plate......

Bliss....  Not to mention the perfect Pessac that went with...

You may observe from the details that we were on a wooden table, no fancy silverware, rather plain individual table cloths.  What matters is what is in your glass and on your plate.

Simple, straight to the point.