In the hallway of our hotel by the elevator, Christine had seen an intriguing modern art poster. With her encouragement and a morning of train hassles, we finally got out of Lyon. We went to St. Etienne to see the Modern Art Museum, a low-slung building set on a hill over this industrials city (of which we didn’t see).
The artists were Anthony Gormley, which we both quite liked and Jean-Michael Alberola. While we waited for the taxi to take us home, we posed in front of the museum, enjoying the beautiful clouds (it had been raining earlier).
Christine by the advertising posters, which are all over the hotels and the metro stations.
Christine had fun photographing this art (at the train station), with its transparent and opaque plastic leaves.
We zipped inside the station, hunting for our quai (platform), got it. Nope! Wrong one. Down the stairs, and up the stairs and into the waiting train. It left about 4 minutes later. Christine had a close call with her Paris-Lyon train, and was determined not to repeat that.
Paul Bocuse is a famous Lyonese chef, who has had a great impact on fine dining the world over. We frequent his brasseries because they are well-priced with high quality ingredients and inventive, good food. Tonight’s brasserie is Le Nord, which features traditional Lyonese dishes.
Christine had sausage inside brioche. Dave commented that it looked like a duded-up pig-in-a-blanket. We all shared bites of everything and the taste of this was far beyond that.
We had squash soup. When we were trying to figure out what type of squash the soup was made of, the waiter smiled and said “Halloween.” Ah, pumpkin.
Being the adventurous one, Christine had a quenelle. It was light, delicious, and the best choice of all the entrees at dinner.
The pièce de résistance–the best? The dessert of merigne with fruits rouges. Okay–it’s two five-inch long piped merigne “logs” with three flavors of sorbet pressed between them: mango, vanilla and and chocolate (I think). Chantilly, or whipped cream is piped on top, with berry coulis (sauce) puddling around the creation and more berries for garnish. Heaven.
Christine wanted a souvenir of a napkin, and then thought how fun it would be to have one from Le Sud, another Paul Bocuse brasserie where we’d eaten on Monday evening. So we walked down Rue des Republique, through Place Bellecour and to Le Sud.
They had the happy birthday organ grinder box out again.
It’s a Paul Bocuse theme show, I think, because we found the Institute Paul Bocuse on our way home. It’s a hotel (Hotel Royal) and restaurant that the Paul Bocuse Institut runs. It’s basically a school for hotel and restaurant managers. They don’t have any fancy napkins to buy (just kidding), so we head home.
[Christine’s not the only one with Paul Bocuse brasserie napkins. More on that in the next post, but I’ve got to go out and enjoy my last day here in Lyon.]