Visit date: July 17, 2016, around noon
Before you go sightseeing, you need to eat.
I haven’t been to Honfleur in 10 years.
On this day, there were a lot of people in Honfleur because it was Sunday. Naturally, all the parking lots were full. Still I wanted to park as close to the old port as possible, so I headed into town and looked around. Luckily I found a large parking lot in a very good spot, and although it was almost full, there was someone leaving just after I entered, so I was able to park here without difficulty. It was great.
By the way, this place also has a parking ticket system, and we were out of change, but there was a little souvenir shop in front of us in town, so we bought some homemade caramels (you can find them in France) to make some change. With this, I was able to buy a parking ticket safely.
Home of Boudin and Satie
Well, Honfleur is a small port town in Normandy. It is a very popular tourist destination due to the beauty of its old port.
But still nice weather, and very hot sweat.
The city is also the birthplace of artists such as Satie and Boudin, so there are museums about them in the city. I visited Satie’s birthplace when I was in town 10 years ago, but I don’t remember it being very interesting.
Boudin, on the other hand, has been introduced several times in the Normandy Impressionist Festival, which is introduced in this blog. He was born here in Honfleur, although he grew up and developed his talent for painting in Le Havre, across the Seine River. There is a museum named after him in this city, and as usual, it was also the site of the Normandy Impressionist Festival. I would like to introduce this in my next post.
Delicious lunch at a restaurant
Well, I arrived in Honfleur just before noon, so I decided to have lunch here. Tonight we were staying at a hotel near the airport, so we didn’t expect to have a dinner, so we searched for a nice restaurant on TripAdvisor. I found this restaurant in the back alley of the old town.
We chose this shop.
Lunch opens at 12:15 p.m. We killed time by strolling around the neighborhood for about 15 minutes. I checked the location of the museum just in case. And finally, the restaurant opened. I thought it would be a problem if there was a line because it was a popular restaurant, but it was indeed right after the opening, so I was able to get in right away.
Order the Menu Gourmet for 32 euros.
We’ll have a leisurely lunch and do some sightseeing, so we’ll start with a light beer on the assumption that we’ll stay longer.
The amuse-bouche came out along with it. Great amuse-bouche, this looks promising.
And there it was again, the amuse, a very elegant one. I wondered if the previous one was a snack. Also delicious! I knew I had high expectations!
The starter was oysters (Huîtres de Gérard Nacé en tartare et juste pochées, écume de pomme accidalée). The oysters were boiled and served with a sauce of slightly sour apples and whipped cream. It was my first time to try such a combination. The oysters were fresh and delicious.
And the bread was homemade and very tasty. This restaurant is amazing.
The main dish was a suckling pig roti cooked at a low temperature (Mignon de Porc cuit à basse température). It was very tender because of the low temperature cooking and the sauce had a strong meat flavor. It was easy to see from this dish that this is a very popular restaurant.
The food was so good that I accidentally ordered some wine. We’ll just have to take our time.
Finally, of course, we had dessert. This soufflé (soufflé, chaud é la vanille Bourbon) is so delicious! By the way, I’ve never had soufflé before. I had never had a soufflé before, and the elegant vanilla aroma was wonderful. It was a hot summer day, but it was a warm dessert.
We ended up at the cafe, which also had pastries. Everything was kind of delicious.
The bill was also very reasonable for such a solid lunch and a variety of drinks. It was great. If I come to this city and stay overnight, I would definitely go here for dinner.
Once again, advertise your shop.
食事を終えたのが13時30分頃、幸いにも美術館が開くまでまだ時間があるので、少し旧港あたりを散歩してから美術館に向かうことにしましょう。旧港のレストランは多くの観光客でほとんど満席状態でした。（続く）
