Joy and Brad very kindly dropped me in Lille on their travels so that I could meet up with my family, both of my brothers were in town (from across the world!) so it was pretty awesome having been a year since I had seen them.
Our grandmother had rented an amazing Gîte for us not far from where they lived. We reveled in our luxury before spending the afternoon with our grandparents and aunt which was lovely. For dinner our aunt Caro was awesome and took us out to a very chic restaurant that I instantly felt too underdressed and uncouth for. The food however was amazing. And amazing is an understatement!!
I tried carpaccio for the first time and it exceeded all expectations. At first the idea of raw meat didn't appeal to me too much (I'd tried steak tartare in the past and found myself pretty neutral towards it) but I decided to try it to be different. The meat was so delicate and thinly sliced it simply melted in your mouth, helped along but the nicely savoury tang of Parmesan cheese, semi dried tomatoes, fresh salad in vinaigrette and thinly sliced raw mushrooms for texture. It was genuinely one of the nicest things I've ever eaten!
Christophe's meal while it sounded disgusting, looked very pretty so I took a photo. It was salmon tartar and I'm sure it tasted icky.
For dessert there were a few amazing sounding things including chocolate fondant and Dame Blanche, I was going to go with the little chocolate cake as I knew the centre would be deliciously gooey with chocolate,but then I saw another table get a Dame Blanche and it looked soo good I changed my mind! It lived up to standard too.
The next day we did a day trip to Bruges, however as a few days later Yannick, Necia and I went to Brudges, I will combine both trips into one post later.
On our return from Belgium we stopped in Lille Central for a couple of goodies. We couldn't pass up a trip to Meert, which makes my favourite dessert of all time: Gaufres.This is in fact the original store where they were invented, and has been in business since 1769. That's a long time to perfect Gaufres. Did I mention they did amazing pastry things too?
We also couldn't resist a stop at Chat Bleu, the best chocolate shop I've ever found and has been making chocolates since 1912. The prices reflect this, but it's worth it. The original is in Le Touquet , and we visited that one too. A tucked away little store, you wouldn't think twice about it unless you knew what goodies it held within.
Family reunion! After our lovely lunch together at the Gîte (with rosé and pâté I might add) we also had a bigger family reunion on the second night when Caro and Tom came over with bottles of Rosé, two roast chickens and lots of different flavoured chips (the roast chicken chips were so different from NZ ones, they actually tasted like roast chicken!!) Gaufres for desert of course. It was a lovely end to a few days in Lille. In the morning we all headed off, Yannick, Necia and I towards Paris, and Christophe and Tessa towards Normandy.
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