So much has happened over the last few days, that we may have to parcel out the stories over more than one post - to keep everything straight...
On the evening of January 3rd, we took our long drive from Ypres (in Belgium) to Strasbourg (in France - the Alsace area). In all, it took about 8 hours to get there, with a stop in Luxembourg City for dinner.
We were so impressed by the Belgian cuisine that we were sure of a good meal in Luxembourg, being bordered by both Belgium and France and all. And we weren't disappointed. We stopped at a brightly-lit restaurant in the middle of town, apparently an Italian-influenced one called Osteria. The whole menu was in French, but all the dishes were Italian, so we figured that between our knowledge of both cuisines, we'd be okay. Toli played it safe and ordered his favorite pasta - Spaghetti Carbonara (spaghetti with an egg-cream sauce and bacon). Christine deftly avoided ordering anything with escargot (snails) or vol (brain) and decided to get the restaurant's signature dish - Spaghetti Osteria, with Fruits de Mer (fruits of the sea) and looked forward to having spaghetti with shrimp and mussels.
Our first clue that things weren't quite right came when the waitress presented our dishes. Toli got exactly what he wanted - spaghetti in egg-cream sauce with bacon. But Christine's dish looked like...well, a pie. It was a very large dish, covered with a crust on it. Just as Christine wondered how in the world she would eat it, the waitress took it away. She brought it back a few minutes later - apparently, it's served with the crust cut out onto another dish, with the spaghetti and fruits de mer on top. Fruits de mer being yes, shrimp, mussels, as well as scallops (yum!), little octopus tentacles (mmm...okay), and oui oui...escargot. And also some sort of large crustation (looked like a cross between a shrimp and a large crawfish) on top that was served whole - eyes and everything.
So...okay, Christine took a deep breath and dug in. For the most part, the dish was delicious. And the escargot was well...squishy. It wasn't so much about the snails themselves but the fact that they are really difficult to pull out of the shell. They provided a little fork, but really, to eat them, one has to grab the shell, then poke around for a while with the fork before being finally rewarded with this gobby thing that looks like the inside of an ear. Also beware - the sucker thing at the bottom of the snail should be spit out - because it's crunchy.
But Christine perservered and made it through about 3/4 of the dish with only a snail or two left untouched. We both giggled about it and decided it would make a cute story.
Until the waitress brought out the second half of the dish. Apparently, she had only served up half of the pie thingy. More spaghetti, more fruits de mer which meant more escargot. Again, Christine tried her best to make it through the dish, but it was clear this time that she had been beaten.
Spaghetti Osteria: 2
Christine: 0
Christine promptly passed out in the car as they left, leaving poor Toli to handle all the navigating to Strasbourg alone. He didn't do half-bad, until he decided to follow a sign for Strasbourg that led off the freeway and onto this rather provincial road. It's true - the road led to Strasbourg - after some 150 km of circuitous turns, some rotaries in the street, with sketchy signage to boot. But we did make it to Strasbourg at about 1 in the morning (fortunately we had a hotel already booked) and crashed until the next morning. We spent the day wandering about the city (most of which was closed, being Sunday and all) and enjoying french croissants and other yummy things.
No more fruits de mer, though.