V-Day

So I don't ever get very excited for Valentine's Day (at least my valentine is on the same continent this year!). However, this year I did have a delightful food experience so I figured the anniversary of Saint Valentine's death deserved its own post. 

One of the best parts of my day was receiving a Mardi Gras package from the Skipper family that contained a plethora of beads, a cute flying pig, some little Mardi Gras treats, and...

A KING CAKE! 

It made my day. 

Heaven.
 I didn't even stop to hide the baby from myself. 

My stock of fresh vegetables and fruits was running low because the vegetable markets that I usually go to were closed all week. I think it may have been because of the cold weather but it may have been a secret vegetable vendor French holiday that I didn't know about. 

Anyway, for lunch I only had a red pepper and some carrots. I also had some dried chorizo sausage. 

So naturally I fried all of those things together and put them in a tortilla with cheese. 

It was weird. I pretended that I wanted all of my food to be warm colors because it was Valentine's Day. 

For dinner my friends and I wanted to go out to have fondue. We found a reasonably priced fondue restaurant, but unfortunately the rest of Nice had the same idea as us and the restaurant was full. We then went to a Niçoise restaurant that was really nearby called Le Vieux Bistro. 

We all got 'le menu niçois' which is where you get an appetizer, entrée, and dessert from a pre-set menu. Menus are popular at French restaurants and usually get the best deal. Our meals were all 19.50 euros, which is pretty good for the amount of food you get. 

For my appetizer I had 'fritto misto sauce tartare,' which is basically an assortment of seafood fritters with tartar sauce. (Fun fact: Seafood is 'les fruits de mer' in French, which is literally 'fruits of the sea.') I think it's traditionally an Italian dish. I didn't know it would be fried, but it was a nice (greasy) surprise that reminded me of home. I think it was mostly calamari, shrimp, and clams. It was tasty. My only complaint was that the shrimp had the entire shells on them underneath the batter. I also had one piece of calamari that must have been from where the squid's tentacles meet its body. I could feel the different tentacles, which gives me goosebumps when I think about it now. 

A lot of sea fruits! 

For my main dish, I got 'petits farcis niçois.' It's a traditional niçoise dish and consisted of small pieces of vegetables stuffed (farcis) with a mixture of meat, spices, and rice. The menu made it sound like it was just vegetables stuffed with more vegetables, but it ended up being very rich with the meat and the accompanying sauce. On my plate, I had tomato, eggplant, zucchini, red pepper, and onion. The onion was my favorite, because it had that sweet, baked onion-y flavor. I'm not sure what kind of sauce was with it. It came with salad and bread (per usual). I was very pleased with my choice. (Some of the others got what was supposed to be beef stew but it ended up being pasta with beef on top.) 

The petits farcis deceivingly look like a small amount of food. 

We were all incredibly full by the time we were done with our main dishes but there was still dessert! Four of the five of us wanted crème brûlée, but they only had two left. So Erin and I said we would split one crème brûlée and one mousse au chocolat. They ended up being two enormous desserts in themselves. Additionally, someone else didn't like the nougat ice cream dish they had gotten instead of crème brûlée so we ended up sharing most of that too. 

So. much. dessert. 

The flattest crème brûlée and the largest amount of chocolate mousse I've ever seen. 

I spent the rest of our time at the restaurant forcing everyone to take bites of the chocolate mousse. 

We had a late start because someone had a late class so we probably didn't get to the restaurant until around 9:30. With three courses, we didn't leave the restaurant until 11:30. ELEVEN THIRTY. At night. It was way too late to eat that much rich food. I didn't even need to eat breakfast this morning! #beingfrench