Saturday 31 December - New Year's Eve

As usual we went to Aux Iles Marquises on rue Gaite for the New Years Eve meal. We arrived around 2030 and Mme. Thiery made us very welcome.

Amuse bouches

Foie gras a la lie de vin et sa mache coquiette. This was much preferable to the straight foie gras of earlier years

Chausson de langouste au poivre rose. The lobster in the pastry packet was good and the juice was superb.  We had to conserve our bread because the sauce with the venaison also had to be sopped up.

Blanc de turbot aux lamelles de truffe.

Granite de champagne to clear the palate

Noisettes de chevreuil venaison
Mousseline aux marrons

Farandole de desserts. These were very filling A lady at a table for four close by was given three of the right hand desserts by her fellow diners who were evidently full up. She ate them all with relish.

Cafe et mignardises. Canelle, chocolate, fruit jelly and macarons

 We started with a coupe de champagne, then half a bottle of white Sancerre for the fish and half a bottle of Saumur Champigny for the meat. The whole meal was excellent and very well presented. The restaurant was full, many of the guests being well known to Mme. Thiery.

It was a bitter sweet farewell to Mme. Thiery as we had been coming here for this meal since 2006. It seems pretty certain that they will not be here by this time next year.  Retirement is overdue.

The metro was pretty full on the way back to Villiers.  Two German girls were trying to find their way to the Etoile and we steered them on to line 2 at Villiers.  The train was completely full here and one wonders what sort of chaos there was at the Etoile when everybody would be getting out.

This evening was a wonderful way to end a pretty good year.