Sunday Lunch at Auberge la Tuilerie

We awoke today to a rainy, overcast Provence. I guess it can’t be perfect everyday. Since it was Sunday and, with the exception of restaurants, the French close up and stay home, it seemed logical that a restaurant would be the highlight of today. We chose Peter and Margaret’s new favourite, Auberge la Tulerie, which is about 6 kilometres down the road toward Violes.

This auberge is also the home of the wine domaine Grand-Pere Jules. This restaurant is smack in the heart of the Plan de Dieu appellation, which although not the highest quality Cote du Rhone, is still pretty good stuff.

Despite the questionable skies with what we thought were rain laden clouds, we were seated under the chestnut trees on their patio. As per usual, we were the first guests to arrive and appeared to be the only party of four. This restaurant has no a la carte menu and offers two prix fixe menus and since we had reservations, we automatically got the 27 euro, seven course meal which also included wine from the domaine. The menu is determined by season and market availability. Course 1: wine with grapefruit and cane sugar, tapenade and tuna rillettes Course 2: a terrine of turbot Course 3: puff pastry with creamed mushrooms Course 4: pork ragout, potatoes gratin and tomatoes farcie with zucchini. Course 5: cheese course of Roquefort and sheep tomme Course 6: nougat ice cream in a strawberry coulis and tuille cookie Course 7: tea and coffee For wine, we had two 50cl bottles of their wine Grand-Pere Jules Cote du Rhone - one rose and one red.

It was a very enjoyable and, to our surprise, non-rainy lunch and even though there were multi courses served in family style, we didn’t feel bloated. We DID feel we had a great deal! Since it was the weekend, we had prearranged a Skype call with Canada. It was nice to see the family and talk about their new school year. The rest of the day was low key with pizza and Bite Me - Tony and Dawn were the big winners. More company tomorrow!