Pacy-Sur-Eure, Day-01

The Past 2 years i have spent in front of my computer working away on the code, has surely affected my english voculabrary, now i am feeling the pinch of it, this is the first time in atleast last 4 years that i am writing in this detail. Have to spend more time at reading and writing :).

Our company has arranged our stay at La Tape Hotel which is in centerville of Pacy, and this place exceeded my expectations, it was straight out of a studio set, as though somebody has setup the place for some studio shoot. I had seen the hotel in the photos shown by my friends who visited this place last month and its an 19th century hotel, beautifully constructed alongside the stream which flows through the centerville.


















There are only 3-4 hotels in pacy, the place itself is small but very scenic. The Stream along side gives the hotel artistic touch.



















We were greeted by pleasant weather of the afternoon (later i came to know from my colleagues at STIE and CNN, that this is the hottest in 400 years !!, there was a cool breeze flowing across and the temperature was around 10 degrees. we soon checked into our rooms and i crashed on the bed for few mins. it was about 10 mins, when the phone rang and our manager Patrick was on the line from STIE, after asking about our journey, he invited us for lunch. at 13:00 patrick came to the hotel to pick us up and he took us by surprise by telling we will be having our lunch at office restaurant. i was really taken by surprise, since was tired because of journey and was in no mood to start working on that day, but we agreed quietly. it was a 2 min drive to company from hotel, the campus of STIE was vast, and soon we entered reception and then into restaurant.

it was not a suprise by seeing the food served there and i was ready for it (well not totally :) ), i had some salad, Fruits, some bread and vegeatables and it was a great struggle to finish my plate full of raw vegetables. My mother always insisted me to raw vegetables, telling its good for health and i always turned deaf for those, but now here i am looking at a mountain of some 2o types of vegetables !!. with great difficulty i finished half of it. Soon Patrick took us around the campus showing us the drives assembling unit and different departments and finally he introduced me to my team there Jean-Marc and Christophe and Phillippe, Jean-Marc is the architect in my team and he was around 40+ and other 2 programmers were young Christophe at 31 and Phillipe at 24, it took us no time to get acquantined with eachother and soon christophe, myself and Philippe were off for coffee.

the rest of the day went uneventful, i just roamed around the facility. The system people said my Laptop will only be ready on the morrow, so we took early break from the facility so as to get some rest at hotel.

woke up at around 20:00 , don't exactly remember what time i dozed off, time for dinner, we went to the attached restaurant in the hotel. I was ready for my first dinner in France :), but there was big surprise waiting for us there. The Waiters greeted us with usual Bonjour and handed us a English Menu Card (well believe me, if it was a english menu card, then i had been speaking german all these days !. There were all kinds of exotic names in the list starting from Head of a fish to More exotic Snails !!. Well it was first day and i didn't wanted to land in any serious risk with my tummy, i could not quite understand the names of the dishes.

It was laidout like this

1. Starter
2. Main dish
3. Deserts

we had the option of selecting an item from each of the categrories, here is the menu :).























now the fun part started the waitress came waiting for our order, but unfortunately she didn't know french :), so we called up the lady who was the owner of the hotel who knew a bit of english (and bit means really a bit !!). and we started our research into the menu, in front of me i was seeing some really funny names for food. terrine, chives, mayonaisse, capers, cornichons, what the heck !!

after spending 15 mins into the menu, i really could not figure out a wee bit :(, so i started ordering the first items in each category, giving the feeling to the waitress, that i was sure what i was ordering.

here is my order

1. Mousse de poisson et sa creme de ciboulette (Hot fish terrine with chives cream).
Really thhought will be some kinda fish dish

2. Cuisse de canard confite, pommes paillasson (Leg of duck preserved in its own fat,
fried pancake of grated potatoes !!).

3. Now the deserts !!
Ile flottante, creme anglaise (Floating island, poached meringue floating in
creme anglaise).

with black coffee and half a litre of elvon mineral water.

finally finsihed ordering the menu, Rajendra was still researching his menu card, and his was more funnier than mine, well i will write in another post.

Vola !!, the waitress left taking the order and in 5 mins she brought a basket full of bread !!. Hmm what the hell the bread is for, we never ordered it !?, well later i came to know that their food is always accompanied by bread, be it their breakfast or lunch !. i didn't touch the bread, in india i always thought bread is for sick people :), well wait until tomorrow, till i tell the story of how i made that bread disappear in 2 mins !.

The First course was soon served and my dish was infront of me, neatly arranged in a glass platter was some kinda leaves, some cream in 4 corners of the plate stuffed with small peices of nuts, and in the center was a small icecream kinda thing, yellowish in color. hmm , i thougt may be this is kinda appetizer before they serve the fish, and the waitress left telling Bon 'apity (well the actual wording is different, just typing the word as i heard), I looked at that dish for a min, not knowing what to do, and took a small amount of the the yellowish thing in my mouth and EUREKA !!, i discovered the fish i was waiting was right infront of me, but in form of a thick yellow paste, now i knew why the waitress said Bon 'apity, it was real pity for me :)).
(well the actual wording is Bon Appetite, meaning have a nice meal).

With great struggle i finished the First Course, waiting for the next challenge, the Main meal. luckily no surprises here and it was a duck leg, allthough with no spices, it tasted good and i finished it without any trouble, only trouble being that i used only knife and fork in true french style ;), my first meal in my life where i have not used my hands while eating meat !!.

The desert arrived soon and it was a exotic mixture of varities of fruid mix and icecream, it was really surprising to see, at what detail the french prepare their food and they take care of even minute details like the positioning of the cream in the plate and what type of knife and spoon/fork to use for what dish !, and the humbleness with the people served their food here really was tocuhing, and whatever i had heard from some of the people compalining that they were forced to pay tips in france after their meal in restaurants, felt rubbish, with the kind of service they offered who could leave the table without paying a tip !!. finally i got my hot black coffee along with cream and nuts, forgetting the cream, i had the coffee and after paying the tip, i started for my room to crash in my bed, knowing i needed to wake early in the morning, since i needed to report at 8:30 AM and didn't want to get late on the first working day at STIE. The outside weather was getting real cold know, but we had heaters in the room and it was very comfortable, soon i was on my way sleeping, soon i was fast asleep because of the journey and the time difference of the flight.