L'Oustalet Restaurant - Gigondas

This morning, our landlord Paul, came to the house to fix a leak under the sink of our bathroom. After spending the best part of an hour fiddling around, while I was walking Magnus, he concluded, as is often the case with plumbers, that while there was certainly water where it shouldn't be, he could not find the source of the leak. He wondered if it might be condensation...The adjacent sink is not leaking, so I am not sure about the logic.

When we decided to move to France and because we were both not working, Pauline and I concluded that there would be more eating in and if we were going out, we should search out more reasonably priced eateries. However, having been here 1 1/2 weeks, while we have had some decent meals, we were really gagging for a really satisfying French meal. Living in Hong Kong, it spoils you. Pauline did an online search and found a restaurant called L'Oustalet in Gigondas Village, which is also a famous wine region, adjacent to Rasteau.

Well, we had a truely excellent three course meal - and perhaps one of the best that I have ever experienced. At Euro59 each for the set plus a recommended bottle of 2011 red Gigondas for Euro45, it was very good value. Three courses is not quite correct. Because of a misunderstanding over the menu and my bad French, we had thought we were paying extra to add some truffle shavings to the first course of lobster ravioli. Not so. Knowing that we really wanted to try the chef's special truffle that he had brought over from Alba in Italy, the restaurant very kindly made us a special fried and scrambled quail egg dish with truffle shavings on top. Simple, but really yummy! The main dish was rumpsteak, which was truly one of the most tender and tastiest pieces of beef that I have ever eaten. The dessert was a mini chocolate souffle, topped with a mixed berry jam with liquorice.🤪

I think the waiters, who were very attentive, could tell that we were happy because towards the end of the meal, when Pauline had stepped away from the table, someone, who I thought was another waiter, asked us how we found the meal. Fortunately, I quickly realised from the buttons on his jacket that he was, in fact, the chef! We had an interesting conversation and it transpires that Laurent has been a guest chef at the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club, the Conrad in Hong Kong, and at the Raffles in Singapore. Small world!

I asked him about the meat bacause in recent years, in Asia, there has been a trend for well marbled beef such as Wagyu, Hida, and Kobe beef, which I find too fatty and rich. He explained that the cows, in Japan and in some farms in Australia and the USA, are purposely fattened using artificial techniques resulting in a large percentage of fat throughout the flesh. In France, however, the best beef cows are totally grass fed and allowed to graze so that the juiciness and taste does not come from the fat, but from the fibres of the meat.

After the meal, we walked around the village, escorted at various times by some friendly cats. The village is well maintained, clean, and free of autumn leaves and dog poo. To add to the charm of this village, all manner of street furniture and trees are adorned with colourful crochet, which according to Laurent, are the responsibility of the  granny 'Wool Gang'.

Having had our fill of Gigondas (the village, not the wine unfortunately as I was driving), we drove a few km to Sablet, which, it is fair to say, is not vying to be one of the most beautiful villages in France. In theory, it could be quite  pictureque, but many of the old stone buildings have been rendered using a dirty beige plaster, which needs a coat of paint and the whole place looks a bit run down. Enough said about Sablet.