Ma La Ice Cream at Terre Adelice

I'm a sucker for ice cream.  Not just any ice cream, mind you, and if you know me even a little bit I may have already mentioned to you the existence of piment d'espelette or tomato ice cream.  You may have been appalled, but I may then have piqued your curiosity.  Opportunities involving such bizarre mixtures in dessert should never be passed up in one's life, because one does not know when that opportunity may come up again...especially when one has been waiting years for that 2 hour drive to happen so one could blissfully slurp that chili pepper ice cream while admiring the beautiful view of the Monts de l'Ardeche.
I've been frequenting the Terre Adelice here in Lyon for quite some time, enjoying flavors such as wasabi, goat cheese, bell pepper, pain d'epices, cucumber, ginger, pine nut, sesame.. and I'm not finished naming them all.  Their ice cream is such high quality and most of the time, organic, that I always must taste a different flavor every time I'm in the area.  Their website shows all the different flavors they make, and after consulting it for the first time, I felt lust at first sight.
I absolutely had to try the Piment d'Espelette ice cream.

Unfortunately, the one in Lyon doesn't carry that flavor (because it must be so rarely requested, being that we are in France, the country of wimpy palets.. hehe) so I had to seek out the social chair, about 150km south of here in a lovely region called Ardeche.
 This desire has been haunting me for quite some time.  I even went near the actual city of Espelette in search of an ice cream glorifying their precious chili pepper but to no avail.
The social chair is only open everyday during July and August.  The rest of the year it is only weekday afternoons and closes at 5pm.  This is the reason it took me so long to make the trip... but today was my lucky day...
Upon arriving I saw the Terre Adelice signs and followed the one that showed the "store" and tasting area.  I had to ring a bell for the girl to come down and open up for me.

As she opened the doors, I felt myself drool.  I had been imagining the mix of spicy sweet with numbing sweet.. the perfect Ma La dessert.. for ages.  When I saw the scoop section, I almost cried.  There were only the traditional flavors available.  Vanilla, chocolate, peach..
WTF!
Please, lady, I just made a 2 and a half hour detour coming home from a business trip for your piment d'espelette and sichuan pepper ice cream and you're offering me vanilla?

I was only expecting to leave with my 2 scoops and then be off with a photo and a salivary memory.
Instead, I was off with 3 pints.  Piment d'espelette, Sichuan pepper, and beet.  No tasting these flavors, since nobody ever asks for them.
Ha (I thought to myself) I have an ice chest in the car, and I don't really care if it melts, I'm bringing some of that goodness home.

And in the end, it worked out better this way, because I will get to indulge over and over again in this sweet spicy numbing earthy dessert.

I would have driven (and did by the way) all across the country for this.

I do realize that those chiles in the photo are chile de arboles... but I didn't have any (fresh or dried) piment d'espelettes.  Oh my Chile de Arbole ice cream would be an extreme flavor.. I'm going to have to incept that idea into the people that harvest those fresh...

2 Weeks in Quebec

 Traditional meal: Eggs, smoked bacon, sausages cooked in maple syrup, pinto beans, potatoes.. all doused with a dash of home made maple syrup.. followed by buckwheat pancakes with maple butter.  Maple butter is 100% maple syrup simmered down to a buttery consistency.  That was the real highlight of the trip.  Very good.. very filling

 Local fare: La Tourtière.  It is like a Boeuf Bourguignon pot pie.  Actually, that's exactly what it is.

 

 La Poutine:  Popular fast food (and restaurant food) consisting of home fries topped with cheese curds, a gravy sauce, and then exotic toppings.  On the right is duck and on the left, lobster.  Pretty good.  It reminded me of carne asada fries.. mmmmm carne asada fries... except I was sober, and there was no guacamole or salsa. 

Buffalo wings:  I don't think I've ever seen as many restaurants specialized in buffalo wings as I did in Trois Rivières.  Nothing spectacular, but you can't miss them if you go there.

 Getting Asian.  Most non fast food food happens to be Asian.  Here is a Mongolian hot pot in Chinatown in Montreal.  One half of the hot pot is spicy, the other half regular.  The spicy side was seriously spicy.  Wow.  The surroundings are all you can eat Mongolian lamb, hand pulled noodles, tofu, algae, bok choy, quail eggs, and various other things you can keep ordering as you go.  This meal was so good, I decided to go back on a later date.  That never happens while I'm traveling.  Can you sense the happiness going on in my mind?  The photo doesn't show all the fixings.

 Then you fish your goodies out of the broth and plop them onto you plate and can arrange dipping sauces and eat with chopsticks or a spoon.  NO FORKS!!

 What a lovely rule.

The meat was heavenly, and the rest just made me drunk with pleasure for several hours.  Really, I didn't want to have dinner after a lunch like this because I didn't want to ruin the day.

I need to convince that Mongolian girl that works at the Coreen Barbecue in Lyon to open up her own restaurant.  I'd definately go regularly!

Vietnamese.  This dish is chicken sautéed in cari sauce with veggies and bean thread noodles.  Nice and spicy!

And then there was sushi..

The small makis were disgraceful.  Who puts industrial smoked salmon in a Philly roll?  Gross.  The rest was good though.  Especially the mango yellowtail roll.  Maybe it was just my Trois Rivières experience, but they have a loooong way to go before catching up to California or Florida sushi.

Business Tripping

I'm armed and dangerous with a pound of shrimp, a Kent mango, cilantro, lime, and feta...

Watch out Marseille, I'm also here for Pleasure...

Mmm shrimp, I will always love you.. Please stay on earth forever!

And Kyo on Avenue Prado is probably the best sushi I've had (in France)

 Here we have some Toro, Shake, Unagi, Ebi, Miso, Wakame and the sushi near the rice is sea urchin.  What's that you say? Yes, sea urchin, which I recommend eating right out of the shell rather than on a bed of sushi rice.  Reallty it is a magnificent creature, but needs to be enjoyed within minutes of shell cracking... not like this.  When "dégusté" the way it was meant to be, and in the correct company, it will definately send you to Euphoria Ln.

I didn't photograph the Green Tea Mochi dessert, but oh does the memory linger on...

mmMMmmMM!!!!

Who needs to go out for Fête de la Musique when you have goodies straight from India,  Joe Bonamassa's whole discography, and Nirvana Unplugged on Vinyl?

Messob

I truly had no idea Ethiopian food would be so tasty and full of spices..

and what a delight to have no other choice than to eat with your hands!
The Messob in Lyon 6 is the only Ethiopian place in the area, so it would be hard to compare, but the experience was one I would gladly relive.
Everyone is served in the same dish, and you pick at it with little rolls of Ethiopian bread, which isn't really bread, but some steamed tortilla on which the food is served.  I don't remember all the names of the dishes, but I do know this:
On the middle right is Doro Wot, chicken in spices with egg and Ethiopian cheese.
Middle left is an egg curry served as a main dish.
On the periphery are individual servings of spinach, turmeric coral lentils, chickpea puree, sauteed vegetables, salad, mincedmeat curry, and one I'm forgetting but that I really enjoyed.
After the meal, you can have real freshly Ethiopian coffee, torrified in house.  It's flavor is strong but not overwhelming and it leaves you with a pleasant aftertaste, unlike any other coffee I've ever had.

This was a nice temporary cure for my Indian food craving that is flaring up again.  It will hold me off until tomorrow.

*It is now tomorrow and I made a wonderful whole green mung Patel style curry, but the photo is hideous, so I will have to make it  and post it at another time.

Green Tea in Dessert

Top: Slices of sweet potato, green tea, and chestnut cake

Bottom: Green tea tiramisu

I'm not one for desserts, but the ones at Kyo Sushi in Marseille are intriguing and suprisingly not too sweet.  I love the bitterness green tea adds to dessert.  This makes me want to experiment.  There's a sort of balance that makes it work in many different ways. Maybe some green tea cookies? aaaahh I think I'd like that!
Green tea also adds a magic touch in things like soba or ice cream.  Mmm!!

Their appetizers are also wonderful..

Miso soup with turnips and carrots and without mushrooms (whaaa???) but sooo good!

Wakame salad - always a winner

Strange octopus cheese balls which were interesting.

I didn't get the rest of the meal.. oops, ate too quickly.  Their sashimi and maki are top quality that you can feel sliding down your throat.  The chefs come straight from Japan, and the blond Frenchie waitor even speaks Japanese.  It's a modern type of restaurant, but the sushi is the real thing.  I think I finally found a worthy sushi restaurant in France.  Why does it have to be a 3 hour drive from where I live?
Same goes for Namaste, the Indian restaurant in Marseille.
I just might have to move...

Namaste

First night away from home...lucky me, there is an Indian restaurant within walking distance of my hotel in Marseille.

Coincidence?

I'm craving samosas and naan.  My pores are filled with curry.  The India dreams haven't stopped yet.
I want that green chutney pumping through my veins...
I only captured the samosas, which were above and beyond my expectations, but this is one of the best Indian restaurants I've tried in France so far, so Namaste, I will come again.

Tiger Wok

I was blown away by this fusion concept of a wok restaurant:

pile on what you want, then choose your pulp, sauce, noodle, and topping.

The picture doesn't do it justice, but here's how mine went:

Pile: Mango, Bells, Salmon, Shrimp, Calamari

Pulp: Ginger

Sauce: Galangal and Hot Chil

Noodle: Rice noodle

Topping: Cilantro

Wow.

The best part is, when the pictogram near the description of the sauce shows multiple chili peppers, there is actual HEAT behind them!!  Not like all those other Europeanized "ethnic" restaurants around here.  Seriously, who has mango as an ingredient in a wok line?  They must have spied my eating habits before letting me wok in.  Teeheeee.

There are very few people on this side of the lake who could share my enthusiasm for this type of thing...I need to keep those ones close.  Very close.

Falafel Craving

Why am I craving Falafel?


I didn't get Falafel, but I used my mango chile jam (sexy smell) as a vinegarette while listening to Elvis: He Touched Me

Craving fulfilled.. for now.

Brasserie Georges

Marmite de Poissons à la Normande
Monkfish, Clams, Mini Lobster, Scallops, Sea Bass, Artichoke, Cauliflower

O mon dieu!

Terre Adelice

Red Bell Pepper and Goat Cheese Ice Cream?  I think I just entered the pearly gates.

There's just one thing missing...
 

hummus ice cream