Faux fillet

It's Thursday...I think.  Very hard to keep track!

We had a real dining highlight last night.  When we choose our restaurants, we are generally choosing blind, without research or recommendations.  Because of the rain, we just rocked up, found a park and then dived into the nearest place we could find.  It was fantastic, if a little more expensive than usual.

We had the 'Plat du Jour' which every restaurant has.  It is a bit like a set menu with combinations from the a la carte menu.  We chose a four course option.  The meal won the prize for most beautifully presented of our trip.  The waiter had a little English but encouraged us to use our French and taught us some new phrases including 'Tout se passé bien' - everything is fine.  He really added to the fun of the night.  We finished eating at 10.30 pm and needless to say, we were both awake with still full tummies at 3 am!

In France we have encountered the 'faux fillet' - French for sirloin steak (which is my preferred cut at home).  The first time was a disaster - our only disappointing meal of the whole trip.  It was at a restaurant chain which grew from a butchery chain.  It was a gristly, poorly cooked piece of meat that didn't endear the butcher, let alone the restaurant, to me.  Served us right for choosing something named fake, but I found myself choosing it again later in the trip when it was the only main that I liked.  This time it was beautifully cooked and very tasty.  I think the moral of the story is not to go to cheap and nasty restaurants.  That said, most nights we have eaten for around 40 - 50 euros - three courses, a wine or two and tea and coffee.  Not too bad really, especially for the quality we've been getting.

Said goodbye to Bayeux and detoured back to Arromanche for a final D Day experience.  This was a 360 degree surround sound and vision (9 screen) film of the 100 days of the landings, very loud and very graphic.  Still can't figure how they got such close up film of events as they happened in such chaotic surroundings.

In Rouen for two nights now - our last stop before we hit Paris!