Thursday, September 12, 2013

Franschhoek Uncorked: to French Connection for dinner

Franschhoek by night! The outside of the French Connection restaurant on the main street where Jason Ratner, the manager, had invited us to come and have dinner.
Tonight’s specials. Wines come in a small pichet as in France or by the bottle. Lynne had La Bri Chardonnay and John Boekenhoutskloof Wolftrap red
We sat close to the fire.  The décor is very like most good French bistros
Starting to fill up at 7 pm
The menu has lots of options
Lynne ordered the grilled squid in chilli and garlic which was delicious, very tender and nicely chilli warm and garlicky. But she could have done without the large pool of olive oil on the dish. She wanted grilled because it is not oily.
John had the roast duck with a gooseberry sauce. Perfectly cooked duck with crisp skin, he found the sauce rather sweet but the counterpoint to that was the nicely tart fresh Cape gooseberries. Note the generous pichet of Boekenhoutskloof Wolftrap, which cost only R36
Lynne does not often do dessert but, if Tart Tatin is on a menu, she has to try it. This was quite wonderful. Soft and intense apples, beautifully crisp flaky pastry and a good sour cream to counterpoint the richness and sweet and sticky caramel sauce.  She( needed) wanted lots more caramel sauce…
Second chocolate tart of the week, but this was for John. The best thing on the plate was the chocolate filled deep fried spring roll.  When opened it oozed liquid chocolate all over the plate
© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2013

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