Bordeaux

A couple of weekends ago Marie and I went to Bordeaux for three nights, and it was great. Richard and Rachel organised everything, which was very nice. All we had to do was turn up to the airport- I like this style of holiday a lot.
We stayed in the converted watermill above, which had a bunch of little crannies to curl up in when the open plan kitchen/dining floor was temporarily unappealing, and there were kayaks to paddle up the river. Not that I am a good paddler.





The main focus of our trip was wine, and this photo shows part of the regional wine tasting we had on one of our evenings. Hehe.
And after tasting a whole bunch of Bordeaux wines, it would be impolite not to ship at least a few back to the UK. Thus, after spending our last six months in NZ consuming the end of our wine cellar we now have a new wine cellar, even if it is still single digits for now.





On our first evening we went to a local restaurant to celebrate Richard's 30th. I quite like the idea of significant birthdays occuring in foreign countries, it makes the birthday dinner so much more exciting. The menu was entirely in French, and one of the starters was cote de something. This was initially translated as 'foot of animal', and I was hooked without any further information. It turned out to be from a pig, so a pig trotter. However it was not presented in its entirety, rather the meat was shaved off so no chewing of hooves. It was the best starter I have ever had.
This was followed by a entrecote steak, which is a cut of meat I haven't encountered before with a bordelaise sauce. Best steak I have ever eaten.
The one thing which 'let down' the meal as a whole was the dessert- a cheeseboard. Not that the cheese was bad, it was great. It just didn't reach the same heights as the first two courses.





I worked out where I left my car, and I even think I got a little bit of sun, which was quite foreign given that it snowed in London the previous weekend...