Monday, November 10, 2014

Bistro de l'Hotel, Beaune

L'Hotel Beaune is a very quaint and beautiful hotel right smack in the middle of Beaune city....despite the status being a city, it's more like a lil village to me. You can just walk around it in 10 minutes and done!!! However Beaune is the capital of burgundy wines and this hotel is like the famous place to be among the wine merchants and wine trades. But I was wondering how come only 4 stars??? Prollie bcoz they dun have a swimming pool that's it. Seriously in all my travels, I hardly use the pool anyway unless it's like a beach resort or island villa kinda thing. When u are staying in a villa, u would be buzy at ur own private pool isn't it?

We did not stay at L'Hotel Beaune during this trip, instead we went to another famous historical Hotel Le Cep which I will blog sometime later. L'Hotel Beaune is known for its personalised and top notch service for its clientele. They only have 10 rooms here....so u can imagine that all the staffs from the kitchen to the door bell to the chambermaids will remember your name and preferences.


the hotel managed to secure the first unit of this row of building, along Rue Samuel Legay, which happened to be next to the courtyard of L'Hotel Beaune. They turned it into a classical bistro with access from the main road and also from the courtyard.

a few years ago during our visit to Beaune, we stumbled upon this bistro and decided to give it a try. Our very first visit didn't disappoint, in fact it was so good that we have short-listed into our "To-Dine" list for this year. Later, we found out that Bistro de l'Hotel is highly recommended by the locals here.


Appetizer of cheeses and shaved hams, with extra virgin olive oil, some awesome creamie butter which wasn't enuff for Mr. JS alone, what's more that he had to share with me....and warm bread basket. Again butter and bread are too dangerous in France, coz it's so yummy that u tend to devoured the entire thing b4 ur actual meal arrives on the table.

Amuse bouche was full of umami-ness with sweet and savouriness that startup ur palate and makes u hungry. Basically it's bread cooked with a lot of sweet tomatoes, drizzled with more olive oil and chopped basil on top. So simple but then so yumzzz....it has the right balance and JS was spotting my tiny bowl hoping I have some leftover for him. Sorry!!! not this time.

Wine list here is pretty decent and u could find really rare gems as well. Ranging from everyday wines to stunning ones like this bottle.

Monkey: "This is a bistro, we gonna have bistro kinda food.....u sure u wanna have a Richebourg?"
JS: "Everyday is a celebration Monkey, if not now when?"

and soon our sommelier was pretty happy to pour us some. I still couldn't believe it that there's Richebourg in this bistro!!!!! JS added that we are in Beaune, of coz u could find all these stunning wines. 


we started off with half a dozen of fine de clairs oysters. Seriously it's not enuff BUT, we knew we had to put a rhythm to our dinner. Afterall this is Beaune!!! the cuisine is rich and big in flavours. So we gotta plan our menu. Funny how these days, dinners were taken so seriously, we needed at least a minimum of 15 minutes to discuss on the wines, then on the food, from starter till the end if we gonna have cheeses or sweets. We alwiz believe with good plannings and visualization, you will have such an awesome dinner. Yes visualize the taste, how it will flow with the evening from courses to courses and most importantly with the chosen bottle of wine. If there's more than the 2 of us, we would have ordered more.

Egg Cocotte with some truffle oil and loads of thinly shaven white truffles. The head waiter must have liked JS a lot......kakakakakaka.

sorry for the picture quality. Must be too excited bcoz he was about to chomp chomp nom nom nom some organic eggs with so much of truffles.

He must have been overly excited bcoz the next course, he was still shaking his camera!!! LOL!!!!

This was the mixture of a few types of mushrooms cooked with thick cream, served on crunchy bread. Looked so unappetizing right? but it was so creamie and flavourful. Different mushrooms have got different intensity, flavours, texture and bite so this was really clever.


staying in Beaune can really make one fat.
Firstly all the heavy rich provincial cuisine, next all the yummy wines...and lastly the town/city is so small u can't really walk much.


JS had more white truffles with his awesome perfectly grilled beef.


This isn't any normal fries, it's so goooooooodddddd. The nose of the potatoes was so pure, I guess they fried them with animal fats? or really good oil? Then sprinkled with sea salts, u could actually bite into it. Sea salt isn't as salty as those chemically produced ones.

So in the end, both of us were fighting over this plate of chunky fries.


the awesome must have - roast farmer's chicken with olive oil and lemon jus. By the way it's boneless except the wings. The other must have chicken in its menu is the famous chicken from Bresse. I can attest that Bresse chicken are the best ones in the world!!! but because it's for 2 person, I could only order this half farmer's chicken.

Our last visit, we managed to ordered it and my my....underneath its skin with black patches were black truffles and of coz it was so yummy except that JS was complaining that the chicken smell was overwhelming he almost puked.


You can order any sides u want for your main course and I had these sugar snap peas with carrots and radish.


The semi open kitchen where u could see plates and plates of food being served out to the diners.

caramelised pineapples with lovely creme on top of biscotti, some lime zest and voila!!! It's good to have these after a heavy hearty meal :))))))))

not to forget homemade petit four of financiers and dark chocolates.

The service here is really friendly, they do have english menu and don't be surprised, if u manage to rub shoulders with the famous and notable ppl here, including the famed wine critique Mr. Allen Meadows which we did a few years ago.

Bistro de l'Hotel
5 rue Samuel Legay,
21200 Beaune,
France.
Tel: +33 3 8025 9414
http://www.lhoteldebeaune.com/en/


2 comments:

Wilson Ng said...

If fat with such food, I don't mind.

Wilson

CHER-RY said...

Hahaha that's true Wilson :)))