Fred's newsletter 20.4.21
Bleu is re-opening on Friday 30th of April for dinner.
Bonjour mes amis,
A quick one today as I am rushing to get 200 things done. So much is happening and Betty and I are rushed off our feet getting things sorted. No day off for us!
Put the date in your diaries, we are opening the door at l’escargot bleu next week. It will only be for a few selected dates and with limited numbers for now.
From Friday 30th April, for 3 weeks, we will be open for dinner on Fridays and lunch and dinner on Saturdays. As per Government guidelines, we’re unable to serve alcohol during this time.
Then, from the week beginning the 17th of May, we will extend the opening times from Wednesday to Saturday.
All times will be confirmed when we open the reservation system on Friday 23rd of April.
Our menu will be on the blackboard ‘bistro-style’ featuring our classics dishes, and the restaurant will be set to make people feel safe, as it was last autumn, with hand sanitizer on every table. Please be aware of a few rules when joining us, like wearing a mask when moving around, and temperature checks when you arrive.
L’escargot at home will continue as long as orders are coming in. We are very happy to continue with our Friday collection and deliveries. It now feels like we have been doing them for years.
This week’s menu is up online as I type, and for the first time this year we welcome back langoustines from the Isle of Skye. They will get to us on Thursday and will be cooked on Friday morning just before going out to you. They will be served cold with fresh mayonnaise, my favourite way to eat them.
After the Spanish asparagus, this week it comes from France. The spears are white (bigger than the Spanish ones) and will be served with a Mimosa sauce made of a hard-boiled egg vinaigrette, diced gherkins, fresh parsley and shredded eggs.
The terrine is pork and pork liver with Armagnac, served with pickles. The snails are in our favourite garlic and parsley butter. We have a flat bean salad with our own ham, shallots, celeriac and red onions, all with a walnut oil dressing.
As a treat this week we have a whole roast chicken to share between 2 to 4 people. It will be ready-cooked for you to re-heat, or eat cold, with gratin Dauphinois, green salad, gravy and mayonnaise. This should please people meeting outside at the weekend. The chickens come from Robert at St Bride’s Farm who wrote a few words for us the other week.
A tasty Parmentier pie of Aberdeen Angus beef in a rich gravy under a potato mash with Emmental cheese is another easy dish for you to re-heat at home. I recommend a green salad with it. Another very popular dish makes a return: the rabbits for our lapin à la moutarde de Dijon come direct from our French supplier at Rungis Market. The second half of the Manx Loaghtan lamb will be rolled and stuffed with spinach and pine nuts, served with fresh tomatoes and cumin, plus some harissa to give it a little kick.
For fish, I am hoping for hake, and that will be served with a mussel and saffron sauce with fresh basil. We’ve not had any hake for a while and I have missed it.
For dessert, the Paris-Brest is making a comeback. A few of you spotted it on our social media last week and asked to see it on the menu. Last week it was made by our manager Sebastien, and he did very well, I must have scoffed a kilo on my own! The lemon petit pot with biscuits, tarte au chocolat, rhubarb crumble are still in high demand, so they are staying. May I remind you to keep the tarte au chocolat out of the fridge for an hour before eating it, and maybe even warming it for a few minutes in the oven…
The weather is helping a lot at Newton Garden, and also with the help of Mathieu we have now filled all nine raised boxes with baby salads of many varieties and we are hopeful of good results. It was just as well that we put up protection around the young leaves we planted a few weeks back as the pigeons and pheasants are starving and have munched their way through the leaves we planted last autumn. I’ve added some pictures here of the garden when I first moved in; it’s interesting to see where we started.
I’ll leave you now with a few words from Andrew Whitley who is doing wonderful work in Scotland involving farmers, as well as bakers, to produce the best flour possible to make healthy and tasty bread. Andrew supplies Company Bakery where we buy our bread. Thank you, Andrew.
Voila c’est tout.
À bientôt,
Fred