Lyon is known as France's "second city" even though it has the third largest population in France. It is also known as the culinary capital of France. Thus there were major reasons for me to want to visit.
The first culinary location we visited in Lyon was Bernachon, one of the best chocolatiers in the world. Matt and I tried two different kinds of chocolate and were simply blown away. Matt had been a little skeptical at my desire to visit all sorts of pastry shops but when he walked into Bernachon and smelled the chocolate in the air, I think he was converted. Bernachon actually roasts their own chocolate, which is extremely rare. It would be the equivalent of a bakery milling their own flour. One of the chocolates we tried was a pistachio/praline filled dark chocolate almond truffle. It was one of the best chocolates I've ever eaten, and I immediately wanted to go back and buy more. They also had a fantastic display of pastries and cakes that we didn't partake in but I really wish I could go back right now and buy something every day. It was that good!
Our next stop was Voisin to check out the coussins of Lyon. Coussins are famous marzipan candies, which are as far as I know have been made only in Lyon since 1897. They are definetely some of the most interesting candies I've ever tried. Shaped like little teal pillows they have a soft chocolate center covered by marzipan. They were a little odd at first but I became addicted very quickly.
Even though we were on a tight budget, I still insisted that we go out for one nice meal in Lyon. I mean it is the culinary capital of France after all. We did a lot of research and ended up at a place called Le Layon. I was very impressed by their menu and was finally able to order duck in France and had: Magret de canard au jus parfumé à la coriandre. It was absolutely amazing and I was completely happy eating it. Matt had a satisfactory salmon for dinner, but he definetely got the better of the two desserts. I settled on the standard creme brulee because not much else looked good, but Matt had a fabulous and interesting nut cake in a berry sauce which I was very impressed with. It was an enjoyable night out for me.
I sadly must admit that Matt was far less thrilled by Lyon's culinary traditions than I was. As a vegetarian and even one adapting to eat fish while in France is was hard to find meals he could eat in Lyon. One thing I've realized since being here is that the the French love their meat: ham, veal, steak. And in Lyon the emphasis on traditional food meant a lot of things like gizzards, pig snouts, foie gras, etc which even make me squeamish, so I can't imagine what the thought of them does to Matt. It really is hard for a vegetarian to get by here. Especially at more upscale or even mid-scale restaurants they simply do not have vegetarian options the way we do in the U.S.
Quite a few of our meals we ended up eating in Kebab shops, i.e. France's version of fast food, because it was one of the few places Matt can find a vegetarian meal. Kebab is essentially warm fresh pita bread filled with fries, lettuce and usually some sort of meat, though in Matt's case eggs or cheese. Its very good for a cheap fast meal.
We decided to cook in the hostel a few of the nights there, something which usually isn't too hard, but this time resulted in the worst meal of both my and Matt's life. It all started out very simply and just went so so wrong. All we had planned was some pasta and a salad. The salad was fine, the pasta was not. We had bought a package of fresh ravioles, essentially very tiny raviolis and a jar of pasta sauce. It seemed simple enough. After waiting for something like 45 minutes for our water to heat up (the burner kept getting turned off) our water was finally boiling and Matt put in the pasta. Unfortunately he did not notice until a few minutes later that the package said to only boil the ravioles for 30 seconds-1 minute. Thus we ended up with slimy slippery pasta. No horrible in and of itself, but somehow the combination of that with some of the worst pasta sauce I have ever tasted resulted in the worst meal of our lives. Matt's exact quote was "vile doesn't even begin to describe how bad that was". It's been a long time since I've had a meal that I couldn't even bear to finish. It was not a happy night and we both went to sleep hungry,queasy, and greatly looking forward to going home to cook for ourselves in our own kitchen again.
So sadly our culinary adventures in Lyon ended on a very sad note. However in general we've eaten very well in France, and I enjoyed a great deal (especially the pastry) that we found in Lyon. I highly recommend Bernachon chocolates if you ever get a chance to try them!
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