12 Jan Le Bouchon des Filles, Lyon

I wanted to try a bouchon, which is a restaurant that serves Lyonnaise dishes. Looking up what typical Lyonnaise cuisine was, I didn’t expect to really, really enjoy it, but I thought we should try it because we’re here. I’d heard that the servings at Le Bouchon des Filles were big and there wasn’t any option other than the €25 4 course meal, so we shared two of the meals between the three of us. They told us that they don’t normally allow that, but because it was quiet today, they would.

Every table started off with a puff pastry creation with some sort of salty, crunchy thing. I was thinking it was maybe broken up pork crackling, but I really have no idea. The serving size for the three different salads were huge. It appeared that groups of two received individual plates with pre-portioned salads and groups of three or more got a communal sharing bowl. Despite only ordering two meals, we were given bowls of salad rather than two individual plates. The three salads were: green salad with ?bacon wrapped around fig paste; lentil salad; smoked herring and beetroot salad. They were all nice and there was a generous portion of smoked herring too, but we just couldn’t finish all of them if we were to have the stomach to eat the rest of the meal. Between the salad and main we were given an amuse-bouche of warm veloute with celery.

Our choices of mains were: Quenelle de brochette with Nantua sauce and Andouillete. I’m not normally one to go for sausage, and certainly not one made of offal, but it’s a typical Lyonnaise dish so I gave it a go. It actually wasn’t as bad as I thought and the strong garlic sauce was nice with it. I didn’t notice any particularly strong odours or tastes, but maybe it was masked by the garlic sauce. Also on the plate were some very sweet cherry tomatoes. I haven’t had that many cherry tomatoes before, but mum said they were the sweetest tomatoes she’s ever eaten. The quenelle came with something crunchy and spicy. The quenelle was a pikefish puree that had been mixed with flour before being cooked. Thankfully it didn’t just taste like a Chinese fishball. The fish taste was quite apparent, but it was also quite doughy (more doughy than gnocchi).

There were a couple of choices for the cheese course. I picked the cheese from Bordeaux and dad choseCervelles de canuts, which is a soft cheese with garlic and herbs. My cheese was soft and smooth. I quite liked it. Cervelles de canuts had a fromage blanc base and was flavoursome, but I preferred my cheese.

Bordelais Cheese, Cervelles de canuts – Soft Cheese w. Garlic and Herbs

There was an extensive dessert menu. We settled on the chocolate fondant with salted caramel ice cream, and the ice cream mixed with pralines. We were thinking of having the blackcurrent sorbet and chocolate fondant, but in the end chose the pralines because it’s more of a Lyonnaise thing. This is when we found out that pralines specific to Lyon involves almonds with pink sugar. The chocolate fondant was the best dish tonight. The chocolate was very good and rich, with the inside nice and molten, going well with the salted caramel ice cream. The pralines ice cream was sweet, but not as much as I was expecting. There was a piece of hardened raspberry on top of the ice cream. I didn’t eat it. I wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be sucked on (it was rock hard) or whether it was there as decoration. Mum ordered a coffee for €2 to have with dessert. It came with a little biscuit. We were all incredibly full after that. Apparently the food at this bouchon is less heavy than other bouchons, so we’re not too keen on having it again tomorrow.