07 Jan Le Rince-Doigts, Bordeaux

Le Rince-Doigts was a casual seafood place that was near our apartment.

Fish Soup, Croutons, Prawns, Bulot

Salmon Tartare, Oysters; Prawns, Bulots, Bigorneaux

We started with the ‘After Work’, available only from 6-8pm, which was a glass of wine, some prawns and bulots (€5), the ‘Formule A Volonté’, which included fish soup, prawns, mussels, bulots, bigorneaux and salmon tartare (€20) and moules farcies (€5). The seafood was really fresh – given they also run a fish shop, I would hope it is – and way better than the seafood platter we had in Paris. Since New Year’s Eve, I haven’t been very keen on seafood, particularly bulots, but when we tried these ones we found them to be pretty good, with a sweetness that was lacking in the bulots in Paris. The prawns were also sweet and had a slight salty flavour after shelling. The fish soup had some pipis, mussels and fish in a tomato based sauce. It also came with a basket of croutons, ?capsicum and wine ‘rouille’ and some mild-tasting grated cheese, all of which were apparently meant to be added into the soup, but we didn’t know so we ate them separately.

Moules Farcies

The moules farcies had a herbed garlic sauce that was very tasty and also went great with the crispy complementary bread.

Moules Frites

Moules Frites

When we’d nearly finished with our food we added on an order of moules frites (€10) after seeing the table next door eating it and seeing how good it looked. There was a very large pot of mussels, probably with a white-wine based broth, and a bowl of very good chips. The potatoes were sweet-tasting and probably one of the best fries I’ve had. Though small, the mussels were fresh, tasty, plump and juicy. We were given another basket of bread, which we ate with the remainder of the mussel broth. It would be quite a substantial meal for one person and €10 is pretty good value. We all left feeling satisfied with our €40 meal.