13 Jan Restaurant Albert, Lyon

All the mains at Restaurant Albert were €23, but the menu sounded OK and nothing else around was open except for the sports wine bar. I wasn’t actually that hungry, but we don’t have many days left in France and I want to make the most of my time here. I was tossing up between the veal steak with artichokes and wild mushrooms and the quail stuffed with walnuts on a bed of spicy vegetables. Dad was choosing between the same things or the squid with fish stuffing and spicy sauce. The daily specials today included a roasted pork cutlet with pumpkin purée, which also sounded interesting. He settled on the squid because he wanted something different. I personally would have picked the veal instead. I had the quail. We got small bowls of nibbles: pickled vegetables and olives and pork crackling. Fortunately dad’s was actually fish rather than fish paste. It wasn’t very tasty without the sauce. There was some eggplant with a polenta cake on top, and a slice of chorizo on perched on the stuffed squid. The eggplant was pretty good. The spicy vegetables on my plate were finely diced zucchini, carrot and chard. As well as being spicy they were also a bit sweet; I think it was from the chard. The quail had been deboned, making it much easier to eat. I didn’t get much walnut, but the meat had a nice and subtle sweet flavour. I was pretty pleased with mine; dad not so much.