Our stay in Brittany was enhanced by our spacious home exchange which was set, along with a pair of detached studio apartments also available for our use, in a couple of acres complete with a large swimming pool, BBQ cabana, vegetable plot, orchard and cider press.
The living areas comfortably fitted our steady stream of visitors and the wonderful Lannion markets ensured our kitchen was always well stocked with locally prepared dishes of succulent pork cassoulet and paella, great chunks of meat from the rotisserie, not to mention giant slabs of confectioner's nougat for the sweet-toothed among us.
So the food for even everyday meals was memorable.
But one long lunch at Mr and Mme Doyen's restaurant in a little nondescript building, barely identifiable as a restaurant, in the tiny village of Ploumilliou, was worth a standing ovation.
Following the advice of our hosts we'd attempted to eat here several times previously, but were thwarted by mishaps in communication and timing. Finally we secured a booking. Understanding, only, that our meal was to involve "fruits du mer" we arrived at midday for Sunday lunch and sat down to a long table preset for our reservation of seven, already holding aloft two giant platters piled high with the freshest Brittany seafood available: crab, oysters, prawns, langoustines.
This seafood feast took us, and everyone else in the restaurant who was fortunate enough to make a reservation for it, well over an hour to crack, pick and probe, and when, finally, we polished off the last morsel we fully expected to be handed our bill, and to head off home.
We'd had elegant sufficiency. We were replete. We thought we had finished, in truth.
Instead, another course was placed in front of each of us: a sublime skewer of fat white scallops, strips of smokey bacon and charred red peppers over a mound of fragrant rice, topped with champagne sauce, and slivers and squares of blanched vegetables as garnish. Too perfect not to touch. We all dug in, moaning with delight, but groaning that we, literally, had no room to spare.
By now some of us had cottoned on that this was only the fish course, so, when a meat course inevitably arrived at our table, a jog around the restaurant block was never going to create enough room for it. Sadly most of us just looked at this delicious plate of perfectly cooked pork and mushrooms and wept. It looked sublime. It smelt sublime. We simply had no space.
By now we were used to the Bretagne tradition of a madly generous cheese board served with beautifully dressed green salad leaves tangy with mustard, which typically follows the main course. When this arrived at our table some of us recalled the previous Sunday in another restaurant in another village, when a couple at a table beside us, finding they couldn't manage their cheeses, came prepared with plastic takeaway doggy bags and a large capacious purse. Those two are likely still eating their Sunday cheese selections. No doubt, superb.
Finally, dessert. Not a wee slice, not a small dab of a little something sweet, but a mountain of a dessert, individually prepared, and presented as a choice among many: each sufficient as a meal in and of itself. Around four o'clock we settled into rich serves of dark coffee and a side of luscious chocolate, and in a state of stupefied satiation chatted with our fellow diners at La Doyen, one of whom happened to be celebrating his 96th birthday. So, in fine spirit, we amped up the Aussie noise, birthday wishes and kisses, ensuring the day remained memorable for him always.
An amazing lunch. Made even more amazing given that we had no notion what was on offer, what was coming next, or even what it might cost in the end. As it panned out, even adding in four bottles of red and four of white, the bill, per person, barely pushed $AUD40, including the tip.
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