After we spent many hours checking out all the art at the Louvre we crashed at the apartment for a bit. Eventually I got itchy feet and convinced Maggie to come with me to ride the final hop-on-hop-off bus route.

Maggie is great fun to tour with!

I’ve been known to pick something off the menu that most people I know will raise an eyebrow at and today was no exception.
Tête de veau was on the menu with a helpful English translation of “calfs head pot” – now who could resist that?
I forgot to take a picture of my meal, but this is very close to what I was served.

Turns out Tête de veau is a calf’s head which has been skinned and deboned then rolled and cooked for hours then cooled completely and sliced thickly. When served it is rewarmed in the broth the vegetables were cooked in along with gribiche sauce. Gribiche sauce is like mayonnaise with pickles, capers and tarragon.
So the real question is “was it any good”? And the answer is yes and no. The dish was prepared very well, but it is very gelatinous and fatty. If you have issues with that kind of texture this isn’t the dish for you. I found that combining a more meaty bit (such as the tongue) with the gelatinous bits, potato and some sauce was the best approach.
Would I order it again? I had calf/beef head in the Philippines previously so I kind of knew what I was getting into. The preparations were quite different, but a similar taste comes through which doesn’t get me excited. So I think I’ve had enough calf head for a lifetime.

This is primarily Maggie’s blog, but I have her permission to throw a few of my thoughts in from time to time.

International travel

I’ve done a little international travel and each time I go I learn a little more about making it smoother. This time Michelle had 2 great ideas
1) use a travel agent to book all the flights. She got better flight times at the same cost with no stress on our part. This was especially true on this trip since we have 5 flight segments.
2) have a chauffeur waiting for us at the airport. With 4 of us there was almost no cost difference and the simplicity of just looking for your name rather than figuring out the train ticketing or dealing with the randomness of the taxi line was totally worth it.