It was Paul's birthday yesterday and he chose to have his birthday dinner at Le Vivier, one of the two Michelin one star restaurants in l'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue.
Although we only booked during the afternoon, we were lucky enough to get a table on the terrace.
Not as lucky as some, though. These diners had to be careful that they didn't join the ducks.
The amuse bouche was a deep fried ball of cabillaud with smoked crab mousse and capers. Cabillaud is cod and I noticed containers of creamed cabillaud in the supermarket today so it must be a popular local item. In Italy, dried salted cod is very popular and called baccala - this is similar. The capers were the best part, plump and juicy and far better than the salted ones we get at home.
Luscious foie gras and smoked eel terrine with a reduction of Pedro Ximénez sherry and excellent toast. This was a lovely dish despite the oversweet cooked apple accompaniment.
Dorset crab and Dublin Bay prawn with cucumber and horseradish cream. Disappointingly, the sorbet had begun to melt and lost its freshness, but the crab and prawn were delicious. The interesting little spots had both an asian and an indian curry taste but had dried on the huge plate so it was difficult to get much from them.
There was a nice selection of bread but it tasted as though it was a day old - I'm sure it couldn't have been, but it didn't actually taste 'fresh'.
Next up was the fish dish - steamed turbot with a fricassee of radishes dusted with black olive powder. Very light and I loved the black olive powder. The plate also included two ravioli like 'things' that were under-cooked, dry on the edges and unpleasant.
Very busy plate - this is not a nice presentation. Roast saddle of lamb, chickpeas creamed with argan oil and a crusted lamb sweetbread. The lamb itself (the head of the 'flower') was perfectly cooked and had a little bit of crackling skin - beautiful. The remainder of the plate was forgettable.
Farmhouse cheese - goats cheese with honey in the spoon on the right, a nice blue with berry jam in the centre, and I'm unsure of the cheese on the left. The cheeses were fair but the presentation was poor and the jam was unnecessary.
The fruit dish was not really a fruit dish at all. It was all sugary sweet 'stuff' with a few slices of strawberry and some rolled rhubarb.
A frozen chocolate lollypop with a mint liquor centre accompanied by a hot chocolate cake with a runny centre. I loved the cake - superb. I would have been ecstatic if it had had just a spoonful of real cream and a mint leaf.
Lovely setting and lovely ducks.
All in all, good service, expensive but excellent coffee, fabulous foie gras and to-die-for lamb with well matched wines.
But - there was too much sugar, insufficient vegetables, poor plating and poor ingredient pairings. In some instances the cooking was excellent, in others very poor, reflecting insufficient supervision of plates leaving the kitchen.
Unrefined - lacking talent - not worthy of a Michelin star.
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