Monday, December 26, 2011

Holidays



We didn't do any dancing, but we have been getting out more now that I'm feeling a lot better. Tuesday, Jeff, Geoff, Robb and I drove to Maguire's Hill 16 for lunch. Geoff and Robb once again had the Fish and Chips, which Geoff swears is the best he's ever had outside of England. Jeff had the Lasagna Special and I had the Chicken Curry. Jeff liked his lasagna and the chicken curry was great. Jeff drank iced tea, while the rest of us had the Irish Cider. The cider is alcoholic but not overly so. After eating, we drove over to A1A, the road that runs along the ocean. We stopped at the Pelican Grand Beach Resort and spent several hours sitting on the veranda just a few feet from the shore.

Thursday, Robb and I drove down to Hollywood to check out a new French restaurant, Le Comptoir, about which I read a review online somewhere. All the reviews, except one, were raving about the food, the service and the excellent prices. We used to live in Hollywood, so we had no trouble finding it. Since we lived there, Hollywood has acquired a lot of cafes, most with sidewalk seating. But apparently, very few of them open before 17h00. We found that surprising since it is the middle of the tourist season and you would have thought there would be people sitting out there drinking and eating. The weather is great right now; not hot and not cold, so it was disconcerting to see virtually no one at the cafes and most of them closed till later. I had read that Hollywood had fallen on difficult times and I think this would go a long way to explain it.

Christmas Eve was nice. It started with a small holiday gathering in the lobby of our building. Several of the guys prepared snacks and dips with a variety of drinks. It wasn't a huge gathering of people, but it was nice and we met a couple of new people. We hung out and chatted for a couple hours, then we went up to our apartment, changed clothes and drove down to Le Comptoir in Hollywood. Le Comptoir, we discovered, is run by a French couple from Montmartre in Paris. The husband, who is also the chef doesn't speak English, but his wife and children (two girls and a boy) do. Our original plan was to have the moules avec frites (mussels with fries), but when we got there, we checked the menu and saw Canard a l'Orange (duck with orange sauce). It was excellent and way more than either of us could finish. We weren't going to have dessert, but when the madame mentioned it was a Bûche de Noël....well. It was great, of course. Our only disappointment was the espresso, but we were otherwise impressed, and we will return one day for the moules-frites.




Dumb Law of the Week: In North Carolina, it is a crime to move two hotel beds together!

Á la prochaine, mes amis.

5 comments:

Archguy said...

That all sounds so nice.
So is your building an all male building?

Ken Broadhurst said...

Glad you had a nice Christmas. I envy you that wintertime Florida weather right now.

Amanda said...

I have never been to Florida. Maybe when I am retired I can spend some time there in winter. The weather has been nice in Los Angeles, but the ocean is really not the same. I envy you!

PeterParis said...

Some kind of surprise to listen to François Valéry on your blog! :-)

Nice to see that you are feeling better!

All the best for 2012!!!

Megan said...

Sounds like a nice restaurant. Sometimes I imagine moving back to the US and start a real French bakery, with signs in French, and speaking only French to customers, like if they walked into a boulangerie in France. :) Ah well, maybe after retirement.