Wanderlust: The One Where I'm in Lyon

I have the worst eating habits here in Lyon. I thought I’d eat less and be healthier compared to when I’m in Vancouver, but no way in heck was that happening. I should have known better. I pretty much have no self control. I don’t know if eating dairy products (yogurt, cheese, milk – which I tried to cut out already, more cheese, and cheeseeeeee) everyday is bad, but I have a feeling they have a decent amount of fat content, which is obviously not any good. :/ Anyway, that’s not the worst part. My kryptonite: nutella and speculoos and maybe a bunch of other sweets/desserts/pastries/etc., have made me the unhealthiest person out there.

Sometime last week, I think I managed to finally finish almost half of my speculoos spread. I think I ate at least 5 slices of bread, smothered in speculoos spread IN ONE SITTING. What made it even tastier was I toasted my bread on the pan with the speculoos spread in it, which means that the speculoos spread melted too…. and I’m sure we all know how damn good that tasted. You don’t even want to know what I did with my nutella… I’ll tell you in a bit though. 😛 I’ve also managed to consume one whole bag of Lays barbeque chips by myself in one night. Even if I felt that I was on the road to being healthier (as in, I just bought a ton of fruits to serve as my snack, resisted buying speculoos biscuits and the spread, and all other types of unhealthy junk food), I failed myself again yesterday. I have a ton of chocolate at home to give as gifts to people when I get back to Manila/Vancouver. Sadly, I couldn’t resist and ended up opening one of the Lindt chocolate bars I have (which was meant to be a gift) and ate one whole bar by myself while watching Suits. Yes, the bar was huge and I finished it myself. I am a pig. I won’t be surprised if I come home with diabetes, cavities, and be overly obesed. It sucks to have a huge sweet tooth and a massive appetite. :S

Anyway, my fatness aside, I’ve had some pretty good meals recently. Last Friday, the two Diana’s, Jiseon, and I cooked dinner at our place. Jiseon made Korean bulgogi (with rice cake too! OMG!! :P) and Diana cooked fried rice. Mhmmm. To top it off, a “French” dining is never complete without wine. 😉 We had rosé and red wine to go with our dinner. After that, we had some awesome pastries from Carrefour, which only cost 5euros. ‘Nuff said. Dinner was delicious and it was a great night spent with awesome friends. 🙂

Beef Bulgogi, Fried Rice, Dessert

Another memorable meal was when I had lunch with my French Buddy, Tina, who’s actually Vietnamese, but she grew up here. She’s doing her Masters for Finance in Lyon II and I am really happy to have her as my French buddy. We have so many things in common and I’m glad we see eye to eye when it comes to applying for jobs and views on our careers and the like. She brought me to La Table de Suzanne, where we both paid 22euros for their menu du jour. I thought the servings would not fill me up, but I was wrong. I was so full after our meal and I haven’t felt that full in ages (even though I eat a lot generally). I had to skip dinner just because I was still stuffed. In terms of the dishes, the food was very exquisite and très délicieux. My personal favourite was the entrée: pumpkin soup with poached egg and prosciutto. It is definitely going to my list of the best soups I’ve ever had. I also had the best crème brûlée ever! It was chocolate inside, instead of the usual vanilla custard. They also gave me some sweetened biscuit with almonds. I enjoyed it very much.

Pumpkin Soup with Prosciutto & Poached Egg, Porkchop with potatoes and some yummy kind of sauce, and Crème Brûlée

Lastly, I had a hearty four-course meal last night at Chez Mounier in Bellecour with the two Diana’s again. Get this, their four-course meal cost 13 euros per person. ONLY 13 EUROS. Such a great deal. I finally satisfied my craving for Salade Lyonnaise. The poached egg in the salad is always a bonus and makes it as my favourite salad out there.. I think. They gave me a ton of fresh bacon chunks too. As for our third course, we had St. Marcellin cheese (fromage blanc), which is cheese that the Rhône-Alpes region is famous for. A few people said this cheese was amazing and the best or whatever, but I beg to differ. I had high expectations for it when I tried it for the first time a few weeks ago, but it was just not my kind of cheese. The after taste just makes me…… Anyway, we also had cheese with cream. I’m just not sure what kind of cheese that was. It was my first time trying it though, seemed like the yogurt type of cheese. It was good mix with the cream and you can also add sugar with it, which we did… so it felt like we were just eating sweet yogurt. YUM. For our dessert, I got some peach dessert, which was delicious! I miss eating peaches. 🙁

Four Course Meal: Salade Lyonnaise, Fish with meunière, Cheese/Fromage, and Dessert!

Oh, in case you were curious, here are the awesome little packets of Nutella I stole from our hotel in Torino. I’m sure you all know what I did with them right when I opened the first one…

Packets filled with awesomeness!