Dejeuner at La Tour Eiffel

There is no symbol of a country is so indisputable linked as the Eiffel Tower is for France.  Given all the ciche that is associated with they symbol of France, I was a little apprehensive.   From the Effiel Tower key chains and the glittering Eiffel Tower trinkets there was much to make me worried about this places.   We had planned this entire trip around this one day.  June 12 our 30th anniversary, and I didn't want to celebrate it in a glorified Disneyland.  Le Jules Verne under the supervision of  Alain Ducasse has 1 Michelin star, so I felt somewhat confident in the quality of the meal.  We were meeting our friends from France, the Marti's, whom we had met exchanging homes a number of years back and we have maintained a friendship ever since.  They are a wonderful family, Carine, Fabien, and their two lovely boy's Eric and Romain.  Le Jules Verne has it's own special elevator at one of the four corners of the Eiffle Tower.  The day was exceptionally cold and as we waited for the restaurant to open for lunch all the faithful had begin to assemble.  You could easily see how much nicer attired the line at this corner of the Tower was than all the others.  Better behaved too.  We met the Marti's here and as we all complained about how cold the weather was for a few minutes the Le Jules Verne began to open and the faithful began to make there way inside and 125 meters up.  I had requested a window table but I'm sure that everyone else who had made a reservation had also.  I was not feeling very confident that we would get one.  Much to my surprise they did.  A beautiful table overlooking the Seine and the Trocadero

Our table overlooking Seine and the Trocadero with the Marti's.


Since it was our 30th anniversary I had a little surprise for Linda.  I had managed to smuggle in the luggage without Linda noticing a diamond sapphire pendant for our 30th.  I had learned my lesson in the past that when she say's she doesn't want anything for an anniversary, it doesn't necessarily mean that literally.  I'm made that rookie mistake before and the outcome was not good.  You don't stay married for 30 years without learning a little something.

The surprise

The Dejeuner:

The amuse bouche

And it comes with a little show

OK this was probably the most beautiful dish I have ever eaten in my life.  The taste was fantastic but visually it was stunning.  I think the the corn and lobster flan that I had eaten at Piccasso's in Las Vegas a number of years ago, was the best tasting thing that I have ever tasted but this was hands down the most beautiful.  I have to give you 3 photos of this.

Delicate garden peas soup, poached egg and ham

Oh and it had a poached egg on the bottom, and bacon on the top.  It was kind of cheating for them to put both of those in one dish.  Unbelievable.  Really for me this was the highlight of the meal, of course next to Linda and the Marti's oh and La Tour Eiffel.

 The presentation

 With the show

The final dish.  Superb.  One of the best dishes on the whole trip.

Tender veal layers, capers, pickeles, mustard, toasted country bread.  

Linda had this for her Entre.  Very old school.  The veal was on this bed of consume gellee with all these tiny dots of meticulously presented little cut vegetables.

Leg of milk fed lamb, barigould style artichokes

Chicken Fricassee, tomatoe stuffed with tomatoe, cooking jus, thickend with vinegar.

 

Eric and Romain both had the Tournedos de Boeuf, fresh duck foie gras, souffleed potatoes, Perigueux sauce

Hopefully the memory of this dish will not be as out of focus as this photo.  Apologies.  They did however have the coolest potato dish I've ever seen, souffleed potatoes.  

Again sorry another terribly out of focus photo, but these things were amazing.  They talked to the staff about how they do this and apparently it's caused by using oil of 2 different temperatures to cook them in that makes the souflee like this.  Very cool and they tasted great too.  Not sure how both of these were so out of focus, notice Eric's shirt nicely in focus.  Uggg!

Oh and the potatoes were in this cool napkin folded like a lotus flower.  Notice I refuse to make the bloomin' onion reference.

I don't know how they did that.

On to dessert.

I had the Savarin with armagnac and whipped cream, which I failed to get a photo of.  Old school, but tasted great.

 Tarte with Mangos and Pralines

Fabien got the prettiest dessert Chocolate, rasberry square.

Chocolate and rasberries and unbeatable pairing.

Now for the after the dessert desserts.  The Mignardises

There was also some little chocolate truffles.

A fantastic meal, with fantastic company.