Le Dîner et Le Cinéma

Friday night, I went out to dinner and a movie with some friends from my program and it was quite an experience. We had heard that this restaurant, Le Berry, was incredibly good, and I, with all my infinite wisdom, decided to order something completely new and completely unknown to me. I forgot that the French eat some very strange things. This is what appeared in front of me not long after ordering:

It looks delicious right? Well, if you look a little closer at that "meat" you will see that it is cow brain. Ooh my gosh. Of all the things that I could have ordered, I chose cow brain! We all tasted it, and it was the weirdest thing I have ever tried in my life. It tasted sort of fishy (that's the only way I can describe it because, in truth, it tasted like, well, brain) and the texture of it was simply not ok. After three small bites I had checked out and was not having it. We then proceeded to hide pieces of it under the lettuce on all of our plates because we didn't want to horrendously offend the cooks. After dinner, we had dessert, and...wow...just wow. They were so beautiful and delicious. I had creme de marron (chestnut) which has become one of my favorite things along with fromage blanc. All of the desserts had homemade, thick whipped cream. Ooooh so good:

 After dessert came our petit cafés (coffee is a final course in any meal, and it is always a tiny, tiny, saucer:

Despite my inability to eat my main dish, I was absolutely stuffed by the end of this meal (we all shared plates). It was my first full course meal at a French restaurant, and it may have scarred me forever...No, not really; it was incredibly amusing and I'm glad that I can say that I tried cow brain. Everything once, right?

After dinner we walked over to the independent movie theater and saw The Artist with Jean Dujardin, it just won a Golden Globe, so we figured we should go see it. It was absolutely wonderful!! I strongly recommend it; the ability to express so much emotion solely with music and body language is incredibly moving. Go watch it. 

From the movie, we went to Le Garage (the bar) where there was live music, and we watched the goings-on there for a while before calling it a night. I learned how expensive taxis are...never again. Anyway, it was an enjoyable night, and this morning it is snowing pretty significantly: perfect weather for homework.

Bon Journée!