Our mission continues, and today we tried a very newly opened restaurant at Auverse, on the road between Noyant and Bauge. L'Oeil de Boeuf (translates as The Bull's Eye) opened three weeks ago, having been closed for we reckon about 5 years, and is situated opposite the established Le Relais - a familiar haunt of truckers doing the run between Angers and Tours and points beyond.
The menu is 10,50 Euros and includes a pichet of wine (red, white or rose), cider and naturally tap water, and a coffee - bottled water is extra, which is only fair. As with all menu ouvriers, there is limited (or indeed no) choice, but you do get all four courses recited to you by a charming waitress. Today's offer was a fish terrine with bread and a marie rose sauce, steak and chips (I'll explain), cheese and a fondant au chocolat. We chose to have a pichet of white with it, which was fresh and welcome.
The fish terrine was nice and portions were generous - I know that particular terrine of old (Epigram for those in the know). The steak was a really good bit of meat, full of flavour and tender though a little overdone for "a point" - perhaps I should have asked for saignant? It came with a small dish of English mustard rather than the darker French variety. The chips were real English chips, not thin frites. The cheese selection was a bit limited but the camembert was very good. The fondant au chocolat was excellent - I would guess the base was bought, but it was cooked to perfection so that it really was fondant in the middle and also had some caramel in the middle which made a very interesting change. The coffee was filter rather than espresso - that worked for us, as we are not big on caffeine.
Our hostess is English and talking to her as we paid up, we discovered that they had only been open three weeks and that due to the chef having to attend a course, they were on a substitute chef for the week and were a bit dismayed at so many people coming in for lunch! This means of course that we will have to go back when the proper chef is in the kitchen and does explain the starter.
There are two dining rooms, and tables to seat four at a go, so less intimidating than the long tables of some more basic establishments. You pay at the bar on the way out.
Overall, we reckoned it was good, but had a way to go to compete with Linieres-Bouton, but that was before we knew about the main chef being on a course, so not really a fair comparison. It is certainly convenient for the main road, and for the English passing through or staying in the area. Good luck and carry on the good work!
I've just had a big bowl of porridge, but reading the description of your meal has made me want steak and chips!! However it's fish tonight, as the 'fishman' comes to the house on Wednesday mornings. Some of the shrubs are slowly recovering and Malcolm has managed to prune the broken one into a reasonable shape, but the large conifer is ruined - ah well ....
Posted by: Anne Donald | 27 January 2010 at 08:12 AM
Hi. Many thanks for visiting and taking the time to review our daughter's place. The time you visited, our son was standing in for Steve, the co-owner and chef, so he's very pleased with your comments too. Do please pop along again now that they've been open a while and see what they have to offer now they've been open a while. This couple is very young, Steve just 22 and Hannah (our daughter) just 21. It's a very brave thing for them both to have done at such an age and they deserve to succeed.:)
Best,
Stu.
http://www.lechant.wordpress.com
Posted by: Stu Bradley | 18 October 2010 at 02:13 PM