CHENNAI: Two decades since the country ushered in globalisation , there is little that counts for exotic food. After all, you do get sushi in a box, sashouka on-the-go and pasta at home. Yet, the very few recent restaurants notwithstanding, Chennai continues to reserve that label for French food. When The Lounge at Holiday Inn ordered a special French dinner — Saveurs de France — curated by chef Virginie Bompoil, it attracted quite a few enthusiasts from the city for a night of experimentation and self-administered food dares. And the three-course pre-plated spread was more than what the guests could have conceived.
In her genes
A home chef who picked up the highs and lows of culinary delights from her grandmother and father, Virginie served up simple, traditional cuisine that’s more or less the staple in the households of France. While this meant that the menu had a few familiar entrants, even to us amateurs, it certainly was not without her signature style it seems. So I was not surprised when the meal began with the humble French onion soup — with a large piece of cheesy bread floating in it, too. That it was paired with a sweet merlot added just the right amount of excitement to the comfort carrier. A warm goat cheese salad — still paired with the merlot — cleaned up the soup act to perfection.
Table talk
As the guests sat waiting for the entrée to arrive, small talk around the table over fruit and cheese played out like sneakpeek into disjointed short stories. A Romanian guest, speaking to an Indian man (coincidentally, one of the hotel’s directors), expressed her surprise over Indians — so used to the rich cuisine of their land — making peace with French food that has an ill repute for blandness (she herself prefers Indian food and suggested that he should consider opening a restaurant in her home town). There was some buzz over Vikas Khanna’s recent visit to the city, an elderly guest’s curiosity over the Romanian woman and her German friend’s mehendi-adorned hands brought on a discussion about DakshinaChithra and the work they do; I for one found a new food blogger to follow in the director’s wife.
Despite all this distraction, the jars of Virginie’s home-made mustard sauce (with its manufacturing date handwritten on the simple white label) caught everyone’s attention. Made with the recipe handed down to her by her grandmother, one she has perfected over the years, it is one of those foods that you would either love or hate — there’s no in-between. At this table, there was plenty of love for this coarse paste that hit the tongue with subtle sweetness but went down with a distinct mustardy punch. When the fish bread entrée came with a dash of homemade mayonnaise, the guests were quick enough to spot the mustard sauce in the mix. (If this was tempting enough, the mustard is available at The Nilgiris, Besant Nagar; Tryst chain of stores and Amma Naana supermarket)
Drink, dine, dessert
For the main course, the sauvignon blanc on offer incited as much excitement as the crunchy salmon dish I picked over the classic coq au vin. The wine delivered ten-fold with its light and crisp sweetness.
A steadfast merlot woman, I found myself considering conversion. But the salmon did not work as well for me. While the huge piece of fish with its crispy coat of peanuts would have made anyone quite happy, my hatred for nuts (cue: gasp) kept me from being able to enjoy the dish. Despite the major hiccup, I had immense love for the bed of sautéed french beans and a generous serving of cognac mushroom sauce the fish came with. The chicken fared better — all tender and rich with red wine — fared better, I heard. By the time traffic on the busy IT corridor that was visible from the floor’s huge glass windows had thinned to intermittent flashes of red and white lights, the desserts were brought in. The rich French apple pie — the caramelised slices of apple, apple purée and thin slivers of almonds offering a beautiful mixture of texture— and decadent dark chocolate mousse were perfectly paired with a mild rosé.
A dinner two weeks in the making took a little more than two hours to satiate a group of hungry enthusiasts. The highs and lows of the dinner did little to mar the delight of the experience or the brief friendships formed over a common table. When Virginie sent us home with a jar of that divine mustard sauce, it was a bonne nuit indeed.