By Madame Escargot 
We are in the small town of Pontenx-les-Forges, in Les Landes. Although we have stayed fairly local to here in the past, at Castets and Gastes, etc., it’s our first time in Pontenx. We came for one night, liked what we saw, and are staying for three.
Most of the info is in our Polarsteps records. The piccies and dishing the dirt on our dinner go here.
I am struggling to format the photo galleries the way that I want them. Click for bigness and the full view, sorry that the navigation doesn’t work between images at scale. I will look for a better Gallery plugin for future use.
Gallery the First – Our first sighting of the town. A footpath through the woods from the Aire comes out right in the Place de Gaulle. Here we found the best bar/restaurant in town (of 2), and booked a dinner table.
Gallery the Second – Dinner at Le Jeanot
Having perused the Carte in the morning, and made our choices, we arrived at 7pm, to be faced by a slightly different Carte. Click for readability. I was so thrown, that I forgot to photograph the actual offering of the evening, sorry. Anyway, I didn’t get my Watermelon Consommé, nor my Biscuit Joconde, and Mr Snail didn’t get his Beef Cheek, or his Jaffa Cake dessert.
I did however have my first Trout, which is something that has previously been avoided. I can’t claim to have enjoyed it, it was both too oily and too fishy for my weakling palate. It wasn’t like any Salmon Gravlax that I have had in the past, it didn’t have that sharp edge to combat the oiliness. I am pleased that I was brave enough to give it a go. Mr Snail’s tuna was more up my alley, it was delicious, vibrant, really tangy.
We both loved the Cod Cakes. Really, really good, and tasty. Hot. Served in a hot bowl! That doesn’t happen often in France. The simple side salad of Friseé was dressed with walnut oil and soy (?) and was very tasty and savoury.
Washed down with a White Burgundy. No photo, the staff (all female, chef included) very kindly kept it in the fridge for us and kept popping back to top us up, so there was no opportunity to study the label. The staff were lovely, by the way. We had a warm welcome and attentive service, their erratic English matched our fractured French, but an entente was achieved.
My Cherry Clafoutis was okay, though not the rustic delight that I had expected. Not in the Limousin, though, so … *shrug*. Mr Snail’s Pana Cotta wasn’t quite the correct texture but was delicious, with real vanilla and a good serving of fresh cherries and berries.
We were too stuffed to be able to add a cheese plate.
€40 for three courses, we weren’t robbed. And what a delight it was to see so much veg, salad, and fruit on the table at long last.
We had a lovely evening and will certainly eat at Le Jeanot again, when we return to this area.
Gallery the Third – Saturday Morning Market
Sleeping like logs here, so it was quite easy to get out of bed and head off through the woods to the market. We worried that it might be the damp squib that these things often turn out to be (it seems that the heyday of the French country market is gone, so often do we go along to find that no traders have joined us, or that the market consists of a single trader. But this one was top and I am so pleased that we bothered.
A small market, though perfectly formed. A couple of fruit and veg stalls, a dairy produce van, the Sourdough bakery from the village (approx 0.5 Km foodmiles), a Chicken Rotisserie with Sossidges and Ratatouille and other good things, an Italian Deli, an Épicerie Fine, a Vietnamese Nem van, a Senegalese hot snacks van, plus a bloke playing the violin (to drum up trade for the Tombola stall).
It was perfect!
We walked all the way around, just once, in order to see the options for our dinner. Of which there were way too many, so we did the only decent thing that we could, and bought bread (x2), cheese (x2) and wine. Also… a big Pastis-flavoured Brioche, some Espelette Crisps, Raw Cream (YUM!), Raw Yoghurt, Raw Butter. Mr Snail says that we spent around 75 Euros *gulp*.
Add this morning’s spend to last night’s dinner and I feel confident in saying that we did our best, as tourists, to contribute to the local economy here.
It was fun.
