Bisque d'Ecrevisses.
Reine Christine.
Filets de Soles Normandy.
Nouillettes Napolitaine en Caisse.
Saumon de la Loire Tartare.
Sorbets Suprême Fécamp.
Coquille de Homard à l'Américaine.
Sarcelles sur Canapé.
Salade panachée.
Asperges d'Argenteuil Mousseline.
Petits Pois au Sucre.
Glace Quo Vadis.
Petits Fours. Corbeille de Fruits.
Dessert.
The cooking at the Continental Hotel is reported as being good, but its wine-list does not meet with so much praise. The Burgundies, red and white, at the Hôtel du Bordeaux are highly praised.
One of my correspondents sends me an account of Perrier's, a little restaurant, which I give in his own words. "The quaintest and most original place in Havre is a little restaurant on the quay, opposite where the Trouville boats start from. It is known equally well as 'Périer's' or the Restaurant des Pilotes. It is kept by one Buholzer, who was at one time chef at Rubion's in Marseilles. He afterwards was chef on one of the big Transatlantique boats, where he learnt to mix a very fair cocktail. The entrance is through a tiny café with sanded tiled floor. Thence a corkscrew staircase leads to a fair-sized room on the first floor. All the food you get there is excellent, and Bouillabaisse or Homard à l'Américaine 'constructed' by the boss, is a joy, not for ever, but in the case of the first named, for some time. The house does not go in for a very varied selection of wines, but what there is is good. Ask for their special roll." The same correspondent goes on to tell me that the proprietor of the Broche à Rôtir at St-Adresse, who used to be his own chef, and attained much local celebrity, has sold the goodwill, but that the place is still to be commended, and that Béquet of the Restaurant Béquet can, if he likes, cook the best dinner in the department; but that you must find him in the mood.
Of cafés in Havre, the Café Prader, near the theatre, and the Paris are the two where the drinkables are sure to be of good quality.
Rouen
At Rouen the gourmet has a right to expect the Caneton Rouennaise and the Sole Normande to be cooked to perfection; and outside the hotels, some of which have excellent cooking, there is a restaurant, the Français, in the Rue Jacques le Lieur, a street which runs behind the Hôtel d'Angleterre, parallel to the Quai de la Bourse. Of course the Rouen duck is not any particular breed of duck, though the good people of Rouen will probably stone you if you assert this. It is simply a roan duck. The rich sauce which forms part of the dish was, however, invented at Rouen. The delights of the Sole Normande I need not dilate on. A good bottle of Burgundy is the best accompaniment to the duck. The Restaurant de Paris, in the Rue de la Grosse Horloge, is a very cheap restaurant, where you get a great deal to eat at dinner for 2 francs, and where you will find the Choux Farcies and other homely dishes of Normandy as well as the excellent little cream cheeses of the country.
Crossing the Seine, one is in the land of cider and Pont l'Evêque cheese. At Honfleur you will find a very good table-d'hôte at the old-fashioned Cheval Blanc on the Quai; and at the Ferme St-Siméon up on the hill, in beautifully wooded ground, there is to be obtained some particularly good sparkling cider. Honfleur has a special reputation for its shrimps and prawns.
Trouville Deauville
During the Trouville fortnight, when all the world descends upon Trouville, the various big hotels and the Casino have more clients than they really can cater for. At the Roches Noires one is likely to be kept waiting for a table, and at the Casino a harassed waiter thrusts a red mullet before one, when one has ordered a sole. The moules of Trouville are supposed to be particularly good, and also the fish. There are table-d'hôte meals at the restaurants of the Helder and De la Plage, the second being the cheaper of the two, and food is to be obtained at the little Café Restaurant on the edge of the promenade des planches. But Trouville in the season may be taken to be exiled Paris in a fever, half as expensive again, and not half so "well done."
Of the little bathing-places immediately east of Trouville—Houlgate-Beuzeval, Dives, Cabourg—there is little or nothing to say. At Cabourg the Hôtel des Ducs de Normandie has some kiosks with a full view of the sea, where it is pleasant to breakfast, and the Casino can always be taken for granted as a pis aller at all these little bathing-places. The quaintness of the old inn Guillaume le Conquérant at Dives counts for something, and the 5 franc table-d'hôte dinner there is good of its kind.