Today we had a lovely cake courtesy of a lovely bakery with a French name Pastiche. Yeah, yeah, we've had cakes from there before but - whatever?? This was their Hazelnut torte which is very good. As you can see it is a four layer cake with a cake including nuts and in between some chocolate mousse type filling. It was decoratively frosted in butter cream - we presume - and garnished with a few hazelnuts. Pastiche is one of the best in Providence and we enjoyed this. Several of us were even hungry enough to get down a second piece. One of these days we will remember to remove the cake from the refrigerator early enough for the butter cream to soften so it doesn't crack into shards upon serving. We didn't remember today so it cracked.
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| Beautiful hazelnut torte from Pastiche! |
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| Smoothly frosted! |
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| Well decorated! |
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| Five layers of nut cake and hazelnut/chocolate mousse...we think it's a mousse! |
There was quite a bit of talk about restaurant week here in Providence. Restaurant week to some is a great opportunity to sample great restaurants at great prices. To others it is a big scam because the meals are unrepresentative of the restaurant's true cuisine. Case in point was the time that yours truly went to one of the best Italian restaurants in Boston during restaurant week and the main offering was barbecued chicken. That's right in an Italian restaurant. A souring experience leaving the idea of restaurant week compromised perhaps. But that was not the overall sentiment and several had tried out the limited menu offerings at several Providence restaurants including CAV where the duck confit was very good, the Capital grill where the lunch burger was very good and also Ruth's Chris where the steak was also very good. People were also talking about places to try and the name of Gracie's came up, which those in the know acknowledged as a good restaurant. Since one of our colleagues has a sister named Gracie, said colleague was planning on a Sunday outing. Taking Gracie to Gracie's! Cute, no? The Waterman grill was also mentioned as a good idea. So if you are looking for a $14.95 lunch or a $29.95 dinner - not including beverages - consider http://www.goprovidence.com/RW/ and pick your place.
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| Head on down to you favorite PVD restaurant for restaurant week. |
We continued our expansion of our cross cultural knowledge. Somehow we got on the topic of what the English expression "bite me" means. Since there are a few non native English speakers it took a little explaining. We also inquired about how to say this in other languages and were taught that a similar expression in French would be "va te faire". Loosely translated as "go do yourself!". It sounded rather elegant when spoken and we tried it out in a few expressions ... "Je voudrais me présenter...va te faire!" Comment vous appelez-vous? Va te faire." When said with a French accent it sounds very chic but we were assured that it is not said in polite society. To that person trying to stop us we say "Merci beaucoup...va te faire!"
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| This sign has special meaning for the French! |
The transliteration of the word bite directly into French - bite - pronounced "beet" also came up. Our French colleague saw a sign at McDonald's for "Chicken Bites" and thinking the sign was in French proceeded to laugh for about ten minutes. If you Google translate the word bite from French to English it translates as...well, cock! And I don't mean the kind that has anything to do with chicken. You can understand why she laughed for ten minutes. This of course gave new meaning to our bite me discussion. If you say "bite moi" in French it's not quite the same. So of course we proceeded to use the word in as many out of context uses just to have fun. I would like a few more "bites" of the cake. Previously we learned that god in English sounds like the word for dildo in France. Now we learn of the similarly phallic meaning of bite in French. "O my god, bite me!" Or as the French understand - O, my dildo, cock me! French really is the language of love! Va te faire!
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| Belle bite, non? |
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