Restaurants Part 2

When we were over here in September, we discovered that some of the restaurants we usually frequent had closed or changed.  I was feeling quite down about it, but needlessly so!

We have done a quick visit this week and went to Duras.  La Terrasse, a popular restaurant for us has become a creperie, as mentioned in my previous post; however, it is still in the same ownership.  They have switched to a focus on crepes and galettes for economic reasons - the fillings of the galettes are all either cured meat or cheese, which will last longer in the fridge than unprocessed meats.  However, they also have plats du jour similar to what they had before: confit duck, steak tartare etc (though because the chef was ill the day we visited, these extra meals were not available).  The food is still very good.

There is also a new café in Duras - "Karl".  This is actually owned by the La Terrasse couple and is run by Madame (with Monsieur working v hard in the main restaurant.  We had a sandwich there, and it was fine.

Also in Duras, Café de la Paix has extended sideways and now does proper food (steak frîtes, swordfish steaks, mussels etc).

Gensaké has definitely closed, which we've known about since 2019.  Work on their new restaurant Le PESSàQUAI is progressing well, and I am expecting them to be open by Easter.  They are currently doing Friday evening takeaways from their pop-up kitchen at Chateau La Tourbeille, just downriver from Pessac proper.

Au Fil de l'Eau in Porte Ste Foy is a restaurant that previously had been closed but has opened again under new management.  With an interesting menu and fantastic views by the river across to Ste Foy La Grande, it is worth a visit.

Finally Comptoir de Genès - this remains closed, but I am still hoping that this will reopen again when post covid visitors return.  Certainly, they haven't changed their website to remove reference to the restaurant, merely mentioning that it "remains closed".

Restaurants

 So much has changed over the last couple of years - disruption in everyone's lives, businesses struggling with the effects of lockdowns and changing risk attitudes to what were normal everyday activities.

We've managed to get out to La Matha for the first time since July last year and only the second time since summer 2019 - some of our guests have been more frequently than us in that time!  One big change we've noticed is in the population of our favourite restaurants.  Our website lists six restaurants and of those, three have either closed or changed completely.  This post is to summarise where we are.

1. Gensaké  - we've known since 2019 that they would be closing in Gensac as the lease on their building was coming to an end.  Jenny and Gautier had bought a disused restaurant by the river in Pessac, above the quay, which they were planning to refurbish and open in summer 2020.  Well, we all know what happened in the interim!  What they did do was operate a pop-up restaurant at Chateau La Tourbeille (owned by Darcey Bussell) - this was delightfully located above the Dordogne just to the west of Pessac.  That was open in July and August of both 2020 and 2021.  Work is well underway on the refurbishment and I'm sure they'll be opening later in the year.  It will be called Pessa'Quai (do you see what they did there?) and we're very much looking forward to going again.
   

   

   
   
   
   
2. La Terrasse - our next favourite restaurant is La Terrasse in Duras.  Sadly, this is now closed in terms of what we know and is now a creperie.  This may well please many of our guests with young kids, though, so maybe not all bad.
3. Comptoir de Genes - we tried to book this for lunch the other day and were informed that it was closed.  This is (was?) perhaps one of the best restaurants in the area, so naturally, we're very disappointed.  However, all may not be lost.  I've just looked at their website and they haven't removed the restaurant page - it is also a wine shop and an épicerie; they do say that the "restaurant remains closed", which hints that it may open in the future...

On the plus side, we had a lovely meal at Au Four de la Rive, just on the Dordogne to the west of Flaujagues (used to be La Table Rouge).  We have also eaten at Chai Pascal in St Emilion, even though Pascal has retired. 

I am sure we will continue to find new and interesting restuarants as society returns to some form of normality.

Another Project?

We’ve just done a bit of clearing up at the front of the house in the corner under the tree. We’d always had a large pile of rocks and stones there, and it was getting a bit unsightly. We’ve moved the stones across into an empty area which contained an old tree stump, said stump now covered in rocks!

We will be putting shingle over the now bare concrete; however, we did wonder if a pétanque pit would go in there, adding to the formal sporting facilities (we have a pétanque set, but no proper pitch!

I think that, to do this, I’d need some wooden sleepers to act as the perimeter and then get some material somewhere between shingle and Sandro act as the bed. It might be tricky to have the right drainage, without losing that material...  

Anyway, something for me to think about. In the meantime, the area at the front is just a little bit neater!

Winter in La Matha

We have driven down to La Matha for a few days between Christmas and the New Year.  Re-charging the batteries is the main aim!

A lot of people ask us "what is the weather like down there?".  Well, in the winter, it's not too different from England - it gets a lot of weather from the west, and therefore it can be wet.  It has also been windy and a bit cold; that said, it has got up to 16c today, which would be positively balmy, if not for hte wind!  However, in the summer, you can get temperatures of over 30c on a regular basis.  Spring and autumn are usually a degree or so warmer than in the UK.

Anyway, we're here with our dog, enjoying walks, good food and just generally relaxing.  Once the central heating has warmed up the house and we've got the wood-burning stove going, it's lovely and warm inside.  We do have to use the electric blanket, though!

Not all the restaurants we usually go to are open this week, which is a struggle.  However, Restaurant Le 8 in St Foy and La Gensaké in Gensac are, which is enough for us.

We have enjoyed a couple of long walks - driving out to Baleyssagues for one and Villeneuve-de-Duras for another.  It is lovely wandering through vineyards and woods in peace and quiet! We will be researching more of these walks and leave details of them in the house.

Great Comments!

We have just seen the first comments in our visitors book from a family who stayed at La Matha over the recent half term holidays.  This is what they said:

"We enjoyed a fab week at La Matha, the house is great, lots of space for the girls.  Terrace is a great space for being outdoors - spent most mornings and evenings out there.  Ventured out to Duras, Bergerac and along the Dordogne to Beynac and La Roque-Gageac.  Thoroughly enjoyed the market at Ste Foy La Grande (even though we had rain); well worth the visit.  Lots more we'd like to see & would love to return soon."

Also, here are the comments from their daughter Emilie:

It is really encouraging to see comments like this.  I suppose it explains why so many guests come back a second or third time!

Pool-side Furniture

We have a rolling programme of replacing sun-loungers at La Matha.  They get used, which is great, as it means people are enjoying relaxing by the pool in the sunshine!

This year we have brought an old table and chair set out of storage, with a bit of sanding and oiling to make them presentable.  One of the benches had been used for a while by the pergola, but we've put the rest of the set by the pool, together with a large sun shade.

We hope our guests will enjoy having lunch there - taking a well-earned break from all that sun-bathing and swimming!

Terrace Table and Chairs

When we bought La Matha in 2008, we had a lot of expenditure to get the house in order so that visitors could stay with some degree of comfort.  As a result, there were some compromises.  We bought a relatively cheap outdoor dining set that was big enough for the number of people who would be staying here at any one time.

That set of table and chairs has lasted well, but was starting to look a little tired.  As a result, we bought a new set - quite a bit more expensive than the first set, but likely to last much longer.  The set consists of a large teak table and a long bench with five comfortable rattan chairs.  It is really elegant and looks great under the terrace!  Perfect for breakfast in the morning sunshine or for watching the sun go down in the evening with a glass of fizz!

We hope that visitors this year will enjoy dining under the terrace!

New Shower Room

We have been meaning to get this done for a few years - the last remaining room which has virtually been left untouched since we moved in has now been refurbished.

We now have a swish new shower room downstairs:

 

Gone is the old shower curtain over the bath, replaced by a lovely glass screen.  We also have a radiator in there for the first time - I know our summer visitors won't really need this, but in the winter, it can get cold in there.

For babies, we have bought a baby bath, as some of our previous visitors felt that having a bath in the house was important.

What colour did you say it was?

Seven years ago, when I made new shutters for the downstairs bedrooms, we decided to change the colour of the shutters to a bright blue.  The colour was called "Pebble Drift 4" by Dulux.  We then also painted the shutters for the sitting room windows, and finally the door to the pool house, when that was put up.  All good so far.

The bedroom shutters desperately need a new coat of paint - the outside of them get a lot of sunshine year round when they are closed.  We decided to get a fresh tin of Pebble Drift 4, and this week I set to on the re-paint.  Except... the name's the same, but the colour is different.  This one is much lighter - nice, but not the same.

This is what the shutters did look like:

And this is the new, delicate colour:

The problem is that the living room shutters and the door to the pool house (which did need re-doing) also needed to be painted.  The living room shutters really need replacing - I will be doing that next spring, so I admit that I just slapped the coat of gloss on, with little preparation.

Dulux should not use a previous name for a completely different colour!

Lots of jobs

We're here at La Matha for a week, with a lot of little jobs to do to prepare for the year ahead.  We've also been choosing tiles, and finalising the timetable for the refurbishment of the downstairs bathroom.  I will take before and after photos to share on this blog.

Little things like repairing the fencing around the pool, repainting the large shower-room (not such a little job), replacing cushion covers, sorting out stuff in the garden and general tidying up.

At the same time, we've also been enjoying good food and wine.  We went to the market at Sauveterre de Guyenne and had a good lunch there in the sunshine (cold wind, at the start of the week, though!); we've eaten at Gensaké, La Terrasse and a few other places for lunch.

I will be returning in a week's time with some furniture.  I will post photos and give more information at the time.

Another day, another Marché - a tale of two markets!

One of the things we really like about spending time at La Matha is that every day of the week, you can go to a different market.  We love the Saturday market at Ste Foy - it really must be one of the best town markets in France.

On the drive from Bergerac airport last Thursday, we were driving around the Ste Foy ring road and saw a sign for Pineuilh market - Friday.  We thought - we've not got much planned, let's have some of that!  Pineuilh is a funny place; there is a centre to it, but as you drive around the Ste Foy ring road, you go in and out of the village every time you enter and leave a roundabout.  There is, of course, the Leclerc hypermarket called "Grand Pineuilh", but we've never actually been to the centre of the village.

Friday morning, we went there.  Well, I think calling it a market is a bit of an exaggeration - calling it a market stall would be more accurate!  There was one fruit and veg stall there; a large one, to be fair, but only one.  We were disappointed.  I will not be changing the website or the house manual to add that market to the list!

Last year, Rick Stein started off his television series "Long Weekends" by going to Bordeaux.  We like Rick, mainly because we like food, but perhaps that's another story.  When he was in Bordeaux, he went to a market called Marché des Capucins - a permanent covered market just to the south of the main shopping area.

We decided to give that a go after the disappointment of Pineuilh.  Well, you couldn't get two different markets.  This was lively and bustling with many different stalls selling meat, fish, fruit and veg.  There were speciality stalls - for instance, one selling food from Portugal - as well as stalls where you could sit down for lunch.

This place is really well worth a visit if you go to Bordeaux.  It is a morning only market, so you need to be prompt.

After the market visit, we went to a restaurant that Rick visited, Le Petit Commerce, which is a really good fish restaurant not too far from the centre.  When walking over there, we went through areas that we hadn't been to before and saw many nice looking restaurants: not the touristy ones which we have always struggled to avoid.  Overall we had a really great day in Bordeaux.

Restaurant Le 8, St Foy La Grande

We are currently spending a few days in France, and on our first evening, we decided to go out for a meal.  We tried Gensaké, but they were closed for their annual holidays, so instead decided to go to Le 8 in Ste Foy.

Le 8 describes itself as "semi-gastronomique", a description which puzzles me a bit!  Anyway, we both tried the "Menu Descouverts" for €19.  This turned out to be a four course meal with quite a good choice of dishes.  It included magret as a main, which, on the a la carte menu, was €19 on its own!  The quality and presentation of the food was first class, particularly given the price.

One couple near us went for the Côte de Beuf menu, which was €54 a head - expensive, but... the size of the platter containing a large chunk of been and a load of fried potatoes was enormous!

This is a really good restaurant, tucked away in the back streets of Ste Foy, with remarkably good value food.  Highly recommended!

Live Television

When we bought La Matha, it came already fitted with two satellite dishes - one angled to pick up French satellite TV and one for UK TV.  This worked well, as we had a "Freesat" digibox, which could pick up all the UK free to view channels.

Then, someone in charge of Astra 2, the satellite transmitting the UK TV signal decided that they should narrow the transmission beam so that it only covered the UK.  This meant that we could no longer watch any UK TV.  If we wanted to watch French TV, we would have to buy a different digibox and connect it to the other dish.  We weren't that interested in French TV, though.

The solution was internet TV.  We subscribed to a VPN provider called "My Expat TV", which made it look as though you were using the internet in the UK.  This, together with a Now TV box, we were able to watch BBC, ITV etc through iPlayer, ITV Hub and so on.  We could also use our Amazon Prime account with our laptop.  This was OK up to a point; however, in the evenings, the broadband speed was so slow (probably with the extra routing required) that it was virtually impossible to watch.

That was fine for about 18 months, but then, the UK TV companies got wise to the commercial VPN providers, and now block their IP addresses.  Therefore, this avenue is now closed.

As a result, we have now given up on providing any form of TV service.  There is a good television there, and we will be installing a blu-ray player if visitors want to take their own HD or normal DVDs.  You can also use a laptop - there is a spare HDMI cable to connect.

This is a shame; however, we'd like to think that our visitors will be spending their evenings enjoying lovely meals on the terrace, casually (and responsibly!) drinking local wine, rather than glued to the TV!

December Trip

Each year at the beginning of December, there is a Christmas market in St Emilion.  This is not your typical German Christmas market, but one with lots of craft stalls - things made out of old wine barrels, or chopping boards made with local wood.  A lot of charming stuff.

We went again this year, and had a fantastic time.  The weather was beautiful - at the start it was frosty in the mornings, with clear blue skies.  It got warmer, but not before I was able to take a few frosty photos. 

We met the plumber to discuss the plans for refurbishing the bathroom downstairs.  It is likely that will all be done at Easter next year.

Since returning, we have just bought a new table and chair set for the terrace.  The existing ones are looking a little shabby - they have lasted eight years, and have done well; however, this time we have bought a good quality solid table, with some comfortable chairs.  This one will last much longer!

Next post will probably (hopefully) be some before and after photos of the new bathroom!

Indian Summer!

We're now at the end of September; Pip and I have spent the last week here at La Matha.  The weather has been fantastic - swimming and sunbathing every day.  We have taken it easy this week - normally when we are down here, we have a list of tasks to do, which takes up a lot of our time.  This time, there was none of that; OK, there was a bit - I did have to get my screwdriver out to sort out some of the bolts for the barn doors, but that was it.

We nearly did a market a day - Duras on Monday, Bergerac on Wednesday and Eymet Thursday, and we ate out at lunchtime most days.  It's easier that way with the dog - we feel more comfortable with him sitting at our feet outside. In Duras we went to Don Camillo for a pizza - hadn't been there for ages - Tuesday, Comptoir de Genès in St Genès de Castillon; Wednesday we ate in La Moutard in Bergerac (a new one for us, and very good!); Thursday we went to Gensaké in Gensac and this evening, we'll be eating out at La Terrasse in Duras.

Whilst here, I read through the historic blog posts, and realised that it has been some time since I last posted here - six months, in fact!  So I ought to do some updates...

The big improvement for the year was the new lining to the swimming pool.  This has been a success, as the pool has given no trouble at all this year.  I've now been in it, and am very impressed.  The other improvement was the tidying up to the rear of the house, and it still looks good!

A number of the posts in the past have been about what we are planning to do to improve the house for next year.  Well for 2017, we are planning to refurbish the downstairs bathroom - re-tiling and replacing the loo, washbasin and bath.  In addition to that, we want to replace the table and chairs on the terrace.  The old set has been in use every year since 2008, and, considering it was not expensive, it has lasted well.  We want to get a good quality solid set that will last forever (well that's the plan, anyway!).

As for bookings - we already have three weeks in the summer booked.  They are two bookings from previous visitors, which is always encouraging.

Hope to be back before the end of the year...

Wood Burning Stove

We have now had the wood burning stove fitted in the living room area.  As I've mentioned before, this is not something that will be of interest to summer visitors, but will improve comfort for us in the winter months.  The chimney was originally a source of cold air when the open fire wasn't lit, and when it was, most of the heat went upwards rather than out into the room.

We did use it one evening - just getting the hang of it.  We will probably be using it properly towards the end of the year.  Will update then.

Easter at La Matha

We've just come back from Easter Weekend at La Matha.  Bits and pieces of DIY to be done, but despite working, it's always great to be out there.

One thing we were keen to see was the progress on the refurbishment of the swimming pool.  Visitors over the last couple of years will have seen the problems our pool maintainance men have had in keeping the pool clean.  They concluded that the cause was the deterioration of the surface of the lining.  We've owned La Matha eight years, and the pool had been there for at least 10 years before we bought it - the lining was getting to the end of its life.  The deterioration was allowing fungal growth, which was proving difficult to keep at bay.

In order to resolve this, the pool has been emptied, the mosaic tiles removed around the sides and the paint sanded down.  Here is a photo of the progress so far:

In the coming weeks, BLM Piscines will clean all the sand and dust, and coat it with a polyester lining.  This should last around 20 years - crystal clear water again!

Au Fil De L'Eau

Last Saturday we had lunch at Au Fil De L'Eau - a restaurant in Port-St-Foy, just over the river from St Foy La Grande.  Out on the conservatory covered terrace, we had a fantastic view of the river and St Foy on the other side.

We had been to this restaurant before in the evening and had enjoyed it, so I feel a bit guilty for not going more often.  There were three set menus - two of them fish based, and the other very much perigordine.  We both went for one of the fish menus - the food was just superb.  We will definitely use this place more often, and thoroughly recommend it to visitors who want a "good" meal out.

January Trip

Last weekend we had a flying trip out to La Matha - we could only do one night due to work commitments, flying out early on Saturday and returning on Sunday.  It was a lazy sort of weekend - a good lunch on each day: Au Fil de L'Eau on Saturday and Chai Pascal in St Émilion on Sunday and a nice dinner at the house.

There was one thing that we sorted out - the problem with the fire.  When we were over for a few days in December, we realised that a lot of the heat generated by the central heating was just going up the chimney.  Also when we had the open fire working, most of that heat was going up the chimney as well, and not much came out into the room.  This clearly won't be an issue for our summer guests, but clearly it is something we need to sort out if we are going to be spending more time there.

As a result, we've organised for a wood-burning stove to be installed, and that will happen at Easter when we're over for the long weekend.  I had been resisting this for a while, but I had bowed to the inevitable.

Pip took this photo to mark the end of the open fire.

December Break

As we aren't going to be spending New Year at La Matha, we decided to pop over for a few days at the beginning of December. This morning was cold and foggy and we decided to go over to somewhere we haven't really spent any time at - Perigeux. 

On the way over, we drive into glorious sunshine, which stayed for all the time we were in Perigeux. Lovely town. A small market was there just by the cathedral; we managed to buy some meat even though they were starting to pack up. 

By the Fois Gras and Truffle market place - not open! - we found a delightful small restaurant of only 20 covers, called Jour de Marché. We had s fantastic menu of the day - warm prawn salad, stuffed pork loin and a pine nut tart. 

Got back home, where it seems as though it's been foggy all day.