French Miscellany

Holiday Inn City Centre

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Hotel | "Great Location"

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When I went to Strasbourg earlier this year I stayed in the Kyriad hotel on a business park in Schiltigheim. It was a nice enough place but I did feel rather cut off from the city so this time I wanted to be somewhere a little more central. The colleague I was going to see suggested I book into the Holiday Inn on Place de Bourdeaux since this is close to her home and she’d be able to pick me up.Strasbourg airport is not the biggest. It serves mostly diplomats, lawyers and Eurocrats coming to the city for various Euro-stuff like the Council of Europe and the European Parliament, and it’s located to the south west of the city. The hotel is to the north of the city centre and a taxi ride from...Read More

Member Rating 4 out of 5 on May 25, 2012

Holiday Inn City Centre
20 PLACE DE BORDEAUX
Strasbourg, France
33388378000

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Kyriad Prestige Strasbourg Nord Schiltigheim

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Hotel | "Two nights on a business park"

Comfy bed Photo - Kyriad Prestige Strasbourg Nord Schiltigheim, Strasbourg, France

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I have only once before stayed in a Kyriad hotel and the only thing I remember about it – other than that it was in Toulouse – was that it was utterly unmemorable. I therefore wasn’t expecting too much when I was told to book into the Kyriad Prestige Strasbourg Nord. Not knowing the area, I just took the advice I was given by a colleague in our office in the Strasbourg suburb of Schiltigheim and booked for two nights. The hotel is located on a modern business park north of the city and it’s hard to imagine you would choose it unless you had – like me – a reason to be on Espace Europeen de l’Enterprise – the business park where our French office is located. I took a taxi from Strasbourg air...Read More

I have only once before stayed in a Kyriad hotel and the only thing I remember about it – other than that it was in Toulouse – was that it was utterly unmemorable. I therefore wasn’t expecting too much when I was told to book into the Kyriad Prestige Strasbourg Nord. Not knowing the area, I just took the advice I was given by a colleague in our office in the Strasbourg suburb of Schiltigheim and booked for two nights.

The hotel is located on a modern business park north of the city and it’s hard to imagine you would choose it unless you had – like me – a reason to be on Espace Europeen de l’Enterprise – the business park where our French office is located. I took a taxi from Strasbourg airport which took about 20 minutes and cost 40 euros I’ve only been to Strasbourg once before, many years ago, and I had forgotten just how eerily flat the area is.

From the outside, the hotel is a rather unimpressive-looking grey oblong box that doesn’t promise much. The receptionist was super-friendly and was happy to sort out the apparent failure of our company travel agent (yet again) to have actually made the booking. I was not in their system, the booking code didn’t exist but when I mentioned the company name, he perked up, agreed that the rate of 110 euros per night including breakfast was correct, and sorted me out with a key and a room. I was also able to read the names on his room list and work out that one of my colleagues was going to be there and would be able to help me find the office next morning.

The reception is nothing to write home about. There’s nothing wrong with it but just like thousands of others in its lack of memorable features (other than the friendly receptionist). There was a bar area to the left as you face the reception desk and a seating area with sofas and a television to the right. The breakfast area is behind and to the right of reception but is not the same as the restaurant – to reach that, you have to go along the corridor and through a door – it’s almost cut off from the rest of the hotel and has a door of its own for non-guests who want to eat there.

My room on the second floor was much nicer than I had expected based on past Kyriad experience. The décor was on of warm earthy colours with muesli coloured curtains, a gingery-red throw on the bed, and a striped gingery brown carpet. I had quite some confusion about how to find the bathroom because it was doing an excellent impression of a cupboard and the door to the bathroom was a sliding one which when the bathroom was open, became the door to the wardrobe. Take your pick – look at your wardrobe contents or look at your bathroom. It’s not the first time I’ve seen such an arrangement but it did baffle me for half a minute whilst I stood in the room thinking "Something is missing……"

In the entrance corridor of the room I found a full length mirror and then a folding bag stand. There was a long narrow wooden desk with small flat screen television on the wall above but I didn’t switch it on so I have no idea about the channel coverage. Free but unrelable wi fi was available. The desk had a kettle and tray with tea and coffee, a small desk lamp and a set of drawers and mini-bar under the desk.

The bed was a good sized king with soft white linens and smooth high thread-count sheets. I am a sheet snob and my toes can spot good Egyptian cotton as they slide under the covers. Two soft pillows were provided and I dare say if I’d needed more there would have been a spare hidden in the wardrobe or available on request. The dark wood bedside surround and headboard had wide ledges on either side to use as bedside tables and the in-bed lighting was fine.

The bathroom was surprisingly stylish but not very well lit. The bath was of a full size (not something you can take for granted in France) and had a shower over it and a ledge running down the side which was wide enough for me to balance my Kindle on safely. I always read in the bath – even when it’s electronically. The loo was standard but the sink was a funky and probably rather expensive one which was funky but impractical since anything more than a dribble of water caused extreme splash-back The bathroom was tiled in large, light brown tiles with a slightly rough texture.

On the evening that I arrived I ate in the restaurant which was fairly good but nothing particularly special considering I was in France. Wine was available by the glass from around 3.50 euros but since I was in Alsace I had a much more expensive and very nice Gewurztraminer at about double that price. My starter was forest mushrooms with parmesan risotto which I enjoyed and would have been happy with if the same parmesan risotto hadn’t come back as the accompaniment for my main course with my ‘brochette de lotte’ (skewer of monkfish) in a smoky red sauce. Prices were fair and if you want to have a three course dinner, there’s a good offer available.

For breakfast the choice is a little limited. The only hot food is scrambled eggs and these were crying out for a dash of salt but none could be found in the entire breakfast room. The bread rolls looked great but were rather ‘tired’ and clearly from the previous day which is probably a criminal offence (or should be) in France. The usual array of coffee, juice, croissants, yoghurt, cheese and cold cuts were all available.

I liked my room, found the bed really comfortable, the bathroom pleasant and the dinner acceptable. It’s hard to imagine anyone would find themselves here by pure chance and most visitors will have a business reason for being there. If you have a car, it’s not a long drive into Strasbourg and the hotel offers free outside parking or underground parking for a fee. The taxi I took back from the city centre to the hotel set me back. 27 Euros so if you’re picking the Kyriad as a cheaper alternative to being in the city, keep the taxi costs in mind.

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Member Rating 4 out of 5 on March 8, 2012

Kyriad Prestige Strasbourg Nord Schiltigheim
2, Avenue Europe
Schiltigheim, Alsace 67300
877-662-6988

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La Corde a Linge

Best Of IgoUgo

Restaurant | "Eating at the Laundry"

The restaurant on a dark February evening Photo - La Corde a Linge, Strasbourg, France

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Strasbourg is an interesting place whose nationality has swung back and forth between French and German due to its proximity to the border and the sometimes rather enthusiastic tendency of its near neighbours to pop over for a visit and decide to stay for a lot longer. Driving around you see road signs to places that it’s hard to believe a French tongue can contort itself to pronounce. I was visiting our office in Schiltigheim and we have another in Bischeim – what can I say other than they don’t sound very French. Alsace is thus rather special with a culture and heritage quite different from much of France and of course its own local cuisine. When someone asks you "Do you want to eat Alsatian?" – do...Read More

Strasbourg is an interesting place whose nationality has swung back and forth between French and German due to its proximity to the border and the sometimes rather enthusiastic tendency of its near neighbours to pop over for a visit and decide to stay for a lot longer. Driving around you see road signs to places that it’s hard to believe a French tongue can contort itself to pronounce. I was visiting our office in Schiltigheim and we have another in Bischeim – what can I say other than they don’t sound very French. Alsace is thus rather special with a culture and heritage quite different from much of France and of course its own local cuisine. When someone asks you "Do you want to eat Alsatian?" – don’t worry, they’re not offering you dog. You’ll need to go to Korea for that.

My lovely colleague Dominique invited me for dinner and asked if I had seen La Petite France, the city’s historic riverside district. I told her that I had but only in photographs so we decided that we would head into the area, have a look around and then pick a restaurant.

After wandering the streets and looking at menus rather too heavily based on sauerkraut and pork, we opted for La Corde a Linge – or the washing line for those who’ve long forgotten their school French lessons. There’s no historical information about the building on the restaurant’s website (or at least not any I could find or understand) but it’s a fair guess that it must have been an old laundry building. The theme is apparent inside with clothes lines hanging from the ceiling in some areas, wooden draws with the menus in which look like they were used for linen storage, and blown-up photographs of laundry themes on the walls. We had a tiny table from which I could see colourful spools of thread lined up between the ceiling and the top shelf. Even the menu expands on the theme giving some of the dishes names taken from the typical items in a laundry basket. And why not – it’s nice to have a gimmick.

The restaurant is mid-sized with several different dining areas. People were sitting outside which seemed rather silly in February until I realised this didn’t mean the restaurant was full – only that some people wanted to smoke. There’s an area to the left as you walk in which is close to the bar and if you turn right there’s are several distinct areas, the most popular of which seemed to be under the glass roofed ‘drying area’. We were shown to a really small table which made us realise we’d better not order too much or there’d be no place to put it. We hung up our coats, hid our bags behind my chair and settled in to look at the menu.

The specialities of the restaurant are ‘spaetzle’ noodles – more normally associated with Germany but very much a part of the Alsatian kitchen. They also have lots of salads, gourmet burgers and daily specials on offer. I found the menu totally confusing in both structure and content and having the info in English didn’t do much to make it clearer. For example we couldn’t find any starters. Maybe this was because the dishes are so enormous that they think you won’t need them or perhaps they were there all along, hiding in plain site. Dominique found one page with a selection of dishes she thought might be starters but all of them were meat based and seriously not the kind of thing any meat-avoider would want to go near like foie gras and bone marrow.

I rejected most of the hot food options as they were predominantly meat dishes with the exception of some salmon with a Riesling sauce. I’m a bit sick of restaurant salmon that tastes of very little. I contemplated the spaetzle and sauce options which included a sauce with mushrooms and cream which sounded lovely but too rich, or a tomato sauce which just sounded a bit too ordinary. Eventually I opted for a Mariniere salad with smoked salmon, smoked herring, crayfish and crabmeat which sounded delicious and not so over-the-top indulgent. Feeling slightly smug at resisting the mushroom cream sauce, I allowed myself to be persuaded to take a side order of ‘buewespaetzle’ which are potato spaetzles and which I expected to be a bit like little gnocchi, whilst Dominique too the buewespaetzle as a base with tomato sauce on top.

To drink I had a glass of Gewurtztraminer which is one of my favourite wines so I made the most of the opportunity to try a few during my trip to Strasbourg. We also had a large bottle of water. The waiter brought our food within about 15 minutes, along with a basket of bread which we didn’t touch due to the portions being really big. My salad soon dispelled all my thoughts that I was being good because it was a monster sized amount. A big bouncy bed of mixed baby leaves was topped by multiple strips of smoked salmon, several large chunks of smoked herring, a scattering of crayfish and a small mound of white crabmeat in the middle. My bowl of potato spaetzles looked small but I soon realised you didn’t need many to feel full. Each spaetzle was about 1.5 to 2 inches long, tapered at either end and seemingly consisting of a roasted piece of potato-pasta dough. They looked a bit like small pointy chips but weren’t fried and were much more tasty.

Getting through a massive bowl of salad was quite a time consuming business. I like to try to get the balance right and not get left with all the fish or all of the leaves and there was just so much to get through that I wondered if we’d be there all evening. The salmon was pretty ordinary – smoked salmon is so common these days it’s hardly a treat any more – whilst the herring which I’d been a bit worried about had a lovely firm texture and was remarkably free of bones. The crab tasted of very little and the crayfish were juicy and tender.
Our bill for two main dishes, one side of potato spaetzle, two glasses of wine and a bottle of sparkling water came to just over 40 Euros which I thought was pretty good value for a well-known, busy and rather funky little restaurant. Service was fast and polite, the surroundings were intriguing and I’d certainly like to go back – perhaps in the summer when we can sit outside. I’d set out for the evening in fear of heavy lumpy Alsatian food – think pork knuckle and dumplings – and been very pleasantly surprised to find food that wouldn’t leave me leaden and unable to move afterwards.
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Member Rating 4 out of 5 on March 3, 2012

La Corde a Linge
2 Place Benjamin Zix
Strasbourg, Alsace 67000

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Les Saveurs de Samarkand

Best Of IgoUgo

Restaurant | "There's a reason Uzbek isn't a famous cuisine"

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The choices revolve around that great standard of the Middle East and the Silk Road, the kebab. One colleague went for minced meat patties and the other for a ‘brochette’ of chicken. I went for whatever the chef was willing to give me. We ordered three diet Cokes and a bottle of water. Food came quite quickly – probably just as long as it took to grill the meat – and was delivered without ceremony. The kebab eaters got a nicely balanced plate of meat, rice, salads and bread – I got a mountain of rice and some salad. I was disappointed to not even qualify for a slice of flat bread.My food made me feel slightly queasy. The rice was sticky with bits of finely shredded carrot and a very ...Read More

The choices revolve around that great standard of the Middle East and the Silk Road, the kebab. One colleague went for minced meat patties and the other for a ‘brochette’ of chicken. I went for whatever the chef was willing to give me. We ordered three diet Cokes and a bottle of water. Food came quite quickly – probably just as long as it took to grill the meat – and was delivered without ceremony. The kebab eaters got a nicely balanced plate of meat, rice, salads and bread – I got a mountain of rice and some salad. I was disappointed to not even qualify for a slice of flat bread.

My food made me feel slightly queasy. The rice was sticky with bits of finely shredded carrot and a very strange taste. It could have been a little bit of saffron but my main instinct was that it tasted very strongly of lamb fat. I could be wrong – I’ve not eaten meat in 22 years but my primitive memory said ‘Ick, not nice’. Catherine – the colleague who had chosen the place – said later that she thinks the food there is quite light and she likes that the rice tastes as if it has been cooked in a bouillon. Possibly that’s the source of the unpleasantly meaty taste but I’m sticking to my fear that it was some kind of nasty animal fat. If I’d been in the UK and if I’d not been with colleagues who’d chosen the place, I would have kicked up a stink but instead I sat and picked at my rice and tried not to think too much about what had been done to it. Alongside the mountain of rice I had a sliced tomato salad which was very good and a mound of shredded carrot with a strange, citrus sauce.

I probably shouldn’t have bothered with a pudding but I was hoping that something might lift the dreary sense that a meal in such a great culinary country had been wasted on something pretty yukky. We ordered an Uzbek pastry called something like tchak tchak (see what I mean about the bird calls) which seemed to be the standard. I’ve since discovered from a bit of googling that this is a popular dessert throughout the ‘Stans’ although it’s interpreted differently in each place. Our tchak tchak was a strange concoction of little bits of pastry – possibly fried, possibly baked –along with some bits of nut and glued together with what tasted like honey. It was a bit like an exploded baklava crossed with a cornflake cake and was tooth-achingly sweet. It was served with a ball of saffron ice-cream and a drizzle of fruit sauce. I was glad I tried it but I wouldn’t rush to repeat the experience.

The bill for three of us came to just over 50 euros which I thought was a little expensive for the quality of what we’d had. Admittedly if I’d had a juicy kebab with my rice and salad, I might have felt differently.

I feel no urge whatsoever to try Uzbekistani food again.

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Member Rating 1 out of 5 on April 30, 2012

Les Saveurs de Samarkand
37 Route Du General De Gaulle, Schiltigheim,
Strasbourg, France

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Le Bistrot du Gayot

Best Of IgoUgo

Restaurant | "A little place behind the Cathedral"

My starter Photo - Le Bistrot du Gayot, Strasbourg, France

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During my recent trip to Strasbourg I’d had lunch in a restaurant ‘specialising’ in Uzbekistani food and had found it pretty horrible. All I could hope for was to get a proper French dinner to compensate for the icky-yucky lunch and I was confident that in a city like Strasbourg, it shouldn’t be difficult to find something good. I invited one of my team – a Belgian lady with an unpronounceable name so I’ll just call her ‘G’ – to have dinner with me and she picked me up from my hotel at about 8 o’clock. She’s only been in the city for less than a month and is still exploring and to find a restaurant for the evening, we went exploring together.Strasbourg cathedral is the highlight of this go...Read More

During my recent trip to Strasbourg I’d had lunch in a restaurant ‘specialising’ in Uzbekistani food and had found it pretty horrible. All I could hope for was to get a proper French dinner to compensate for the icky-yucky lunch and I was confident that in a city like Strasbourg, it shouldn’t be difficult to find something good. I invited one of my team – a Belgian lady with an unpronounceable name so I’ll just call her ‘G’ – to have dinner with me and she picked me up from my hotel at about 8 o’clock. She’s only been in the city for less than a month and is still exploring and to find a restaurant for the evening, we went exploring together.

Strasbourg cathedral is the highlight of this gorgeous city and it’s seriously big. We decided to walk around it before looking for somewhere to eat, and spotted a small square filled with restaurants and bars, located directly behind the monastery which is seemingly attached to the back of the cathedral, making a stroll round the outside longer than you’d expect. We continued our circuit of the cathedral (foolishly hunting for a way in which we didn’t find) and then headed round again to return to the square where we chose ‘Le Bistrot de Gayot’ on Place Marche Gayot.

All of the tables set outside were full but the waiter indicated he’d be happy to set a new table for us if we wanted to eat outside but the sky was looking a bit grey and I suggested we head indoors. The restaurants on this square are mostly housed in absurdly narrow fronted buildings, some of them seemingly no more than about 8 feet wide. We stepped into the restaurant which was entirely empty so we could choose whichever table we wanted. Since nobody else was fighting us for the tables, we chose one set for four, rather than attempt to squeeze round a little table for two. The chairs were carved in traditional Alsace style with the heads of men and women in local dress carved into the chair backs.

On the opposite side of the room was the bar and the guy serving was one of the happiest, smiley-est restaurant workers I’ve seen in a long time. Both the waiters at this bistro were friendly, energetically running around serving people and they never stopped smiling. It might sound like a daft thing to notice, but I like to see people happy in their work and it definitely rubs off on the customers.

The menu was available only in French which wasn’t a problem for either of us although I did double check a couple of words before ordering. Later in the evening a group of American and Dutch men took the table next to us and really struggled with the menu which surprised me (not the Americans who after all can barely speak English sometimes, but I tend to expect the Dutch to know everything). If they had asked, I’m sure the smiley waiter would have answered all their questions, but they sat timidly trying to work things out and didn’t request help. It got to the stage I was tempted to step in and offer assistance – tempted, but I didn’t as it was more fun listening to them struggle.

The menu was not too long but offered plenty of choice. As a fishitarian, anything that offers me two or three choices is an acceptable minimum but this did slightly better. Too long a menu and I start to worry that the food isn’t fresh. For starters I chose goat cheese marinated in herbs, served on toast with black olive tapenade and salad. G had to be persuaded to keep my company and chose a dish of snails. For main course I ordered a crayfish risotto and G went for a chicken Caesar salad. My favourite Alsatian wine is gewurtztraminer so we had a couple of glasses of that and a jug of water.

A small aside to muse on wine. Gewurtztraminer is a lovely wine full of spicy and fruity flavours. It’s one of the few whites that you can eat with spicy food without it getting completely flattened. Admittedly it’s a tad on the sweet side sometimes which puts people off but compared to a very ‘beige-tasting’ white like a Pinot Grigio, it’s just bursting with colour and fire and complexity. So why don’t more people drink it? Easy – most are just not sure how to pronounce it. Back in the days when German wines (bad ones) first made it to the UK, the winemakers and the marketing folk spotted that nobody would ever order what they couldn’t pronounce. Hence the advent of horrors like ‘Blue Nun’ and ‘Black Tower’ because nobody was going to twist their tongue around liebfraumilch for fear of sounding stupid. My advice – if you’re not sure how to say it just have a go. And if even that’s too much just point and say "This one please".

Back to the food. G stepped outside to take a call from her heavily pregnant sister and whilst she was gone, the starters appeared. I have mixed feelings about serving people when on of the party is missing but this was a busy restaurant and I guess the alternative of having it go cold on the kitchen counter wasn’t good either. G’s snails were swimming in very garlicky sauce which wafted temptingly in my direction. My goat cheese dish was beautifully presented with two little toasts, each spread with tapenade and with a circle of cheese perched on top. Dividing the two toasts was a mound of dressed salad. I don’t think you can go wrong with cheese on toast and the dish was very good but not so big as to overwhelm me.

My crayfish risotto was absolutely perfect. Served with a few shavings of parmesan and a little mound of rocket, it wasn’t very big but every forkful was bursting with flavour. It was small but gorgeous. G’s chicken Caesar was a monster, a veritable Matterhorn of lettuce and croutons with masses of sliced chicken bunged on top and slathered in sauce. It was the absolute opposite of my risotto and it took her a lifetime to eat it. It was one of those dishes that leaves you staring open-mouthed and asking "Do I eat it or climb it?"

With coffees afterwards and another glass of gewurtztraminer for me, the bill came to €71. With the exception of the Caesar salad, the quality and presentation of everything had been great. The pace of service – and the friendly smiley waiters – had been perfect and we had a great evening.

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Member Rating 4 out of 5 on May 1, 2012

Le Bistrot du Gayot
14 Place Marche Gayot
Strasbourg, France $zip
03 88 36 82 90

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