Luxembourg: three days, no sleep, lots of work but I did eat!

So, I don’t talk about my “work” very much, because we all know what happens when you talk about your work. Yes, that’s right, you get dooced, you then call yourself dooce, and you make millions of bucks out of blogging the conundrums of OH MY GOD only the coolest life in the world. I mean, a hubby who looks like an older, cuddlier version of Aidan from SATC, two awesome dogs, a gorgeous daughter and hands down the cutest baby on the planet.

No, I don’t want to talk about my work at all.

Or do I?

Ok I do. Sort of. I have job (well something has to pay for all this eating), a global corporate job, and this is generally a poo thing because it means that I work odd hours ~ early meetings, late calls, I basically work around the clock because as we’ve established earlier, someone somewhere is always awake.

But aside from the poo parts, sometimes a global job is brilliant because it means I can work from home and better yet, work from any office in the world, as long as I’m actually working. And I do work. Come on.

So anyway, last week I scheduled a couple of days of work in Luxembourg, and despite the most painful process of actually getting there (Ryan-fuck-ass-Air delayed us for five hours and got me into Luxembourg at 4am), I managed to drag my butt into the office at 9am on Thursday morning and did some work.

But of course work wasn’t why I was really in Luxembourg. I trekked all the way there because one of my bestest pals Kylie lives in the quaint little country and another pal Sophie was there visiting from Vegas. I mean, if two of my girls being in the same place isn’t a darn good excuse for a workaholiday, then I don’t know what is And aside from the butt loads of work that I actually did end up doing, we had a ball of a time catching up and eating. Because no amount of work or cold can keep me from my food.

On the first night in, Kylie cooked up the most adorable little gnocchettes, which I assume are baby gnocchis. These weren’t home made gnocchi but the sauce was goddamn home made with all of our sweat included plus a splash or three of wine. The gnochettes were served with a mushroom, aubergine and chorizo sauce which, wait, pause there. Mushroom, aubergine and chorizo? Only like my three favourite things in the world? Yum!

All except for the parsley on top of course, which if you know me, you know I detest. No parsley for me.

BOOS K’FÉ

On Friday, one of the Directors at work took us out for lunch (oh, Kylie works in the same company, which makes my life all the more awesome) at a happening little restaurant called Boos K’fé. Brasserie by day and nightclub by night, Boos K’fé serves up food – I was going to say Luxembourgish food, but I don’t think it’s strictly traditional – which, little did I know, would become my favourite meal in my short time in Lux.

For starters, I had a beef tartare served with tiny slices of toast. The tartare was remarkably tender, almost melt-in-my-mouth tender, but not before I tasted the…, I don’t even know what seasoning they used, but not before I tasted that. Scrumptious and utterly pleased with my choice of starter.

Others had sautéed garlic mushrooms on toast, which was also good, but mine was better, not biased or anything.

Starters aside, my main was seriously awesome. A little mini rack of lamb, covered in a light olive sauce and served with baby carrots and fried strips of sweet potato. Hello, lover. This, aside from my recent obsession with roast pork, is my meal of choice anywhere – a beautifully cooked medium-rare rib of lamb. Just look at it. I mean look at it. Urgh, you aren’t going to believe me, but I’m salivating as I type and I’m even going to tweet that, cos you know once you tweet something, it’s real. Really.

Another interesting main was the salmon dish. I thought it was kind of weird, but anyway it was salmon and vegetables, served over squid ink spaghetti. I know you can’t see the spaghetti in the photo, but it’s there. In fact I think it’s just peeking out the corner of the dish there. It was tasty and surprisingly light but again, my main rocked the house a little bit more

Ever the sweet tooth, and dude even my Director knows this, we ordered a chocolate fondant to share, and though they called it something else, it was essentially a chocolate fondant ~ soft sponge filled with a luscious warm chocolate sauce.

The Luxembourgers (now how cute is that?) know how to have a dessert – there’s no simplicity with a lone scoop of vanilla ice cream. No, we had the fondant and a scoop of ice cream, served with cream, strawberries, raspberries, cranberries and hey, all in an ocean of custard.

Phwoar. Love.

Anyway, as if I hadn’t had enough fun at Boos K’fé, check out what I saw enroute to the car: a Christmas tree, decorated with gold thongs (or flip flops for the Brits because no, there were no g-strings hanging from the tree).

CHIGGERI

Friday evening was probably the only “play time” I had in Luxembourg and the first thing I wanted to do was have some good robust Luxemboughish cuisine. I’d heard numerous and wondrous things about Mousel’s Cantine, what with their ginormous serves of pork knuckle that’s fit for a dozen, but meant for one.

I’d primed myself all day (well, the rack of lamb was like a warm-up) for a giant pork knuckle and so when we went to make a reservation and were told they wouldn’t open until the 10th, my heart broke just a little bit (note: my heart tends to break a lot more over food than anything else, doesn’t it?). So much so that I’ve pledged a return trip to Lux just for Mousel’s Cantine. That’s dedication.

So instead, we booked dinner at Chiggeri, a rustic little restaurant in the heart of the city. Given the time and perhaps some light, Chiggeri might actually be a very groovy venue with rooms painted in various themes and murals. We didn’t quite get a chance to wander around though and were ushered immediately to our cosy corner table.

To start, the girls and I shared a platter of fat stuff. Goooood fat stuff ~ foie gras, terrine, rillette and a little pot of what we later found out was rabbit. The foie gras was particularly scrumptious and possibly more creamy than much of the other foie gras I’ve had the pleasure of introducing to my food hole.

The terrine and rillette were also good, and I found myself scooping rillette from the bowl straight into my mouth. Oops. The rabbit was blergh, but mainly because it was mushed up with coriander. And I like coriander about as much as I like parsley.

Mains were rather disappointing though. I ordered the parmentier de cuisse de canard confit, or more commonly known as duck confit & mashed potatoes. I was expecting a lovely juicy leg of duck and some mash on the side but what I got was a big dish of something. Look below, top left.

What is that?

Well, I’ll tell you what it is. Effectively it’s shredded duck (which was dry) topped with mash and cheese. In theory not bad, but not so much when you’d expected a whole leg of duck to ho’ into, next to perfectly rounded mountains of creamy mash. Ok, they don’t even have to be round. I thought the duck was ridiculously salty, and opted to eat Kylie’s main instead. Which actually looks just like mine.

But it wasn’t. Kylie had a tartiflette avec lard, which was potato bake with grated onion, bacon, cream and cheese. OOOooh, so good.

Desserts were chocolate mousse and vanilla crème brulee which were both ordinary. Forgettable.

ps. we ate at Chiggeri’s resto-cafe. They also have a fine dining area called the restaurant, which I think serves more upmarket grub.

So food at dinner turned out to be a non-event but who cares about the food (I didn’t really say that so forgive me God). Company was out-of-this-world fantastic and there’s little else I’d rather do than have a big fat gossip session with my fellow Brissie girls.

Actually, the girls weren’t the highlight of my trip (sorry chicas if you’re reading this!). My very VERY most favourite memory of the trip was playing with Kylie’s kids (she has two, she’s a career woman, a mum and a super woman all round) and look at this little angel!

This here is little Isaac, and well, I think he looks like a miniature Panu so it was totally love at first sight {heart}

So, now I’m gonna take a five day hiatus from the blawg because guess what? We’re going skiing! Don’t miss me too much *muah*