Rating: 84/100 pts
Visiting the quaint town of Nancy meant taking advantage of the fact that I was near the French/German border and try me some authentic Alsatian cuisine. First stop: Flammekueche!
Thankfully, I had a friend living here who knew food, and she led us to Les Freres Marchand, which apparently has been in business since 1880. (Or, to to put that in simpler terms for my American readers: when Rutherford B. Hayes was president.)
My friend described flammekueche as a sort of flat bread topped with muenster cheese and sliced meat. I suggested a similarity to pizza, which my friend vehemently denied. But if you've never had it: remove the sauce and replace mozzarella with muenster, and flammekueche is essentially like...a really thin pizza. It even comes sliced into nice little squares.
Les Frères Marchand takes pride in their cheese (you will see it here and there in pictures ad otherwise.) Forget that yellowy stuff they call muenster cheese that you might have gotten from the supermarket as a kid (the American variety is just processed cheese and by no means authentically European); this cheese is the real deal: substantial and pungent, and combatted only by the delicious saltiness from the bacon slices. The pie was huge but super-thin, and I had I not been sharing and eating other dishes, I could have conquered an entire one by myself and barely would've regretted it.
If for some ungodly reason you are against flammekueche, they have a whole slew of other Alsatian specialties. As another dish, I got pork loins topped with cheese sauce, with sides of sauerkraut and a potato latke. The meat was addictively succulent, and while the meal was heavy, the cheese sauce added a richness that reminded me I was still in France, not Germany.
We swiftly moved onto dessert, which meant sweet flammekueches. They are just as thin but not as large as the cheese ones, making it somewhat wieldy even after the filling meal. I tried to stay authentic and foolishly ordered the apple flambé version, despite hating the taste of alcohol. Even after torching it, the thing still seemed (at least to me) to teem with liquor, so next time I'd probably go for nutella. But if you enjoy the taste of alcohol with your sweets, get the apple flambé!
Thanks to Les Freres Marchand, my very first Alsatian meal was a delicious success, setting the bar high. Without even going to other restaurants in Nancy, I can affirm with a relative degree of certainty that this spot, with its nearly 150 years of experience, is one of the best in town for affordable and authentic Alsatian food and its regional cheese. A solid 4-star meal. read more