OMG.
The most incredible food you never imagined existed.
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Ile de la Reunion is an African island in the Indian Ocean which is part of France Outre-mer.
This means it is officially French.
The food has Indian and Chinese influences.
But - the essence of Reunion cuisine is fusion African-French.
French cuisine is okay just as is - but turns absolutely stellar if you have a grand chef in the kitchen.
The restaurant Ile de la Reunion is run by three Indian grand chefs - two in the kitchen and one behind the bar.
They offer extraordinary alcoholic beverages and not-what-you-have-seen-before French-but-not French dishes to die for.
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Let's talk about the bar programme first.
Reunion makes its own rum.
They have many bottles of artisanal rums - many of which are created by Isaura or Riviere de Mat - Reunion rum makers of distinction that do a wide variety of top shelf rums.
If you want to do a systematic tasting of the Indian Ocean's best rums, you have come to the right place.
However - the stars of the bar are not the rums that come out of a bottle.
The restaurant makes its own infused rums.
I have had African infused rum a number of times.
The rums at Ile de la Reunion are unquestionably the best.
I particularly recommend their banana vanilla rum.
Unlike most infused spirits, this has a thick warm mouth feel.
That is an indicator of being made with a superior rum.
Getting the flavor right on infused rums is a lot tougher than getting the flavor right on infused vodkas - because good rum has a taste and you have to work with that.
The bartender at Ile de la Reunion blends the flavors skillfully.
This is absolutely positively superior drinking.
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How is the food?
Extraordinary.
You look at the menu and think
"There is nothing African here. This is all French."
Most of the dishes use French techniques such as marinating in wine.
Levels of fire and spice are kept low.
Most of the ingredients show up in everyday French cooking.
At first it seems like there is no exotica here.
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Wrong.
What the menu does not tell you is that the spicing and flavoring are absolutely distinctive.
There is no sauce, no marinade and no spicing here that would show up in a Larousse Gastronomique.
These are flavors you have never had before.
The food is kept mild not because the Reunion chefs are afraid of scaring away fire-averse French sissies.
The food is kept mild because the flavors are extraordinary.
Just dumping pepper on top would ruin them.
I HAD THE BEST DUCK I HAVE EVER HAD IN MY LIFE AT ILE DE LA REUNION.
My wife was ecstatic about her fish.
I ALSO HAD THE BEST PORK DUMPLINGS I HAVE EVER HAD IN MY LIFE AT ILE DE LA REUNION.
Keep in mind that I eat all over the world.
I have had dim sum in Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney, Vancouver, Toronto, San Francisco and Flushing, the newer, bigger and better Chinatown in New York City. I also get dim sum in Austin, the city in which I live.
Dim sum serves a lot of pork dumplings.
I have had Polish dumplings, Ukrainian dumplings, German dumplings and British pork pies.
NONE of these can compare with the dumplings at Ile de la Reunion.
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Now let's imagine you just have to have your African spicy sauces.
(African spicy sauces are a good thing to want to have).
Ile de la Reunion automatically puts three sauces on your table and will offer to put out a spicier fourth.
Take them up on that fourth. It is frankly not really all that spicy.
(Texans would call it medium heat.)
The bright red sauce is simply pureed red chili pure and simple.
The green sauce is their version of a piment crazy, a traditional hot sauce. They put lots of apple in theirs to make it fairly mild.
One is a pico de gallo.
One is a thinly sliced vinagrette cole slaw.
All four are really really good.
The cole slaw is intoxicating.
I could not get enough of it.
The kick from the red sauce was fun.
None of these wonderful garnishes went on the duck.
The duck was too perfect.
But the restaurant offers rice and beans for a side dish.
The rice and beans got to get a lot of doctoring.
And - as good as the pork dumplings are -
(and they are really really really good)
The pico de gallo on top of those pork dumplings was just over the top good.
The pico de gallo did not hide the core taste of the dumplings one bit - and there was plenty of excitement in the pico de gallo itself.
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Desserts in Reunion often depend on fresh coconut or fresh fruit.
Paris with all of its culinary wonders can not provide the same amazing quality of coconut or fruit you would get on the islands.
But after all that good drinking - and all that memorable eating
Who really cares?
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This was a meal I will remember for the rest of my life.
Leave the tourist cafes alone and come down to Ile de la Reunion.
Then you will have something to really talk about when your friends when you return from your wonderful trip to Paris. read more
