Le Lapin Saute – Quebec City Series

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Le Lapin Saute is this little cafe/restaurant/brunch eatery on rue du Petit-Champlain just on the outskirts of the inner walls of Old Quebec City. They seem to specialise in Rabbit cuisine which I’ve never really tried previously so it made it all the more tempting to try. We ate here for breakfast/almost lunch and it’s a very cute homely shop on this small but bustling street.

I ordered a rabbit dish (of course) that comes with scrambled eggs, rabbit rillette, crisp potato slices, cheese, mushrooms, bread, homemade jam and fruit. This was a large dish, probably best shared between two.

The rabbit has a light texture, and similar to a pate, it’s wonderfully soft and shredded very thinly. A delight to eat, and probably not very good for you. The scrambled eggs were also light and just cooked to perfection, buttery and simply how it should be. The hard cheese melts ever so slightly against the just cooked eggs, but still retains its shape, and eating those crunchy chips as well. Wonderful. My first experience trying rabbit and rilletes and it leaves a positive impression.

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The mushroom soup here is also packed full of flavour (I think this was the soup of the day), creamy and fantastic on a nice cold winters day. Not too creamy though as some soups can be. Really tasty.

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This cheesy little thing is their Casserole au Gratin with scrambled eggs, rabbit, bacon, onions confit, potatoes, hollandaise sauce, and of course cheese. I loved this, just out of the oven nice and warm. Perfect for winter, and absolutely satisfying.

Impressions

Le Lapin Saute is simply a gem in Old Quebec. I’d put this as a must visit during your stay there. Rabbit as its specialty but everything else is just wonderfully delicious as well. I can’t recommend it enough for a Canadian-French meal.

Le Lapin Sauté on Urbanspoon

Le Lapin Saute (Breakfast Menu)

52 rue du Petit-Champlain
Québec QC G1K4H5

Brandy Creek Wines & View Cafe

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Brandy Creek Wines & View Cafe have been on many travel Melbourne shows for it’s pleasant scenery and of course, good food.

It has been shown on Postcards, a Melbourne TV travel and food show,  a while back and I couldn’t catch it’s name. So I searched endlessly and gave up eventually. However, maybe a year or two later it was shown on Coxy’s Big Break, but I missed the name again. For some reason, I just ended up searching ‘Victoria Paella’ and Brandy Creek Wines shows up at the top.

Curious enough, I looked to see what they had, and the Paella Feast piqued my interest. We also had my parent’s anniversary coming up, so it was good timing.

Located in Drouin East, near Warragul, their Paella Feasts are quite an attraction. With 6 large bowls of 5 different styles of Paella, and one cazuella. You definitely get your monies worth here.

IMG_5529Outside you can see their beautiful vineyard. Although it was drizzling that day, it was nonetheless a pleasant viewing experience.

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IMG_5521With their Paella Feasts, you are provided a selection of tapas. The golden brown potato tapas (Obvious I don’t know much about Spanish food isn’t it?) was fantastic. This was preapared by Head Chef Courtney Websdale.

IMG_5522Nice fresh bread to go along with the tapas.

IMG_5547Now for the main meal…IMG_5546This particular paella was made for Vegetarians. However, that’s not to say it was in anyway inferior. It didn’t need any meat to make it taste good. With all these fresh vegetables cooked with a tasty stock and nicely cooked rice, what could go wrong?

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This Paella is a Photographer’s delight. Also a Pork lover’s delight too, might I add. Their Paella Cerdo y Conejo is a mix of succulent pork, rabbit and apple Paella, topped with amazingly crunchy crackling pork. I have nothing else to say about this one, it was fantastic, and also the first time I’ve eaten rabbit, which had a great flavour to it.

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The Paella Machega is cooked with beef, mushroom, quail and egg. The beef was very tender and I can’t really fault it.

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The Chicken & Chorizo Cazuella was probably my favourite one. Funnily enough, it isn’t a paella but tasted great nonetheless.

This had tender chicken, and spicy chorizo with saffron rice. The slightly salted chorizo combined with the tomato based sauced, it just appeals to the inner Italian in me.

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The Paella de Marisco aka Seafood Paella, had all the great makings of a great seafood paella. Jam packed with fish, prawns, mussels, claims, calamari and baby octopus. It definitely was a seafood lover’s dish. For me it had an overpowering mussel flavour, only because I made my Seafood Risotto not long before this and that was packed full of mussels. So I definitely had my mussel fix by then, and of course I could only notice the mussel flavour here so although it wasn’t something I would go back for that day. I can’t ignore that it was well cooked and had great flavours to boot.

IMG_5560My selection of paella from the 6 dishes.

IMG_5564You also get a choice of three desserts. Since there were three of us, we managed to try them all!

This ice-cream was smooth and crunchy (from the honeycomb) and had a great caramel flavour to it. Delicious

IMG_5567These Spanish doughnuts can be found in a couple of Melbourne eateries now adays, and these crunchy little things were quite tasty I must admit. The chocolate sauce wasn’t too sweet like you can find in Spanish Doughnuts Churros franchises, and these churros have a higher crispy to dough ratio (because they are thinner) but it was really good.

IMG_5569This was probably my favourite dessert. Yes yes it’s just a panna cotta, but it was an (If I can recall correctly) an Vanilla  Panna Cotta, with Candied Walnuts and an Orange sauce. It was simply silky smooth and tasted amazing.

IMG_5570Along with your desserts you get to sample their in-house liquers. They definitely go well with their desserts and I had to unfortunately lay the responsibility of designated driver onto my mother because who can resist free tastings of liquers.

IMG_5579To top it off you can order coffee or tea to end your fantastic meal.

Although their Paella Feasts are probably more on the pricey end, a great selection of paella (which you can go back for seconds or thirds, or even takeaway some too!), dessert, tapas, samples of their alcohol and warm drink to complete your meal. It definitely is worth it.

You will need to book for these as there are limited seats (I believe it houses 100) each weekend and they fill up quickly!

Also be warned, you will be satisfied.

Brandy Creek Wines & View Cafe on Urbanspoon

Brandy Creek Wines & View Cafe

570 Buln Buln Rd
Drouin East, 3818
(03) 5625 4498