Monsieur Buttermilk

Heading south to the midi-pyrenees for 2 weeks was something we'd been planning for months.  To say we were excited was a definite understatement.

Our first full day exploring Figeac and we were hanging out for some traditional country French cuisine.  It was a decent sized village and we thought we'd have heaps of restaurants to choose from.  Let the hunt begin.

Wandering down street after street and finding Italian, Indian, Greek on the menu we were a little confused.  Hmmm...lots of options but Figeac definitely had issues.  We sensed a real identity crisis.

We were getting hungrier by the minute and as we have a history of not making good decisions when food deprived we needed to give this some serious consideration.  Our motto is, and always will be, life's too short to make a bad lunch choice.  After much discussion along the lines of...starving...have to eat now or fall over (all up took approx 3 seconds) we decided on Les Anges Gourmands as it appeared they actually served French cuisine.

We both ordered moussaka.

Our "French" food was really good and just what we needed to warm up our bods on this cold day.  True comfort food.  Tucked up warmly inside the little restaurant, sipping on our red wine, listening to Diana Krall in the background well it made for a lovely afternoon indeed.

With full bellies it was time for our caffeine fix before we hit the road back to Fourmagnac.  Deux cafe cremes s'il vous plait.  

Two black coffees arrived promptly with jugs of milk on the side.  Brilliant - the more milk the better.

Aggie poured hers into her cup, raised her eyebrow slightly and took a sip.  Screwing her face up she peered into her cup she said "That's buttermilk".  Buttermilk...what the?  We were lost for words.  What was going on in this French/Italian/Greek restaurant?  Were they messing with our heads or was this just how they rolled in the midi-pyrenees?  

I was full of questions:  "What are you going to do?  Are you going to drink it?  What should I do?  Do I pour it in?"  "Will you drink it?" Aggie asked.  "I don't know" I replied, however I thought one in all in.  Taking another peek at the buttermilk floating around in Aggie's cup, I steeled myself and took a sip, after all how bad could it be?  Bad, really bad.

We called Monsieur over, however he didn't seem in the least bit concerned and was unsure what all the fuss was about.  We were devo as we felt we'd really bonded with him over the moussaka, however I think any rapport we'd built up may now be kaput.  He took Aggie's cup and brought her another with some more milk.  We prayed it wasn't more buttermilk.  A big sigh of relief as our prayers had been answered.

By this stage my coffee had gone cold but I drank it anyway as I didn't want to damage this Figeac relationship anymore.

To this day I'm unsure if Monsieur Buttermilk (above) really did serve his coffee that way, or if he'd just laid one on the night before and mixed up his "laits".  Who knows.

Anyway apparently we're still in his good books as whenever we walk by Les Anges Gourmands he gives us a wave and a big smile.

Yep these ladies are in. x