07.22.2008
Toulouse Part 2
Day Eight: Torrance coming through!

As we near the day of the review with the big chiefs (Thursday), things really get crazy. I’ve been asking for design data from Torrance for about a week, but they really came through for us while we were asleep. They have yet to let me down, although they do like to cut it close. So kudos to the Torrance design team for coming through again.

Ook..so…………On to more interesting things like lunch and dinner and other random things.

Why is there a big rooster in the lobby of my hotel? What do you think that means? It’s very artsy and is semi-creepy in you really look at it. Lol.

Also, this car makes me laugh. I have seen about 3 or 4 of these on the road and they make me laugh out loud every time. It’s a Fiat, and is basically the cheapest 6-seater you can find around. The advantage to this guy is that it has a 3^rd seat up front in between the driver and passenger. This eliminates the need for a 3^rd row in the SUV, so the car still stays Scion xB like instead of Lincoln Navigator like.

Since the weather in Toulouse is abnormally cool for this time of year and there were some spare seats out in front of the usual lunch spot, we sat outside for lunch. I had the plat de jour, which today was cheese ravioli with some kind of meat sauce. The meat was bacon/ham, not ground beef, that doesn’t really exist over here, at least that I’ve seen. I also had a nice piece of strawberry pie and a coffee. The strawberry was strangely reminiscent of the Marie Callendar’s (sp?) strawberry pie, ya, you know the one I’m talking about. Yum-o!

It was a super nice day today. Not a cloud in the sky. What’s weird about the Toulouse weather is that it has been very inconsistent. One day there won’t be a cloud in the sky, and the next day it’ll be fully overcast. It’s strange. The locals say it the weather hasn’t been normal in a while. Is this more evidence of global warming????????????

‘The dungeon’ is in the bottom of the brown building over there past all of the security gates and hoopla.

The team got asked to go to dinner again, so the whole Moog team went out for dinner tonight at this place.

I don’t know the real name for it, but all of the Americans call it ‘The Drunken Chef’, and Daniel confirms this rumor also. However it looks like the real name is: ‘Au Vois Gourmand,’ for which Babelfish has no real translation. Either way, the place looked not so good on the outside, but………………

………..the garden was amazing. anyways...the reason why I am here is because our PM (program manager) set us up with a 7 course team dinner. Mad props to him for it.

So I have 6 pictures of 6 courses, but I skipped one course because it was useless, but good nonetheless. Also, Daniel and the guy from Ireland I ate dinner with last night was very impressed that they didn't catch me taking one picture, even though they tried to catch me mid-picture. Boooooooyaaaaaaaaa!

So, lets get this party started. Now, I have to say I have really no idea what was in all of these things. They came out in broken English and I had no idea what the French words were for all of this stuff, so the descriptions are what they are. Sorry.

Aptertif – Kir royal with a grape.

Course #1 – Some kind of egg/mushroom shot with some type of bread with genoa ham.

Course #2 – Tomato gespacho with cucumber and garlic

Course #3 – Marinated pan seared scallops and raw scallops with green onions and some kind of sauce. There were two other choices here of: 3 different types of foei gras or stuffed something. Dammit, I knew the name of the vegetable, but I cant remember the name now. Oh well…either way, I made the right choice here, the scallops were delish!

Course #4 – Sea bass wrapped in a fig leaf, with rice, and some kind of pureed vegetables. I think its fig, not sure though. There were two other choices here of: lamb sweetbread or goose with foie gras. Again, I think the choice is easy here. Although, the people who had the goose said it was amazing. I got the foi gras from the goose dish from the guy next to me who had foie gras in his appetizer. Wow it was good, much better than the one I had at Chaya Brasserie a few years back.

Course #5 – It was a super small scoop of sorbet to cleanse the pallet. I didn’t take pic because it looked pretty useless, but it still counts as a course. Oh well.

Course #6 – Check out this plate. I mean really. Crème brulee, some kind of baked peach cobbler thing, and chocolate lava cake. Yum-o!

Course #7 – Some kind of frothy dessert that had some alcohol in it, but I didn’t know what it was. It tasted like whipped cream with alcohol with syrup. It was good for sure though.

Here’s a shot of the empty table. Too bad it also doesn’t show the 5-6 bottles of red we went through, in addition to 2 bottles of white. Even though we went through a lot of wine, no one was faded thankfully and it was still pleasurable.

This is a final shot leaving the garden from the upper part of the entrance to the restaurant. It ended up being a really nice place. Kudos to the program manger (PM for you non-engineers) for sacking up and taking the team to a nice dinner again.

Remember my friend Bris that took me out to dinner on my bday last time I was here? Here are some new shots of his new Honda CBR1000. It’s sick. I want a bike. Seriously.

Ok..off to bed. The next two days will be spent in really really boring and pointless meetings, so we shall see if I have anything good to write about.

Until then, I miss you guys. Take care.

Aurevoir.