Roast pork? Sweet!

At the start of the month, my wife Jan and I tried the new take-out service from Daglan’s own lovely restaurant, Le Petit Paris.  I described the event in the posting “A restaurant comes to us,” on April 2.

Yesterday we ordered the restaurant’s take-out dish for our Sunday lunch, and even more happiness ensued. While Jan and I had different desserts, we both had the same main course —porc au caramel — and were fairly stunned by how good it was.

First, a few comments on pork, from my posting “A brine too far” (February 13, 2019):

 I’m a sucker for pork. When we lived in Toronto and would go out to dinner, it was a no-brainer for me to choose the daily special, as long as it was something like “A thick-cut maple-glazed pork chop.” Unfortunately, chewing the meat sometimes was like eating “thick-cut maple-glazed cardboard.” That’s because (I think) North American pigs have become leaner and leaner, so that there is not nearly as much flavourful fat marbling through the meat. However, that doesn’t seem to be the case here in France, where we find the pork generally very tasty.

Given my love of pork, I was quite looking forward to our lunch from Le Petit Paris, but I  didn’t hold out any particular hope for the au caramel part of the dish; I figured it would just be a normal roast with a glaze on top. And that’s sort of what it looked like, as you’ll see on my plate below  (which also includes a delicious purée of sweet potato from the restaurant, and some white asparagus that Jan cooked):

My serving of pork, before being sliced.

But no! In fact, when I tried cutting into the pork with my steak knife, it virtually fell apart. So in fact what we had was a very slow-cooked dish of pork, smothered in a sweet sauce that I loved; it was like the slow-cooked barbecue you’re served in the U.S. South, but with a caramel sauce instead of barbecue sauce. Have a look:

A light touch with my knife was all that was needed.

For these main courses (pork and sweet potato) we paid 11 euros each, and for the desserts, just 4 euros each. Jan’s gluten-free choice was a lovely dish of panna cotta, topped with fresh strawberries:

Fresh strawberries, tasty panna cotta.

My dessert was the chocolate fondant — a rich chocolate cake with melted chocolate at its heart. Have a look:

Chocolate fondant in a creamy pool.

If there is any one ongoing, nagging criticism about Le Petit Paris, it’s that the menu doesn’t change very much. Based on yesterday’s lunch, I’d suggest one positive change would be to make porc au caramel a regular on the menu.

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