Le Saint-Hilaire, Rouen: it's what having lunch in France is all about

17th January
What I like about the French is their enthusiasm for doing business over Lunch. This is Lunch with a capital L  rather than business lunch. So my French colleague had arranged for me to meet with an important contact for him at a restaurant for lunch. This was a local restaurant for local people, and there was some surprise when a menu was produced in English. However the quality of the translation was such that I think I did better with the menu in French.(see later). There was also the mandatory blackboard with the menu of the day.You can check them out at http://www.le-saint-hilaire.com/
I cannot exactly remember what the name of what I had for starter was as it came from the board. I remember that that they tried to tell me it was chicken and mushroom. However, you would not guess from the appearance:

Suffice it to say that it did taste of chicken, was delicious and was a 7.8 on the CHOF scale.

I was a bit dubious about the dish of the day on the blackboard, and opted for what I thought was a safer choice. The menu said Médaillon de quasi de veau normand et noix de Saint Jacques au beurre d'algues, écrasée de pommes de terre. ("Normandie Viande Héritage"). The English menu said  "Almost of calf from Norman region and scallops with seaweed butter and puree of potatoes. Google translate is a little better saying "Medallion of veal Norman nuts and Saint Jacques seaweed butter, mashed potatoes. ("Heritage Meat Normandy")". In this case, a picture is worth a thousand translations:

This was excellent in every way. The combination of tastes was wonderful, the meat was excellent quality and cooked medium but not rare to my taste and CHOF of 8.5+. By the time our main was served the restaurant was packed on a Thursday lunchtime. It was largely adults and elderly, which apparently was taken as the sign of a good establishment.

My desert was also something that became lost in translation.

Coque chocolatée à la crème de marron et ganache au citron yuzu, palet de chocolat bland croustillant was translated by the house as Ball of Chocolate with chestnut cream, lower jaw with lemon yuzu, pancake of crispy chocolate. Google translated this as Hull chocolate cream ganache and brown yuzu lemon, chocolate puck bland crispy (which seems well clear of the mark, and I was invited to offer a better translation). And this is what you get:

Like a Cadbury's creme egg for gourmets. It looked rather manufactured in its virgin state, but clearly this was something you could not buy from your local supermarket.

So this was an excellent experience and is recommended. The TripAdvisor entries are mostly in French, and rate the place highly. One did not, said the bread was good, but the chef must have been absent that day.

I look forward to doing more work with my French colleague.