Les after effects de Le Refuge

Yesterday was my mom's birfday, so last night my dad took us out to Le Refuge, a country French restaurant in Old Town Alexandria.

The place is cozy and packed with tables and frenchy decorations (old ads, wine labels, etc.) I was in a spectacularly bad mood to start out with, on account of a bad day at work. Said bad mood completely evaporated after my third sip of Chateauneuf-du-Pape. J'aimes beaucoup le vin, and its magical bad mood killing properties.

I'd pre-perused the menu online and ordered the hearts of palm salad and beef wellington. My dad got the hearts of palm salad and frog legs, my mom got spinach salad with warm goat cheese toast rounds and cassoulet, and my sister got pate and duck with raspberry sauce.

The food was really, really good. The hearts of palm salad was served with a creamy vinaigrette which obliterated any hopes of it being low-fat and healthy (hooray!) I ordered the beef wellington on the grounds that it's not something I could get at too many other places, and I've never had it, and I'm currently fascinated by puff pastry foods. Also, after watching a few seasons of Hell's Kitchen, I wanted to know what the big deal was.

Apparently, the big deal is total deliciousness. Roast beef wrapped with duxelles, a layer of pate and then buttery pastry. What's not to love? The scalloped potatoes it was served with were also amazing.

This morning, I had a particularly hard time getting out of bed, and then needed an extra cup of coffee to peel my eyelids apart. Apparently this is one side effect to eating a fatty french meal. Note to self: plan another outting to Le Refuge on a Friday or Saturday night so as to allow for necessary post-meal sleeping in.