You may recall that we visited Restaurant l’Egrappoir last year on our run down from the Aude valleys to the Mediterranean coast where the apartment is located .
We met the new owner, Muriel, who hails from the Alsace, and were confident that she and her husband Laurent would soon have a fabulously successful eaterie perfectly placed on the D117 for tourists and locals alike.
This time I had the hake in a shallot sauce.
I have eaten A LOT of seafood in a lot of countries but this was up there in the top three. Our desserts were amazing too.
This place is great, the food is sublime, Muriel and the staff are perfect hosts; so why aren’t they pulling in the punters as they should? Check it out!
Then, in Tesco’s UK, we found a wine from this little town, Cases-de-Pène, or Cases de Pena in Catalan. Look up the wines of the Languedoc Roussillon, particularly those of the Agly
The local vineyards here have kept their old Carignan and Grenache grapes and you can tell. Best wine under a tenner I have tasted this year.
And , before you fellow wicked wine drinkers suggest that I was prostrate upon the rug when I took the photo above.. I was not.
And the Restaurant l’Egrappoir? Use it or lose it…
Blog-sur-Aude 
Businesses pay to have an entry in the Routard. But still, it can be useful.
This is a little far for dinner, but maybe one day at lunch we’ll go check out the countryside around there.
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Do, it’s stunning, and although only about 90 minutes from you in Carcassonne it’s a whole different landscape and ambience
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Check out the Routard site…(in French), sign up and then leave a recommendation there for the resto…and other places you like.
When I first went to France I bought the English translation of the Guide Routard for Hotels and Restaurants (from Rough Guide) and it was great. I kept buying them until they stopped producing them in 2006. They backed off from them (in France) until 2009 when they came out with an entirely new one…larger, but subject to the same vigorous process of vetting the places before they made it into the guide.
The Michelin guide may be for the people looking for stars and famous chefs but it’s the Guide Routard that the average French person trusts.
Here’s the fnac listing for it:
http://livre.fnac.com/a7763477/Collectif-Guide-du-Routard-Nos-meilleurs-Hotels-et-restos-en-France-2015
Here’s the link for their forums:
http://www.routard.com/comm_accueil.asp
Here’s another forum. I not only use it in the US (to check out places before I eat/shop/etc) I do leave reviews and I’ve found while they’re US based they have loads of reviews for places all over Europe.
https://www.yelp.com/search?find_desc=Restaurants&find_loc=Cases-de-P%C3%A8ne,+Pyr%C3%A9n%C3%A9es-Orientales
Sign up and then leave a review there for this place…and any others you like and want to support.
There’s already a review for another place!
I see you’ve already used Trip Advisor, and they do use Facebook but haven’t gotten a lot of
likes.
It has struck me that many French people are not that savvy when it comes to inexpensive ways to advertise or they think it’s enough just to be there, they shouldn’t have to advertise.
Do they have a flyer (preferably with a photo or two) at the local tourism office? How about other similar places? How about contacting the department Gite-de-France office and supply them with info…I know when I’ve rented gites (Aude & Ariege) they’ve always had a basket or drawer full of
such things to help me discover the area.
If they speak/write English at all it would be helpful to have more comments in English on the FB page…
Good luck to them…
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Thanks, that’s useful stuff.
Some times I think some French businesses feel that too much flag waving is somewhat ostentatious so they just don’t put it out there enough.
I don’t do Facebook, but my Twitter & blog have directed a few folk toward my recommended spots.
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I spend an increasing amount of time telling people to ‘use it or lose it’ …. the restaurant, along with so much else worth hanging onto, sounds pretty wonderful
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Too True!
Long live the small enterprise I say… and I will be saying it even more very soon
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The food certainly looks wonderful, so why does Trev look so cross? Was he the designated driver?
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You think that’s his cross face? HA!
He does much crosser than that
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