France: Narbonne, Les Grands Buffets

Restaurant Les Grands Buffets

Route de Perpignan, 11100 Narbonne, France
Tel 04.68.42.20.01

1st plate

This was the first real restaurant we ate at on our boys road trip to Spain. We set off during the UK's worst spell of snowy winter weather at the start of 2010, endured extreme white conditions coming out of the Euro tunnel, drove through the night, got scared out of our wits driving up French mountains, sleeping at roadside services and driving over the famous Millau Bridge, but finally made it to our first stop at Narbonne.

We had a quick snooze and with batteries recharged, we were starving.

There were a few options of where to eat that night but a quick search on the Internet and a little handbook at the hotel reception swayed it for me. The sound of an all you can eat buffet that features seafood is all I need to make my mind up.

whelks and snails

Would this compare to my other buffet favourite of the Mexican Grill in Brussels? We shall see.

The price was 27 Euro per head. Not cheap but would have been better a couple of years back when we had a better exchange rate. The Mexican Gril is 30 euro, but that includes all you can drink as well.

It was the picture of crab on the restaurant's advert that initially caught my eye and so it was to the seafood bar that I first went. My plate was filled with whelks, oysters and half a crab. This repeated itself several times before I moved on from the seafood starter course! Other morsels included caviar, prawns, smoked salmon and I even compared a pile of snails to the whelks on one trip.

Pig's trotter

Once I got the seafood craving off my chest I thought I would go for a pre-mains course of pig's trotter, sliced meats and pickled veg. The trotter was nt a good choice. The meat that I managed to extract was quite nice and I was hoping the fatty parts would be softened enough by cooking to cut but it was still tough so unfortunately I left most of it behind. Polished off the rest of the plate though.

In the end I didn't fancy too much of a meaty main course so had a plate of fried prawns, small piece of lamb, chips and peppercorn sauce. The chips and gravy was what I needed.

The others went for a mixture of desserts. I didn't feel up to it but was persuaded. On walking around the desserts area I just started laughing to myself as it was huge and had everything, including a chocolate fountain.

Just Desserts

The white wine they recommended I really liked. Usually what gets recommended is whatever gives them the best markup and ends up being a little bit acidic or non-descript but this tasted of quality I thought. We also had a red and a rose for good measure.

Enjoying Dinner

In the end we spent just over 120 Euro for the three of us. We were very very happy with the whole experience. Our waiter was extremely helpful and probably a little puzzled by our gluttony as well I'm sure.

One day, one day I will be back.

Les Grand Buffets website