Our Blog - Birthday dinner at Michel Sarran

As many of you know, we like to celebrate our birthdays (which are 1 day apart) together with a single dinner out. This year, we decided to go to a 2 Michelin star restaurant that is within walking distance of our apartment in Toulouse ... called Michel Sarran (named after the chef).

We started our celebration with Rose Champagne and a set of tiny amuse bouches. There were originally 6, but we ate one before we remembered to take a picture (oops).

Another small plate of appetizers before his signature appetizer, which is a fois gras soup and then a tartine of fois gras.

The fish course was Cabillaud (cod) that is cooked slowly, topped with a crumble, sitting in a coffee/armagnac/black truffle sauce. It came with a mousse of bananas and chestnuts.

Then the meat course was a filet mignon (beef) with gingered carrots accompanied with a bowl of fried rice with a couple edible flowers.

Before dessert, we were able to choose a cheese plate. The cheeses come from Xavier, which is probably the most famous cheese store in town. You can tell which plate was Tom's (the one with the soft cheeses).

Dessert with lemon cakes and ice cream, along with a chocolate medallion wishing us a Happy Birthday.

The two of us with our Birthday desserts!

To finish off, an espresso along with petit-fours

We were lucky enough to actually get to speak to Michel Sarran! In addition to being a two-star chef, he is one of the co-hosts of the French version of "Top Chef" (the US version shown in the US on the Bravo channel).He came out and made his way around to each of the tables, chatting briefly (in French) to the guests. We did a bit better than when we had the opportunity 12 years ago to speak to a Michelin-starred chef in Paris back when neither of us really spoke much French. We took the pictures while he was chatting with the next table (he spent more time with them, I assume he knew them).