A Dinner of Niçoise Specialties and a Trip to the Market

Last night we went to dinner at Le Safari, which specializes in traditional Niçoise food.  We'd been wanting to try pissaladière, and they brought a small plate of it to our table before we had even ordered the meal.  It's a thin bread dough covered with caramelized onions, garlic, olives (of course!) and anchovies, and it's delicious.













For an appetizer I ordered petits farcis, another Niçoise specialty.  It's small vegetables (zucchini, peppers, tomato) stuffed with seasoned breadcrumbs and baked in a wood-fired oven.  It's another delicious food that I would definitely order again.   Bill had the grilled sweet red peppers with olives and garlic that I had ordered a couple of days ago.













For a main dish I ordered aioli, which turned out to be a huge plate of steamed seafood (clams, whelks, a prawn, and cod) along with steamed vegetables and a hard cooked egg.  It's served with a delicious garlicky mayonnaise.  This was the first time I'd eaten whelks, and can't say I'd order them again, but otherwise I loved the seafood, even though the prawn was fully equipped with head, antennae, and eyes.  Bill got a plate of mixed grilled seafood, which also included fried calamari.  We can't remember the name of this dish, but the first three letters are "par."  A Google search this morning isn't helping.   A man sitting nearby had advised us on what to order and he shared some of his rosé with us.   It was a delicious meal and so filling that we didn't even consider stopping for gelato on the way home.





This morning Bill went to the market while I stayed home to do some knitting.  He returned with grapes, figs, two kinds of olives, bread with chestnuts, wild boar sausage, and a pissaladière.   I'm looking forward to a delicious brunch.