Biarritz: France's Best Kept Secret

Mr. Broad and I play this stupid game that we apply to anything. Underrated or Overrated. I got the game from my Uncle years ago. Basically you call out a food item, a place, a subject... anything and debate whether it's underrated or overrated. Or sometimes rated just right.

Example:

Ciopillini Onions- Underrated

White Rice- Overrated

Chicken Salad- Rated just right

You get the idea. Yeah, we tend to play it with food items. So where am I going with this? We went to a small town on the border of France- Biarritz. 100% Underrated. Why do more people not know of this area?! Wait. Maybe I'm glad more people don't know about this town. Boutique shops, Fromageries, Chocolatiers, Patisseries, Boulangiers lining the street. This was small town Paris on the Bay of Biscay (Thanks Mr. Broad for that geography lesson). Gorgeous.

Flavored dry mini sausages

We were only there in the town for a day/night but I could have stayed longer. I don't think there's that much to do but Mr. Broad and I were getting pretty used to the "drinking our cafe (coffee) and hanging out" scene.

We stayed in a bed and breakfast and walked the hilly town. Biarritz is in Basque country. Basque country is made up of 7 providences between Spain and France. There's even a different language that has a lot of consonants right next to each other not resembling any European language we've seen.

For dinner that night, our B&B recommended a restaurant a couple blocks away and the name now escapes me. Again, a wonderful, pleasant suprise.

Our waiter spoke English, loved that we were from New York, sharing a story with us when he was there in '95.

We started with the charcuterie plate. I don't remember what everything was. But let's just say ham, chorizio, and more pork.

Really now, have you ever had a charcuterie plate you didn't like?

Mr. Broad went with the steak tartare and pommes frites.

Note he eventually ended up eating steak tartare 3 times while on vacation. This was far and away my favorite steak tartare ever. Hand chopped meat, with not a lot of "addiditives" it didn't have the raw beef taste. And don't start me on the fries. Perfectly crispy, I'd say they were the best fries I've ever had. Yes, I'm going there.

I had grilled squid with rice. And probably some other stuff but I'm forgetting. Also tasty but I could have traded the white rice for... the fries.

We stumbled upon an indoor market the next day. The booths consisted of Fruit, Pastries, Bread, Meat. Repeat.

Cute right??

Not sure what this was, but worthy of a picture.

Kind of felt like a crime scene...

Maybe it was my lack of research on the town. But either way, Biarritz, thank you for this pleasant surprise and your redeeming charm.

Cheers.