People who wished us a good and safe travels, also said something like “Eat crêpes” for me!” We didn’t eat crêpes even once, and galettes — savory stuffed buckwheat pancakes — only once in Carnoët after visiting the Valley of Saints (no pictures of those though); I am not into sweet things and galettes just felt too heavy for lunch (we cooked all our dinners at the Airbnb apartments we were staying at). This made finding a lunch place quite tricky, since almost all restaurants anywhere were crêperies, crêpe restaurants. The other rare alternatives were burger, pizza, and kebab places, which didn’t sound too attractive either. We found some gems, though, most notably a seafood restaurant Peska in Rennes and a Korean vegetarian restaurant in Carhaix. I am not sure if it is completely vegetarian, since they had tuna in one of the bowl dishes, but meat was not available in any.
Island Poké in Rennes. Poke Bowl places are usually a good choice, especially if they have a set of signature bowls to choose from and no need to build your own bowl. In Quimper we walked out of one poke place since after choosing the bowl type (spicy) and size in the automatic order station, it asked us for ingredients to build our own bowl one at the time. Too much work for hungry people!
Peska — Bistrot de curiosités marines in Rennes. Peska was a somewhat pricey but food was so delicious. The starters (mine above on the left with tuna sashimi and eggplant in dashi; Tomi had carpaccio of scallops) had delicate Japanese flavors.
Matin Calme – Mangez Coréen in Carhaix-Plouguer. We had plenty of time before we could check in at out Airbnb apartment, so we were happy to find this quaint and calm Korean restaurant. The owner/chef had made some cold vegetarian bibimbap bowls, and we chose them even if it was rather cold day. We enjoyed them with local craft beer from Coreff brewery, situated just a couple of blocks away. We visited the brewery after lunch to by some bottles.
Café le Finistère in Quimper. In Quimper it was particularly difficult to find restaurants other than crêperies. By the time we had almost given up to finding one and decided to have galettes for lunch, all crêperies were full. Café le Finistère did not seem an interesting place, but they accommodated us immediately. We had a very energetic and efficient server, whose first question was “Is it French, English, German, or Spanish today?”, and she fluently switched between these languages for different customers. I had their daily special, which was chicken curry à la Reunion, but I highly doubt it since it was so bland and one-dimensional.
La Plaidoirie in Quimper. The next day it was even harder to find a lunch place, since it was Monday, and on Mondays many restaurants that were open through the weekend are closed. But we found this gem when walking to the pottery museum. The place was nice and unpretentious, and the food not spectacular, but simple and well prepared by a single person (the owner) who cooked and served tables. She started cooking at the age of 12 as her mother hated cooking. After studies she had also worked in restaurant kitchens in London. I had some white fish and Tomi a chicken thigh (as pictured), both enjoyed with local craft beer. Then Tomi had the dessert that was her adaptation of some classic British dessert because the ingredients for the original were not available in France.
Awen Brewpub in Vannes. Another bowl (Poke Breizh) for lunch for Tei, and a salad (Ker Biquette) with goat cheese, bacon lardons, and walnuts for Tomi. We had these with a sampler set of six of their beers. In addition to their own beers they had a number of guest taps from other local craft breweries, including Coreff in Carhaix that we had visited earlier.
TGV inOui Lyon-Grenoble. Since we expected to be home very late when nothing was open anymore, not even take-out pizza places, we chose to have the dinner in the train. They were not the most appetizing dishes but at least Tei’s Tex-Mex chicken rice tasted good.
Airbnb — A tray-bake with chicken, potatoes, broccoli, and feta, and A salad of roasted potatoes, tomatoes, and feta with pickled cucumbers. The food prepared by us did (and does) not always look any better than restaurant dishes, or at least it was hard to get sharp pictures of them in Airbnb apartments, most of which suffer from the same common problem of having poor lighting especially in the kitchen.