Le Ciboulette, Beaune, 2nd Jan

Although this was my seventh trip to Beaune, I hadn't been to Le Ciboulette before as other things always seemed to intervene, but I'd heard good reports.

After leaving our bags at the gite in Chorey and paying our statutory visit to the Mon Millesime wine shop (speciality: older vintages), AM, ACC and I spent some time walking round Beaune in the freezing cold looking for somewhere to have an aperitif. Memo to self: everything is shut in the first week of Jan, or if it isn't shut, it's full. There was no room even at the less enticing bars on Place Carnot. Eventually we gave up the search and although our table at Ciboulette was booked for 8.00 we turned up at 7.30. There was no problem at all about that as they only have one sitting.

We had a table in the corner by the small bar with a good view of the bottles of marc, prunelle etc. A small lamp on our table reminded me of being in someone's living room. The atmosphere was very cheery with a background hum of contented diners, and the woman who runs the place had that perfect combination of friendliness and efficiency.

Some things that can best be described as black pudding sausage rolls arrived as an amuse-gueule and were gobbled down in a matter of seconds. After that, I had the house terrine which came with a lovely apricot and pistachio chutney, and a slow-cooked pork dish. The food was good but not fancy. For pudding there was almost disaster as AM, ordering for all three of us, requested the "assiette de..." and the waitress completed the sentence for him: "fromage". No! We wanted the assiette de chocolat! Fortunately this misunderstanding was quickly corrected amidst much laughter, the crisis was averted and the assiette de chocolat was superb - a white chocolate mousse, a dark chocolate ice cream, and two other things of a dark chocolatey nature. Mmmm. The three courses cost in the region of 20 euros, so this was an absolute steal.

To drink we had a white Fixin, from a village in the Cotes de Nuits not known for its white wines but this was lovely, and then a 2006 Bourgogne Rouge from Alain Burguet called "Les Pince Vin" which was extremely good - much better than you'd expect from a typical wine at this level. We rounded off with a coffee which was on the house, before repairing to the gite to try the walnut liqueur which ACC had brought back from Bergerac and which AM claimed tasted of curry, but I digress. All in all, I thought Ciboulette was a charming restaurant and I shall insist on going there again next time I'm in Beaune!