Aiguille de Midi and a Birthday Lunch

We didn't have the best weather for Mum and Dad's visit - quite a lot of cloud and rain - but the end of their week here, Thursday and Friday mornings, were bright, clear and beautiful. We had intended to go through to Courmayeur in Italy on Thursday, but we decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and go up the Aguille de Midi instead - at 3492m it's the highest place you can reach by gondola in the Alps. 

You have to take two separate gondolas, in fact, and going up so high so fast meant that we really felt the effect of the altitude at the top. We were all quite breathless, but the views were worth it. 

Looking up at the Aguille de Midi from the mid-station

At the top

View towards the west

Through an ice cave.

There were a number of mountaineers getting ready to go down with their ropes and crampons. People were even videoing them like they were celebrities - very funny.

More views down into the valley

After our high-mountain adventure, I treated Mum and Dad to a slap-up lunch at Le Bistrot. Dad turns 75 in a few weeks' time, and so this was his birthday lunch.
I think the food and service at Le Bistrot is some of the best I've ever had. This was where we went for a memorable meal when Lindsay, Sophie and Toby's cousins were in town, and I'd be looking for an excuse to go back for lunch. In fact, the incredibly good price of their set lunch (17 euros for two courses, plus all the extras that come with it) has become my new standard for judging other expenditures - 'how many lunches at Le Bistrot would that buy?' I ask myself as I consider a purchase. And because this blog is a record for posterity, here is the meal we had - I'm still dreaming about it.
Selection of 'amuses bouches' to start: a tiny cold asparagus soup; a light cube of frothy goat's cheese with pistachios; a small toast with a smear of myrtille jam and a tiny piece of smoke jamon. Then there was a little extra 'starter' of a citron mousse with little 'bubbles' of cucumber and a sausage 'chip'. Our main was  lamb shoulder, melt in your mouth, with a barley risotto and some delicious sauce and caramelized veggies. Then Dad and I went for the cheese plate (chosen from the incredible cheese trolley) with walnuts and a pear compote, while Mum went for the tarte amandine with a rhubarb compote. And then it was coffees and petits fours - a passionfruit jelly, shortbread, chocolate pecan cookie, a cherry chocolate (like a teensy eensy cherry blossom), and the house speciality - flavoured marshmallows. We could barely move at the end. Sigh. A truly wonderful meal. So for all my complaining about the food in Chamonix and how it hasn't lived up to my 'dream' of French living, Le Bistrot goes a long way towards redeeming my opinion of French food.

Dad, enjoying the cheese plate and the wine

Mum had the tarte amandine with a kind of creamy rhubarb compote served in the martini glass for dessert

The petits fours served at the end of the meal (and yes, we ate them all)