Mr Boeuf ~ French - New Caledonia

Our annual trip to Noumea has become an ongoing quest to try every restaurant in town. Next up is Mr Boeuf, a place popular with locals of all walks of life, the odd tourist and flying supercows.

On our trips to Noumea we end up walking along the bay multiple times during the week. The one place that always makes us giggle is Mr Boeuf, not only the name but their mascot, a flying supercow. The name and the superhero cow on top suggest a meat-fest but the menu is pretty much standard Noumea fare.

We score a window table on the terrace late in the afternoon, the place has a few families finishing up their Sunday lunch and it's getting quiet.

We're lucky they take our last order around 2.00, we are in holiday mode and are eating late. Lunch closing times can be heartily enforced in Noumea, the concept of all day dining isn't one that has taken off here.

Keeping up with the cow theme we start with an entree of beef tartare, quite a good one too, with just the right amount pre mixed sweet pickly flavours. The salty anchovies on top add to the flavour mix, a little bit of that fishy salty hit mixed with the beef and chopped pickle is a balanced on your fork bliss.

And totally against the beef theme is Margret de Canard with a balsamic glaze and mashed potatoes. Shawn knocks off this old favourite early in the trip, it's like a steak, though we wish we ordered it medium rare instead of medium, we like our meat mooing, or quacking in this case. We've had a few magret de canards in Noumea and they are always good bit never quite as magic as ones we had in Paris (La Quincaillerie being a particular favourite memory). Still, in a restaurant we'd take duck steak over cow steak any day, but thats just us.

More quack please.

We order a side of frites and tomato provencale, halved tomatoes sprinkled with bread crumbs and herbs and grilled, very much something like our mums made circa 1970s.

Mr Boeuf specials menu.

Mr Boeuf  menu.

Mr Boeuf table mats, pointing out the flavoursome bits of the cow.

The menu from La Marmite just a few metres down the road, we've got this in mind for our next visit.

Alison's puppy buddies we met on the way home. Fearful at first, they snuck out from under the gate for a toe lick and a pat.

And their wiser housemate, who just stayed home and sat on the lounge all day.