French Eats: Crock 'n' Roll

Another day, another meal in Lyon to share.

For breakfast, we gorged on fresh strawberries, croissants, cheese samples, and macarons at the Marché Saint Antoine. We did some sightseeing and then unfortunately, my cousin-in-law, E, wasn't feeling well so he and my cousin went back to the hotel. By then, baby sister and I were feeling somewhat peckish. We didn't want to push dinner back too late because we wanted to be nice and ravenous for dinner so we decided to grab a bite. We were hanging out by the Opera House and had passed by a group of people eating some cheesy looking munchies so we headed back in that direction.

Turns out, there's a cute little chain restaurant in Lyon called Crock 'n' Roll that serves several versions of the classic French sandwich, the croque monsieur. It just took us a second of looking at the menu to decide on what we wanted. Definitely jambon, delicious French ham, and emmenthal because cheese please. Then we found out you can get a sweet little combo deal with a drink and a dessert. Score x 1000.

We decided on the 'rock' combo (to share) and chose the urbaine sandwich, jus d'anana (pineapple juice) and jus de peche (peach juice), and the croq tout nu for dessert.

We were started off with a quick and simple salad, which I didn't take a photo of because it wasn't v. cute. But, I have plenty of photos of the sexy stuff so don't you fret. Take a look at that delicious sandwich. We told our waitress that we wanted to share so she cut the sandwich for us ahead of time. How nice is that?

The melty cheese topping was so dreamy. I thought it might be overwhelming, but it turns out that French people really know how to cook! There was also a bit of creamy mascarpone and mushrooms plopped on top of the jambon de pays. I love jambon, guys. I call it "stretchy ham" because it's got this signature delicious texture. Oh, and there was a generous amount of black pepper sprinkled in, which balanced the salty components of the sandwich.

If you couldn't tell, this sandwich totally hit the spot.

But you know what hit the spot even harder? This dessert. We were over the moon and Jupiter and Neptune about this dessert. It's so simple but crackingly good. So, the geniuses at Crock 'n' Roll took two fluffy slices of white bread, spread on a little Nutella, slapped it on a panini press (probably with a generous amount of butter), and then swirled on some whipped cream. For some reason, whipped cream in France is insanely good. It's so light and fluffy and doesn't leave that fatty film on your tongue and/or lips the way that American whipped cream tends to do. I don't know if it's because they use some sort of lighter whipped cream instead of double cream but I need to find out their secrets!

Baby sis is a huge fan of whipped cream so she was pretty happy.

Guys, I can't even describe to you how happy our mouths and tummies were after experiencing that first bite. The warmth of the panini press melted the Nutella into a delicious drippy sauce that made my world light up. I'm definitely going to make this myself.

Do I recommend Crock 'n' Roll? I'm pretty sure these photos speak for themselves but in case it isn't obvious enough, yes, I recommend it. Sandwiches are a universally loved food and when they're Frenchified, they're even better.

xoxo.