Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Evil Under the Sun

Day 175 - 6/24/09 - Movie #174

BEFORE: As previously mentioned, I'm framing a Belgian-themed beer dinner with 2 films featuring Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot. Not only is he a rotund character who clearly loves food, the films are set in these upper-crust high society places, like a Nile River cruise, or a fancy train traveling across Europe, complete with fancy dining rooms, and classy actors like David Niven, Sean Connery, Bette Davis and Sir John Gielgud. Tonight's equally upscale menu features steak tartare with Palm ale, beer-braised mussels with Steenbrugge, seared squab with a ham + gruyere covered endive, pommes frites and Rodenbach sour ale. For dessert we have a chocolate pot au creme with summer cherries, and the Rodenbach Grand Cru. All food that could definitely have powered the "little gray cells" of Poirot's brain.

THE PLOT: Trying to find how a millionaire wound up with a phony diamond brings Hercule Poirot to an exclusive island resort frequented by the rich and famous. When a murder is committed, everyone has an alibi.

AFTER: For the dinner, I have to say that the standout was the sour ale. It really went well with the squab (OK, you can call it pigeon if you want), and it also elevated the endive and the pommes frites (OK, you can call them fries if you want). The sour ale might not be everyone's cup of tea, but I loved it, and I pestered the waiter for a second glass. The steak tartare was a bit salty when paired with potato chips, but just shy of offending. It reminded me of when my mom would make her "special" hamburgers (with a meatball-like recipe) and I'd scrape some of the raw meat and bread-crumb mixture from the side of the bowl after. The mussels were just OK...

What else...oh yeah, the movie! Viewed through a post-beer dinner haze (maybe a mystery wasn't such a hot idea after a few glasses of beer - I dozed off a few times...) Once again, Poirot finds himself amid the upper class's dirty laundry, solving the murder of a person who everyone in the vicinity had a motive to kill. And once again, he calls all the suspects together into one room for the big reveal. Unfortunately, as in "Orient Express", the solution referes to an earlier incident that is barely glimpsed in the film - now how are we at home supposed to know about that?

Stars/suspects include Roddy McDowall, James Mason, Jane Birkin and Maggie Smith (again?)

RATING: 4 out of 10 "halibis".

2 comments:

  1. You forgot to comment on the most important part (in my mind.) How was the chocolate pot au creme??? Mmmm...chocolate!

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  2. You're right, a glaring omission on my part - I suppose I was distracted by two things: the presence of sliced cherries (not a big fan, but I ate them anyway) and trying to determine if the Grand Cru beer was merely an aged version of the Sour Ale, or if other flavor forces were at work. All in all it was a fine dessert, but I was a tad disappointed to learn that "pot au creme" was just a fancy way of saying "glass of chocolate pudding".

    By itself it was more than adequate, but as part of the overall meal, the dessert had an uphill battle trying to outshine the combo of a delicious squab with Sour Ale. And I was on my 6th (small) glass of beer at this point...so I must recuse myself.

    Pictures of the food will be posted soon on my Flickr page.

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