La Ciboulette - Noyant-de-Touraine

La Cioulette is conveniently located at the exit roundabout from the autoroute. We had set menus and the food was excellent eg. Asparagus mouse for starter, fillet of beef for main and a choice of cheeses or desert. Watch out however, as when the bill...came it had 3 separate taxes, VAT, food tax and alcohol tax. So the set menu price of 34 euros is not the final price you pay.

We hesitated entering the restaurant with the empty car park and the dead shrubs which greet(! you on arrival. Well we should have turned around and left. I am vegetarian, while my partner is not, and so when the server sort of intimated that vegetarians...are difficult to cater for , we should have gone . Only two tables occupied, on a saturday , the decor needing a refresh and the food lacking imagination and especially taste, though the dessert was good . We shall not be coming back.

Just of the A10 near St Maure du Touraine. Wide menu choices all exquisitely cooked and prepared for the table. Ample parking for this place set in its own gardens. The choice of wine is incomparable.

After a week of average food we stumbled into this gem since the nearby Moroccan was closed on mondays. It took a while to translate the menu but in the end we ordered and were not disappointed. They gave us some free amuse bouches then some cold pea soup in shot glasses. Starter was lobster mousse then main was duck. Everything was excellent. Worth every cent.

We were there twice during our stay. Obviously, the second time we expected it to be like the first: perfect service, friendly personnel, excellent food in a timely manner resulting in an exceptional evening to remember. So we chose the table we had last time, but now it had a disgusting stained table cloth. After receiving the menus from an oblivious waitress, we had to wait about 25 minutes to order. Everything else seemed more important: dishes at nearby tables and whatever. After ordering, there was an abysmal 40-minute long wait for the entree. It was ok but not at all worthy the price tag. The wait for the main dish was about 20 min which is ok, but the "fish with saffron" was without saffron, so that was significantly and additionally disappointing. Dessert was decent but not like the first visit. Had to go to the counter to ask for check. On a scale from 1-5 the first visit was a 5, but the second a -3, which gives the combined score of 2. If you like gambling, throw a dice, according to our research it is 50/50 it will be magical or suck extensively. (set menu 30-40 EUR).