Having had a baby recently time is often at a premium and preparing food low on the agenda. Unless you have friends who bring food over (thanks!) or food stocked in the freezer this may quickly end up in a take-away bonanza. However, quickly you will probably get tired of eating pizza, sushi and/or Chinese.

One place where you can get something that bit different is Det Franske Hus. As the name implies, the place in Broager is run by a Frenchman, Thierry Manane and the aim is to provide good food for its customers. The regular menu on offer is not wide but it changes regularly: a weekly menu (Monday-Friday), a weekly fish menu (Tuesday-Saturday) and a monthly menu are offered. It is mainly for pick-up from Broager, but we were also told that for a charge of 150 DKK they will deliver to Sonderborg.

We opted for the weekly menu on take away last week: warm salmon mousse with fish cream and shrimps as starter, stuffed pork filet with baked leeks and rosti potatoes as main, and apple tart with apricots for dessert. You do not need to order all 3 courses and in fact we ordered 2 starters, 3 mains and 2 desserts between 3 people and got more than full.

The food came packed in aluminium foil dishes in a polystyrene box. All dishes had clearly marked information on how to warm them up (temperature and duration). It seems that some thought does go into this as the same temperature was required for all dishes, making warming up easy. Warming up times was between 15 and 20 minutes, after which the food was warm through very nicely. This is how the weekly take away offer is served. The other items from Det Franske Hus is offered as catering and is delivered warm and ready to eat with the appropriate china to serve it from.

We enjoyed all the food. I was particularly surprised by the starter, as it was not something I would have ever picked. The cabbage, in particular, was really nicely spiced probably with cumin, which is not something I would have thought of. The main was a decent piece of pork, though a bit salty, especially for my non-Danish mother who was visiting! The dessert was again really good.

You can easily order the food by calling them before 10 am on the day and you can agree a time to pick up (or organise delivery). Payment can be in cash or by bank transfer after you collect the food (they have no card terminal).

We were really satisfied with what we got. Furthermore, it is not only for daily food that the place is set up. It is, even more so I would say, set up to deliver food for special occasions. And in fact, that was part of the reason we tried it out: as a trial run for a special meal we have coming up. The trial run went smoothly so we will definitely be ordering more food from there!