Chaos in France

[sidevalve]

I find it hard to agree, although FR food and wine, at the very top rarified end where you are paying stratospheric prices for a meal or a bottle of wine might be very good.
Better restaurants than the average French fare abound in Italy, Hungary, Poland, Austria, Spain, Germany, and South Africa, to name just a few, and at prices which are affordable for a majority of people, whereas in FR the top end ones are only for people on inflated expense accounts or the super-rich and pretentious types who have yachts with helicopter landing pads at St. Tropez and Beaulieu-sur-Mer, mostly nouveau-riche Russians and wealthy Ragheads.

I'll say it one more time: from Friday lunchtime until Sunday evening, every Catalan restaurant within two hours drive of the border with France is booked solid, midday and evening, with French diners who come down to enjoy superior food, friendly service, and reasonable prices, all of which are unknown in their own wretched surly strike-bound country.

.. and similarly the Côte Basque is thick with Spanish visitors who come to this side of the border for exactly the same reason.
We've been visiting this blessèd corner of France every year since 1991 and we've lived here since 2007 - and I really don't recognise the France I know with the country described here with such vitriol.
I started putting together an interactive map of restaurants in France where food is still prepared in the traditional way (ie, no microwaves). I think even that raging Francophobe Capetonian would struggle to find one he wouldn't enjoy. Might even have a "surly" waiter for him too!

[Capetonian]

I completely agree with sidevalve, but .... the Pais Vasco is not Spain, and the Pays Basque is not France.

[sidevalve]

There are many who would agree with you there Cape - including myself - but I would take issue with you concerning your views on the rest of France.
Without wishing to encourage you, I think it's true to say that restaurant standards have been gradually dropping (driven by economics) but provided you do your homework, I still think that French cuisine is the benchmark. I'd say that in this part of the world (Côte Basque), you should budget for >30€ (plus wine & coffee) each. It gets markedly cheaper and more generous the further inland you go.

[BenThere]

Totally agree. Most of the most memorable dining out meals I've ever had have been in France, which is maybe 1% of the dining out meals I've had. They are magicians with sauces.

I think that American restaurants are generally superior in the choices and preparation of beef, steaks, roasts, and burgers, but outside of that French cuisine is the pinnacle.

I've become somewhat enamored of Mexican cuisine as well, rich flavor, magnificent seafood and the tab for a nice fresh caught fish dinner with wine or a margarita is around $10 USD. And you eat that with your toes on a white sand beach gazing out at the Caribbean.

I've posted before about my last airline trip with Delta after which I retired. For the occasion of my retirement Delta bought my wife a first class ticket to Paris and back with a 30 hour layover in the Montparnasse district, a five minute subway ride to the Champs. It was a 30 hour layover, then my final flight back to Detroit. The flight attendants treated her like a rock star on both legs. We went to a Michelin 2* and had a dinner we'll never forget. Course after course of creative, tasty, utmost quality food presented with perfection. The chef came out to greet us, knowing this was a special occasion, and presented us a bottle of very fine Bordeaux-gratis. We got back to the room and collapsed - utterly sated. In the morning, as we got ready for departure, we ambled next door to the patisserie and filled a bag of eclairs, petit cakes, and such and said goodbye to Paris when we hopped on the bus for CDG.

[BenThere]

Late response OFSo. Sorry'

I have no idea what the word 'signature' means in this context ! 'Signature' means that this is what our region is famous for, what it does best, how we want you to remember us, etc.

Do you know Reus, south of Barcelona? I just did a home exchange with a family from there and now have a week to spend there. Also doing Lymington outside Southampton, UK for two weeks, and a week in Prague, Czech Republic for a week on the same trip in late July-early August. I will be sure to contact you if and when I head for Catalonia. I can think of nothing more delightful than swapping stories with you in a cozy setting, my throat scorched by a fine cognac.

[OFSO]

We have lived for 27 years right up against the French border, in fact one sees more French number plates in the town of Roses than Spanish. Used to go to Barcelona frequently when the trains were cheap but that's no longer the case: as an alternative driving into the city requires the special pollution permit which I don't have (although I do for French cities. Happy EU, no coordination). Have never been to Reus. The gem of Catalunia is Girona, a beautiful city. The centre of Separatism. But that's for another thread...

[sidevalve]

I would suggest that there are many reasons why French people choose to cross the border in Spain: cheaper fuel, cheaper clothes, cheaper food and drinks for starters. We regularly go to Spain for these reasons. The problem for us with Spanish restaurants, unlike those in France, is that they aren't by law allowed to accept dogs.

Food is a highly subjective area - but here's how I wrote about food in France (extract from my personal blog):

"I was just re-reading the opening chapter of Peter Mayle's book Bon Appétit! - Travels through France with a knife, fork and corkscrew when it struck me that his introduction to French cooking was rather similar to my own. Read the first chapter here and see if any of it resonates with you. I found myself nodding at his views of French food as he described his first encounter with it in a Parisian restaurant at the age of 19, after growing up in the gastronomic wasteland that was England in the post-war years.

I'd never really enjoyed meat as a boy as it was generally cooked to death* at home - rendering it necessary to chew it interminably. I honestly think my father would have been happier if the kitchen cooker had been replaced by a blowlamp! Meat was never allowed to have any hint of pinkness, or heaven forbid - blood! (Eek!) In fairness, I suspect that my dear mother's cooking was no different to thousands of other mothers back then. I always thought - and I still think now - that she was a great cook though. She did the best she could with what was available at the time - which, if we're being honest, was not a lot. I thought the fact that I disliked meat was my problem.

* It used to be said that meat in England was killed twice.. once in the abattoir and then again in the kitchen.

Peter Mayle's account reminded me of the first time I travelled abroad (to Switzerland) in the early sixties. Like Peter, I had been forcibly vaccinated with French at school - but I don't think it 'took'.

As an 18 year old, I remember finding myself at a loose end in Geneva around lunchtime one day. As I strolled by lakeside restaurants, the magical smells that wafted out from them caused my previously unemployed taste buds to tingle. I stopped at a suitable restaurant with a terrace and ordered a steak-frites.. which was a curious choice, given my lifelong aversion (thus far) to meat. Thinking about it, I probably ordered it because I was fairly confident of being able to pronounce it! When it came, I cut into the steak and rosy juices gushed forth. At home, this would have been the signal for an emergency call to the nearest vet or, at the very least, returned to the kitchen pronto for further remedial blow-lamp treatment.. Instead, I bit into it and voila! An epiphany moment.. So that's what meat tastes like!! Then there were the perfect frites..

There's a different attitude to food here compared to the UK.. I remember a former colleague who often asked me on a Monday morning what Madame had made for me over the weekend. Once, when my reply showed too much enthusiasm for whatever it was we'd had, she said, "But sidevalve, it's only food..". I found that such a depressing attitude.

There's nowhere in the world (that I've been to) where the preparation and enjoyment of food is treated with the same love, passion and veneration as here in France. At the very highest level, French restaurants are temples to gastronomy and the pleasures of the table are a serious business. It is taken for granted that the diner has an understanding of what is expected of him and that he will behave accordingly. People here have a passion for the pleasures of the table.

[OFSO]

I am amused by the praise of French restaurants here. Ah well, all a matter of opinion. Those of us who have lived or worked there have a different opinion.

As for dogs not being allowed in Spanish restaurants. One quivvers with mirth.

Mrs OFSO in a Spanish restaurant. And no, not an exception!

[Capetonian]

I suppose it's largely a question of personal taste and as the saying goes, de gustibus.....

It is true that in small villages away from the horrible tourist areas of, particularly the south of France, there are enjoyable and affordable dining experiences to be had, simple village cooking, family run hotels and restaurants.

It may just be that I'm a peasant, but the whole French experience of snooty waiters looking down their noses at you, mushy foods with a dozen different micro-portions of vegetables arranged in different coloured sauces, menus where a piece of inferior quality braised steak is described in phrases of pompous verbosity.
(Petite bavette de boeuf de nos pays à la manière de Jacques et Annie élevé avec passion à partir de nos pâturages enrichis avec l'ajout d'une fumée délicate d'une fleur de montagne recueillie avec amour avant l'aube par nos abeilles domestiques de race après avoir soupé sur du trèfle cultivé dans un endroit secret loin des regards indiscrets, délicatement contrebalancé par une divinité épicée au gingembre doux importée des montagnes du Népal et juxtaposée par une composition d'herbes cueillies à la main.)
Really, who gives a flying f***. Just give me a medium rare top quality fillet steak and a glass of robust red wine. Merci monsewer.

Therein of course lies the problem, the quality of what passes for beef in France is generally dire, hence the need to dress it up like an ageing old whore.

There's nowhere in the world (that I've been to) where the preparation and enjoyment of food is treated with the same love, passion and veneration as here in France. At the very highest level, French restaurants are temples to gastronomy and the pleasures of the table are a serious business

Possibly true, but does that make it better?

Now that's just the food. Don't get me started on the service and attitude.

[OFSO]

.....and not only dogs. One pulls a chair out to sit down at the restaurant in Castelló de Empurias, only to find that the seat is already occupied....

[barkingmad]

Pussy on the menu?

[Woody]

Not sure whether to put this link here or in Brexit/ Migrants threads?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51682230

[BenThere]

I think BBC belongs in the jokes thread.

[sidevalve]

I can't open the BBC thing.. what is it?

[Pontius Navigator]

Police evacuated Paris's Gare de Lyon station after protesters started a fire to try to disrupt a concert by a Congolese singer.
Political opponents of the DR Congo government set fire to parked scooters, motorcycles and bins and blocked firefighters from tackling the blaze.
They accuse singer Fally Ipupa of being too close to the Congolese government.
Police had earlier banned protests against the concert, citing a "tense political context".
A large plume of smoke was visible above the station and smoke was also seen inside the Gare de Lyon metro and suburban rail stations.
Victoria Williams from the UK was in the Gare de Lyon at the time.
"There was big thick smoke. People were surging and setting fire to things," she said. "It just seemed to get very ugly, very quickly. Traffic was gridlocked in every direction, it was pandemonium.
"The protesters were throwing anything they could at the police and fire brigade who were just trying to do their job. They were just setting fire to anything they could and fighting with each other."
Police described efforts to prevent firefighters from reaching the scene as "scandalous behaviour".

[Capetonian]

They should have targeted Gare de Nord and burned the loathsome dump down. Hideous place.

Gare de Lyon is a lovely station, I hope there isn't too much damage.

[Woody]

I can't open the BBC thing.. what is it?

PN has posted the article

[sidevalve]

Thanks for that PN..

The Gare de Lyon is home to the fabled "Train Bleu" restaurant, and a visit there has been on my bucket list for years.

I don't doubt that Capetonian will be along shortly to tell me that he's been there and experienced the worst service in the world from surly and foul-smelling waiters - with food to match..

[Capetonian]

Sidevalve : Would you like to place a bet on that?

[OFSO]

Sidevalve:

A) take lots of money
B) have lots of free time to wait and wait and wait
C) tolerate lukewarm food - if you are lucky.
D) take lots of money

We eat lunch at the GdL frequently. The food is, naturellement, rubbish. The drinks are miniscule (a glass of wine or a Ricard in France contains the amount a Spanish waiter would pick up and throw away).

After one meal at LeTren Bleu, most return to Pret a Manger downstairs....

Next transit on Wednesday proximate. Yes, there is worse food available: the Gare de Nord Eurostar terminal. Shudder.