Eating around France

I should warn you, this post does not describe a carefully researched trip targeting a handful of Michelin star-studded bastions of haute cuisine. Much though I’d love to do that! No, we spent two weeks touring some of the wine regions around France, with no planned itinerary, picking low- and mid-range places to eat in whatever city, town or village we ended up in. Surely in La Belle France of all places it ought to be easy to find good, honest local cooking almost by chance?

Wrong. We had two genuinely excellent meals out of about twenty, along with a whole bunch of instantly forgettable but at least digestible eats, and a handful of fairly dismal experiences. This usually involved paying over the odds for a plate of very ordinary slops.

I’m sure there are fuming Francophiles in the audience dying to tell me of all the brilliant places to eat, why, just in their own favourite little town in Provence! Not my point. The visiting tourist doesn’t have the benefit of familiarity, exploring all the options, inside advice and recommendations. And these days if their French isn’t great then the Guide Michelin isn’t much help – apparently no longer published in English.

We occasionally used our Rough Guide to France, which proved no better than random choices. We tried TripAdvisor twice, and were bemused by the rave reviews for underwhelming fodder. We asked local people for recommendations four times and got: (1) a place that turned out to be closed, (2) a decent chicken stew, (3) a dodgy concept restaurant and (4) “all the restaurants in our village are good”. This last was admittedly from a guy in the Tourist Info office, and he was wrong because the place we chose was merely adequate, and that’s being charitable.

Mostly we picked at random, using common sense. Avoiding the big central place with its row of brasseries willing to pay the high rent in order to flog overpriced fayre to all the tourists that naturally gravitate there. Picking places that have plenty of other people already dining. And trying to spot whether those other diners are locals (admittedly easier in Nepal than in France).

Anyway, a few recollections to round out the blog…

Why is everything always closed?

It sometimes feels like every other day is Christmas Day in France. We check-in to a hotel, head into town to find dinner, and wonder why on earth most of the restaurants are closed. Or arrive in a small town for lunch, and wonder when exactly these three shuttered-up restaurants ever open. Monday night in Avignon was particularly devoid of choice, and as the Mistral was trying to blow road signs down on us we took the first place we found – especially as a French couple outside told us it was good. It turned out to be a slightly odd buffet restaurant where you pick either 3, 5, 7 or 9 starters, then a main, then 3, 5, 7 or 9 desserts. Well, the starters were of course bite-sized (slurp-sized for the soups), and while mostly tasty they were just a collection of oddities on a plate. The mains were carvery joints, and the lamb was admittedly a very good piece. Nice boulanger potatoes, too. Desserts were back to mini-bites, ranging between okay and yuck. It felt like an awkward attempt to bring a party buffet to the high street, and I don’t much like party buffets anyway.

Nose to tail

While very much on-trend in England, the French have scoffed nose to tail as a matter of course for centuries. Without going near a high-end restaurant we enjoyed lamb’s feet and stomach lining, veal head and sweetbreads. I say enjoyed, but some of this stuff can get a bit ripe. One dish of andouillete (tripe sausage) in a cheesy sauce was so spectacularly pungent that it lingered on the breath for almost 24 hours no matter what combination of strong liquor and mints were administered.

TV chef

I find it a bit irksome when chefs put little advertisements for their new book on the tables at their restaurant. So when we sat down in a bistro in Arles and I spotted the TV screens in the corner showing not the latest Marseilles match but a DVD of the chef-proprietor putting some veggies through their paces, I was slightly put off. This bistro was a lower priced offshoot of his Michelin-starred joint next door (you really must see the website). And the food was very average for the price. Potatoes that are 50% burned and 50% raw do not average out at 100% cooked. The butternut veloute was pretty ordinary, while poached pear with chocolate sauce was just dull. The staff and the décor were both modern and tres chic, so why couldn’t the food have been presented a bit less ’80s? A wretched sprig of mint stuck in a poached pear, and what’s with all the oily bits of old lettuce on everything? Even on the soup?!?

Bangkok tartare!

Why is it so bloody hard to get a steak tartare in England? Our national degustatory sense of adventure has come on in leaps and bounds during the last two decades, so why is such a simple and delicious pleasure from over the Channel still denied me? In Grenoble we tucked into a unique take on the dish: Bangkok tartare. Chatting to the chef afterwards, he had included carefully fried garlic, lime, basil, ginger, sesame and various other oriental elements in place of the usual capers and such. It was simple and brilliant. He’d also used an excellent chunk of beef. Of course, this being France it was accompanied by boulanger potatoes and a vinaigrette-dressed salad. Fusion, c’est bon.

Foie bloody gras

I really don’t need to see another slab of cold foie gras with a bit of toast. And I really don’t want it in a restaurant with a Michelin star. The hideous vinegary fruit jelly accompaniment failed to elevate it beyond what it was: the same lump of chilled liver found on the menu of every brasserie from Calais to Cannes. Don’t get me wrong, I like a bit of foie gras on occasion. I was just astonished at how hard it was to spot a proper restaurant brave enough to leave it off the menu. Prawn cocktail was never so ubiquitous.

So, a couple of closing comments. Firstly: France is still a wonderland of great produce. I love the markets, the patisseries, the epiceries and the fromageries, all abundantly available in every town in France and scarce back home. Secondly: I wouldn’t dream of suggesting you’d do any better as a tourist eating out without research on a journey around Britain. I’d venture to suggest that Thailand and Malaysia are the only two countries I’ve visited where picking a place to eat randomly usually has a good outcome. But I’m surprised, given my halcyon memories of childhood holidays, that France doesn’t belong in that club either.