Culinary Rant!!

We're hungry, where are our frites?

Please forgive me but can someone tell me where we can have a decent (I said decent, not great) meal in France without breaking the bank.  I mean isn't French cuisine world renowned?  Or is this simply a myth?  Ok maybe I’m being a bit harsh but seriously, I’m starting to believe that French cuisine is nothing more than brilliant marketing by the Michelin guys. 

Delightfully delicious

Now before going to far on this rant, I should give credit where credit is due.  The French know how to make some damn good desserts and they know a thing or two about cheese, the smellier the better.  Now some might suggest I forgot to include baguettes to my list and while a French baguette stacks up well to Wonder bread so do many other breads so as far as I’m concerned it doesn’t make the cut.  

Delectably to die for

Last Saturday we went to Aix en Provence for the day and were all geared up for a wonderful lunch.  It was 16C, the sun was beaming and we had the best seats in the house on an outdoor patio.  The place was jam packed and the setting was perfect.   Once again almost 100 euro later and we were so disappointed at how awful our meal was.  Seriously it was just barely digestable.   Maybe it’s just us.  Maybe we just seem to always pick the wrong place or maybe we need to frequent places where a family of 4 has to drop more than 150-200 euro.  

I can’t begin to tell you how many times we’ve been utterly disappointed at eating at restaurants here in France.  Perhaps Parisiens would say that if you want to experience great French cuisine Paris is the place to do it but even in Paris we had meals that were at best ok!  Nancy and I had a similar experience 6 years ago last time we were in Paris.  We were simply not impressed at most if not all the meals we had.  (There was one exception in Aix last time we were there 6 years ago.  We had a memorable meal at a place called Le Formal.  It was closed last week but we will go back as it was excellent even though it cost us a small fortune).   

  

Enjoying Aix en Provence

Back to my rant though.  Seriously, steak and frites ain’t my idea of great cuisine!  The Keg does steak and frites and does it well and yet The Keg isn’t viewed as haute cuisine.  And yet it seems that no matter what restaurant, bistro, brasserie one goes to in France it’s always more or less the same offering.  Meat and frites.   Hey I enjoy a great cut of meat as much as anyone else but seriously sticking a piece of meat on the grill, turning up the heat and smothering it in sauce can’t be deemed great cuisine no matter how good the meat is.   And what’s with the frites as every side dish?  Like seriously get over it.  Find something else to pair the meat with.  We’ve been so underwhelmed at the lack of variety of offerings.  When we were in Paris back in November we ate at 3 restaurants, 2 of which came recommended.  While neither can be classified as Michelin rated, top-notch, haute cuisine restaurants, they weren’t inexpensive greasy spoons either and both set the 4 of us back a pretty penny (sans vin!!).  At best, they were ok and yet again it seemed that beyond the usual canard and foie gras (which I quite enjoy) the menus were littered with different cuts of meat and frites.  Where’s the variety and creativity?  As I said above maybe we just have a habit of picking the wrong restaurants or maybe we need to open the wallets a bit wider and really go upscale but good French food seems to be so elusive.  I look forward to receiving your recommendations.

Yum these frites are pretty good.   Someone please pass the mustard.  :)

Sal