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Originally Posted by f86sabre
A few years ago several friends and I all got together and rented a house in the south of France for a week. It was right on the Med, about 35 miles west of Cannes, but it was surprisingly affordable since it was the off season. There was a little village about 1 KM down the road that we drove by every day. On the last night we decided to find a place there to have dinner. We found one place that didn’t look like much from the outside, but the smells coming from it were great. The place was called Le Sud. We went in only to find what would be considered a 4 star restaurant. Before I was able to look at the menu everyone was inside being led to a big round table right by the kitchen. There was a huge window and we had a clear view of what the chef’s were doing. None of us spoke much French and none of the staff spoke much English. There was one guy who knew a little, but he wasn’t always around. They didn’t give us a hard time about the language barrier and we all had a good laugh over it. We figured out that it was going to be a 7 course extravaganza. It has been a couple of years, so I don’t remember exactly what we had with each course. I do remember the we had an amazing seafood bisque (I think) early on in the game as well as some perfect rolls. The bisque came out in these little serving bowls which gave you just enough to spark your appetite, and just too little that you wish you had more. When it came time to order the main course the English speaking guy was no where to be found. We all tried to figure out what the waiter was saying and we each ended up being suppressed by what we had ordered. By the time we got through it we were all laughing, including the waiter. I ended up with the most perfect lamb chop that I think the world has ever seen. The flavor was fantastic. I don’t normally like lamb, but this was just so good.
After the main course they brought out a cheese tray. I swear it was easily 3 foot x 4 foot and it was loaded. Before we each chose a cheese the waiter let us know that we should go easy since the next course was desert. We each picked out a couple that we wanted to try, but the waiter gave each of us one that he thought we should try first. By all accounts, his choice perfectly set off each of our main course choices; they just blended just right with the residual flavors in your mouth. The cheese we chose were all good, but his picks were right on the money.
Next came desert. We had all thought that the waiter had said we would get a choice of 7 items. We misunderstood. We each got 7 items. They brought it out in this huge pyramid type tray. Nothing was too big, but they all went together very well and there were items for every kind of taste. There were cakes, tarts, fruits, chocolates, ice creams, hard candies and a few other things. We were all in heaven. We just started laughing when we saw it. It was enough that the head chef came out to check up on us. He came out with a bit of a concerned look on his face, but when he saw our delight he just lit up. After that they brought out the brandy. As with everything else, it just fit so well.
I’m not sure if it was just the right place at the right time, but that was probably the best meal that I ever had. The food was great, the atmosphere was great, I was there with friends and it was an adventure. The perfect combo. It ended up being 110 euros per person and it was worth every bit of it.
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It's very difficult to find bad food on that section of the Riviera. Simple, fresh with few additives or deep-fried or barbequed or artificial anything in sight.
Cannes eats are grand and cheap too. I've had a dozen superb meals in the old town just up from the Palais on the Croisette. Proper, family run, with dew-fresh ingredients: duck, veal, deep red beef carpaccio, all local and all tender as the virgin olives of the oil they're cooked in. And those cheese boards....not to mention the creme brulees.
I've been pretty fortunate to travel quite a bit (and have a missus who travels even more) with work and that Europe's on the door step.
As well as having simple, gravy-laced Po-boys in New Orleans with Dave Davis that were a treat I've had comparatvely lavish, fresh game washed down by spiky strong lager in dirt-cheap Prague. And recenly a 1 Euro Arancini Di Riso while walking the Via Appia in Rome a couple weeks back was as good as anything in a 5 star restaurant. The beauty of real Italian cuisine in Italy is that it's rarely made up of more than 4 ingredients, but each one of those ingredients is as wonderfully tasting as anything you can imagine.
London food wavers sweepingly from place to place and 95% of the West End is filled with reheated, MSG-laden noodle stands and terrible steak houses (and the odd amazing steak house like Bodean's in Poland Street which has the most astonshing pulled pork). But Elena's L'Etoile in Charlotte Street is the best French restaurant I've been to outside of France and Passione just down the road does an awesome saddle of rabbit and
fettuccine a limone.
