Le cookery blog de Rowland a France

Bonjour madames, monsieurs. Bienvenue au cookery blog de rowland, aujourd'hui je voudrais parler avec vous de mon voyage a France, et de toutes les experiences culinarie que j'ai.. erm.. experienced.

So without further bad French, let's crack on eh?

Anyway, so I went to France. It was with work, so I only got to spend the day cross channel, which meant that my opportunities to ingest were limited. On arrival I was deeply tempted by the French version of a McDonald's breakfast, however I settled for a more traditional croissant and a coffee. The criossant was good, although the coffee tasted horrific, as it does in most places to be honest.

If this blog may digress a little, the best coffee your author has ever had was on an AlItalia flight to Rome. And you can quote me on that.

Moving forward, I progressed to the office in which I would be spending the day, and spend some time in deep, dull meetings with my Parisien superior. Time passed quickly once I switched off and thought about food, however, and I soon found myself in the office canteen.

Now, not everyone might know this, but in France all companies legally have to provide a place where employees can eat subsidised lunches. When companies are too small to afford their own eatery, they all club together and send their employees off to super-eateries, where lots of grunting Frenchmen with silly glasses and beige slacks congregate together every day. It's a beautiful thing.

It was in such a place that I found myself. Now I know people rave about French food, and it is clear that French people do take their food seriously. But whenever my Parisien overlord came to London the one thing he always made sure he did was go to a pub for sausage, mash and gravy. Co-incidence? I think not.

The fact is French food isn't all that. The restaurants I've previously been to in Paris haven't been all that. I think all their best chefs are in London in fact. The canteen wasn't all that, despite the big talk I'd heard from other colleagues. It was set out like a plush motorway services, with dishes on view for perusal. I asked (very badly) for some kind of pork thing with sauce and veg, and it tasted OK. Bit like what you might get in a greasy café, or some such. The ambience was very school dinners. But hell it was free, so a big tick in the box there.

Glossing over the afternoon spent in the office in further deep, dull meetings and the fun journey to the station thereafter, I managed to pick up something on the way back as well. A ham salad baguette and a coffee from a booth in a wall at Opera. It was Ok-ish as well.. although the coffee was, of course, horrific.

So in summary, the food I had was alright. You might say that perhaps I didn't go anywhere better than an office canteen or a tourist focussed baguette shop. And you'd be right. So was my trip a pointless exercise? Probably, in every respect in fact.

Ah well, so much for that. Au revoir for now, et a bientot!

french food, Paris, business trip, bad coffee

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