Eating Well in Southern France cont'd

We have discourse! You know I love discourse – yay! :D My friend Katherine writes:

"I'll be in Marseille and Nice for about 5 days, combined, in the coming week or so. Do you have any restaurant suggestions?”

I personally didn’t go to Marseille last year, but I hear it’s awesome. Because it’s the second most populated city in France, I would suggest that you stay in Marseille for three days and Nice for two, or to stay in Marseille for two days, and stay in Nice for a day and three nights, taking a day trip to Cannes and Monaco each. From Nice it’s just a short train ride to Cannes (maybe less than an hour and about 9€?) and a super scenic, 1€, 40 minute bus ride to Monaco – and those two places are worth seeing.

Food-wise, I think you’d probably have better luck in Marseille, because as my general rule goes, the more populated a city is, the better the quality and cheaper the food is. In Marseille, you of course should have some bouillabaisse (fish stew), since it’s the regional specialty. However, it’s pretty pricey; I have it on good authority that you shouldn’t pay less than 35-40€ for a decent bouillabaisse, and some people even insist that you should only visit places that requires you to reserve the day before - but I have friends who were very satisfied with walk-in experiences. So that translates to $57-65 CAD, but it might make you feel a little better if you keep in mind that it’s a total meal – the soup and then all the ingredients in it.

In Nice, I’d definitely go to the place I just mentioned, of course, and another absolute must-go is my favourite bakery. Formerly known as Boulangerie de France, now I think it’s either called Gosset or Cosset or something – the sign is a little ambiguous – but it’s located right beside 82 rue de France, on the NW corner of rue de France and rue Andrioli. Don’t mix it up with Le chant du pain, which is two doors east of Gosset. They have all kinds of beautiful sandwiches, and the earlier you go, the more choices there are. I highly recommend the pan bagnat, a niçois specialty, with tuna, hard-boiled eggs, anchovies, olives, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, fresh tomatoes, and lettuce in between a delicious bun. It’s also great value – about 4 or 5 euro and it’s enormous! But most importantly, you MUST, MUST, MUST have their pain au chocolat (aux) amandes. A pain au chocolat is a chocolate croissant, but this version is far superior because above the layer of chocolate, there’s a layer of almond cream; it’s not so much a cream as it is a sort of fine, grainy paste. I can’t even stress to you how amazing it is. It’s way better fresh (go in the morning!), but even after it’s been sitting in the display case for a while, it’s still good. They are very generous with the almond cream, and the almond flavour just punches your taste buds in the guts. There’s less chocolate, but it complements the almond perfectly. It’s just incredible. And at 1.80€ a piece, I often had two at a time.

You may want to try out les farcies, les beignets, pissaladière, salade nicoise and le socca, other Nice specialties; there are plenty of places you can get them at in Vieux Nice (make sure you go there because there’s a lot to see, but not at night because it’s not the safest!) and they taste pretty much the same everywhere, but personally, they’re not my cup of tea. Les farcies are various veggies stuffed with fatty meats and onions and seasonings and such – it’s not bad, but pretty oily and not that great. Les beignets are pretty much just HEAVILY battered foods (onions, sardines, etc.) that are fried and often soggy with oil because they’ve been sitting for a while, and for the life of me, I’ve never been able to find fresh beignets no matter what time of day I eat them. Eating those are like drinking oil, and the sardines are super fishy and bony. Pissaladière is basically tomato sauce-less onion pizza often served with olives and/or anchovies, and salad niçoise is basically a pan bagnat without the bread - the only dish out of all these I like. Socca is a flat kind of bread-type food made with chickpeas, sprinkled with olive oil, salt and pepper. I don’t love it because A) it’s made of chickpeas so it’s sort of rough on the palate, a big no-no for Chinese tastes and B) it tastes like overcooked eggs without much flavour to speak of. But you may want to try it because it’s very typical Nice food, and I feel like I should tell you about these things so you have some basic knowledge of local cuisine. Oh, and because Nice is so close to Italy, there are an absolute ton of wood-oven pizza restaurants, but these pizzas are characteristically paper-thin, not spectacularly tasty and so not very filling or worth it, in my opinion.

Now, what else would I eat? I’d go to my favourite gelato place in the city, Crema di Gelato. There are tons of gelato places in Nice again due to its proximity to Italy, but after lots of tasting, I’ve concluded that this parlour is the crème de la crème. Don’t believe anyone who tells you that Fenocchio is the best – they have lots of choices, but the quality of their product is mediocre at best. Crema di Gelato has the best gelato in town, and they also have pretty little gelato cups (like in the picture) and gelato truffles. I always just get scoops of gelato because you get the most ice cream for your euro. I’d highly recommend the flavour Crema di Gelato, aka crème pralinée, which is vanilla gelato with what I suspect is Nutella gobs on top of it and sprinkled with crunchy pralines. It’s like a vanilla-based, gelato version of Ferrero Rocher and it’s divine. I also love their mint chocolate, hazelnut and caramel flavours. It’s a perfect ending to an Indian meal at the place I described in my last post, and they are located in Vieux Nice, right in the square of the Palais de Justice.

If you’re on a budget, there’s a so-so place right across from the Palais de Justice, the restaurant closest to the beach, that has this great value combo – a salade niçoise or another salad plus a pasta dish, one choice of which is seafood pasta. The salads were good, but the pasta wasn’t that great – but it’s 14€ (or was it 11?) for both.

If money is no object, I’d highly recommend going to Michelin-decorated Keisuke Matsushima, a very classy hole in the wall located at 22 rue de France right on the edge of the zone piétonne (also a must-visit in Nice), where I always wanted to eat at but was too poor to go to. They have seasonal menus, and you have to get their combo, which starts at 35€. For various menu choices you can upgrade if you’re willing to pay more, and I think for 60€ you can let the chef just do his magic and serve whatever he wants. If you do go, let me know how it was!


You might also want to have moules frites, which are mussels with fries. I think they’re nice but not great but worth eating. I’d suggest going to all-you-can-eat restaurants – there’s one in Cours Saleya in Vieux Nice that I don’t recall the name of, and one in the zone piétonne called Il...Borrotolo? Barratello? I don’t remember, but it’s somewhere on rue Masséna. Just look for stand-up signs that say moules frites à volonté – à volonté means all-you-can-eat. My beef with moules frites is that the mussels are often teensy, they don’t pull out the beards of the mussels, they don’t pick out the ones with yucky growths stuck to the shells, and the sauces are too salty, which makes you eat more fries and fill up faster as a result. But if you love mussels, they’re nice. I also hear there are good moules frites restaurants in Belgium. Anyway, the place on Cours Saleya offers I think maybe five flavours at 11.90€ (and you can try any of them) and a bunch of other flavours for 13.90€ - but in this case, I’d recommend being conservative since the basic flavours are the best, from my experience. The place in the zone piétonne offers just three flavours for 13.90€ but they are nicely done and like I said, basic flavours are the best anyway. There’s marinière, which is white wine with onions, napolitaine, which is tomato sauce, and poulette, which is cream sauce. I personally like the first two, not so much the third. I’ve heard good things about having moules frites in Monaco, but they’re not all-you-can-eat.


There’s also a decent Japanese restaurant in Cours Saleya, but it’s also a little pricey (18€ for a 14-piece set meal) and so not good if you’re a bigt eater like me. The quality is pretty good though, and the chef is actually Japanese. But if you don’t mind splurging about 20-30€ once, I’d also suggest eating at one of the beach restaurants because the Mediterranean is just a stunning backdrop. I’d recommend the restaurants Lido Plage, or Le Sporting. The beach restaurants in Nice are cheaper than in Cannes, but the shopping in Cannes is way cheaper, so I’d suggest eating in Nice and shopping Cannes.

Hope this info is helpful, feel free to ask if you have more questions and have a great trip! :)

How to Eat Spectacularly in Nice for 6€

There’s something about Indian food that sets off a craving in me every three weeks or so, like clockwork. One night last week at about midnight, my girl Ceci and I were chatting on MSN about Indian food, and it made us so hungry that we decided to get together for lunch the very next day. Although basically satisfying, it wasn’t drop-dead-amazing, but it called to mind fond memories of Nice, where I was living in very glamourous poverty – glamourous because I lived right by the Mediterranean where there were palm trees everywhere, and in poverty because, vacation-spot prices aside, a euro converted to over a dollar sixty Canadian at the time.

Because there was a three-month-long strike at my school (striking is a national sport in France, you know), I took to taking daily walks by the sea and into Vieux Nice. There was so much to see, and you just can’t do the same thing here in suburban Toronto because you can’t get anywhere without a car! It was during one of those explorations that I stumbled across Shiva Snack*, this tiny restaurant, literally a hole in the wall, right on the edge of the Old Town.

I’d walked past it several times, intrigued by the much lower prices for Indian food than other restaurants, but for some reason, I never went in until about a month before I was to leave the country. I was ravenous that day and nearly desperate for Indian food, which I hadn’t had in a while because I was so poor – a dish and naan or rice at other restaurants cost about 14€ on average. I ordered outside and was promptly showed to the entrance of the place, which I never even noticed because it was so inconspicuous.

When I took my girl Maggie there, she described it perfectly when she said that it looked like they found a hole in the wall and tried to make it as homey as possible. The back wall is a mirror to make the area look bigger, and all the other walls are draped in gorgeous textiles, no doubt from India. The tables are small but pretty, with colourful mosaic surfaces, and the most tantalizing aromas emanate from the open chicken. But the most trustworthy indication that this place is awesome is the fact that almost every time I walk past it, there are Indian people sitting on the seats outside, chatting with the people who work there, just eating and watching the world pass by. It’s a family-run restaurant, and they often have their children with them there. Their adorable little girl sometimes helps wait the tables there, and she’s so sweet, so attentive, alert and eager to please.


I have a soft spot for this restaurant because it was the only food I could afford to eat out and really enjoyed; my only other options were fast food (ew!), sandwiches (which get old fast) and paper-thin pizza, which I don’t love. There's nowhere else in the city that you can buy a full meal for an adult for just six euro - not even McDonalds! And the quality for price of their Menu à 6.00 is just out of this world.

For six euro, you get a complete meal: your choice of a tandoori chicken leg or a scoop of chicken tikka (hunks of perfectly-spiced, roasted chicken breast in the most delicious, savoury tomato sauce, like, ever) with a serving of fluffy basmati rice and a small portion of salad with delicious sesame dressing and a cannette (canned soft drink) – and you can pick Orangina without paying more! After a month of pitifully subpar home-cooking, it was a little taste of nirvana. During my last month in France, when I wasn’t in Paris, I went there probably around twice a week.

Because I’m a big eater, to say the least, the combo isn’t quite enough for me, but it’s perfectly satisfying for my friends with normal appetites. But then I discovered their naan (1.50€), which is excellent, and an order of that combined with the combo is just right for me. I love their naan because it’s even all around – I don’t like it when naan is thick on one side and thin on the other. They also make a tasty cheese naan (2€) that is more filling and flavourful and tastes good even on its own.


Apart from my girls Amra and Raissa, this restaurant and their combo are what I miss most about Nice. If I am lucky enough to go on exchange to Europe again in three years, like I want to, I hope I’ll get to visit them, and I hope their business would have grown by then, because they’re fantastic!

*A note about “snack” restaurants in France: They refer to grab-and-go establishments, sort of their alternative to fast-food restaurants, and they usually sell hot and cold sandwiches (baguettes and croque monsieurs, hello!), cold pizza slices, or kebab sandwiches. In Nice, most Middle-East restaurants sell kebabs (as opposed to doners or shawarmas). Shiva Snack piqued my interest because they have a variety if kebabs that are Indian-style cooked meat wrapped in naan – sadly, I never did try them, because I already fell in love with their Menu à 6.00 combo and once I like something, I can pretty much eat it forever.

Happy Birthday to Us!

It's our first birthday! Many thanks to all 4000 of you who have been to this blog, both regulars and one-timers - you rock!!!

XOXOXO

Cupcake Chronicles: The Cupcake Shoppe

When I was living in Nowheresville Nice, France, I was very deprived of good food, and I had this masochistic habit of torturing myself by watching Hong Kong food shows and cooking tutorials on Youtube, as well as reading colourful food blogs. My brother would encourage me by sending me food pictures he took himself and links to Toronto food blogs, so that I could keep a list of all the things I could eat and restaurants I could visit when I came home (and had no access to at the time).

One day, I was suffering from a particularly violent bout of cupcake craving, so I decided to look for cupcake bakeries in Toronto, to add to my list. I found this link, which is an excellent place to start, except none of the bakeries have particularly high ratings, so either there are no excellent cupcake places in Toronto or we’re just really hard raters. Unfortunately, all the bakeries with the highest ratings are kind of far from me – in the beaches area – so I set my sights on going to The Cupcake Shoppe first. It’s closest to me, I’ve been past it a couple times, and I’ve always wanted to go in, because their branding is so well done. They definitely have the nicest website and cutest illustrations/signs out of all the local cupcake bakeries I’ve seen. Everything about this place seems so attractive, and I was going to go with an open mind, regardless of the paltry, barely-passing 2.7/5 stars it’s rated.

Well, I wish I’d paid more attention to the reviews, because they were pretty accurate; there are good and bad ones, but there’s a pronounced trend towards the negative. The store was adorable, but the products themselves were nothing to write home about – not that cute, not that tasty, and just not all that exciting. I bought six different flavours, and if I were blindfolded, I wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference between any of them besides chocolate or vanilla cake. They were dry, stale, hard and completely disappointing. My mum remarked that mine taste way better, and my cupcakes all come out of a box. She also said that the ones we buy in six-packs from the supermarket are better.

She has a point, because supermarket cupcakes really are good. My super serious, super distinguished ER surgeon Uncle Alex would know; he proves that anyone can have a soft spot for cupcakes. Even he couldn’t resist the ones I had sitting on my dinner table when he was visiting once and asked me if he could have one. Of course he could, I told him, and after he demolished it in the most dignified way I’ve ever seen anyone eat a cupcake, he dabbed his mouth gently with his napkin, set it down and said to me in his very refined New Zealand accent, “Well, those are very nice and moist, aren’t they?”

But you know what? At least 50% of the cupcake experience isn’t even about how it tastes. The quality is just as important as the appearance, the childhood memories, and, in the realm of cupcake houses, the whole shopping experience. A big reason why all these people (including myself) have such a bad opinion of The Cupcake Shoppe is because the service is so awful. When I was there, the staff barely acknowledged my existence and they acted as if they would rather be anywhere else in the world. They didn’t say hi or even speak to me except to tell me how much I had to pay. According to reviews, I wasn’t the only one. The store had all the makings of a spectacular shopping experience – cute décor, cute displays, inherently cute (albeit only passable quality) product – but the service ruined it all.

So if idiot-proof cake mixes and generic supermarket bakeries produce better quality cupcakes than specialized, boutique cupcakes houses, what does that say about the Toronto Cupcakescape? But I’m not going to let this unsatisfactory first outing deter me. I won’t lose faith. I’m going to continue on in my search of a slammin’ cupcake in Toronto, and I’ll document every step in my Cupcake Chronicles. :)

Happy Canada Day!

Photo credit: Sebastian White Online

I'm Home!

I am a changed woman after living in Nice for a year.

It was pleasantly disorienting to see all of the people and things and places that are very familiar to me, that I hadn’t seen in a long time. It was also strange eating all the things I’ve missed – after pining for my favourite foods for a year, they are somehow less delicious to me just because I know I’ll have access to them for a good while from now on.

Also, the first night I was home, I stepped into the washroom to take a shower before going to bed and nearly wept; I could hardly believe that I wouldn’t have to worry about not having hot water anymore! Not getting to take a hot shower in the dead of winter in an apartment where the central heat isn’t on yet is something else. I’ve also made the following discoveries:

*European boys are generally more smooth, polished, charming, interesting, cosmopolitan, multilingual and better-dressed than their North American counterparts, but

*I have a renewed appreciation for the relative conservativeness for my homeboys because I don’t have to worry about getting harassed every day when I go out

*the contrast between Major Brand Name Schools and public schools in France (and in the States too, I’d imagine) is so stark; more than ever, I’m grateful for the fact that all higher education institutions in Canada are public – I can’t imagine the despair I’d feel if I were at a disadvantage simply because I couldn’t afford to go to a good school

*“art deco” is apparently code for “old, disintegrating piece of crap” in terms of describing apartment buildings

*renting property in France is super, super sketchy and one must never rent a place with out-of-country landlords

*BNP Paribas is officially The Worst Bank in the World if their branches in Nice are fair representation

*Niçois post offices are the best places to learn how to swear in French, because even if you only have two or three people before you in line, the wait could be up to 45 minutes

*you learn to develop a sense of humour and an elevated state of patience from French bureaucracy – the other choices are to go mad or to move

*many French people – especially old ones – are charmingly honest and therefore politically incorrect

*growing up in Canada makes us a super aware and appreciative of different cultures – I’m super grateful for that as well

*Yellow Fever is a Very, Very Serious Problem in Europe

*Dutch people are very tall; my eye-level in the Netherlands is chest-level of all the locals

*the cultural atmosphere of Germany is very similar to that of Canada in that people are very laid-back and down-to-earth – but they are more punctual and their beer is better :P

*when there are Ferraris zooming around everywhere, a dime a dozen like in Monaco, they aren’t nearly as impressive

*living right on the Mediterranean with palm trees everywhere is just intoxicating

*I’m not done with Europe yet; I’m going to go back there to live temporarily again

It was an indescribably wonderful year – what a way to end off my undergraduate career! Now I’m home spending quality time with my mama, studying my tail off in the hopes of going through another four years of school. Wish me luck!

XOXOXO

Ignorance and Hammeredism

"The Chinese are taking over the world!" a new acquaintance hissed to me secretively today at the inauguration of the Canadian Embassy in Nice, "They're EVERYWHERE!"

This delightful conversation went on in the same vein for a good chunk of time until my friend Vince stepped in to save me from this eccentric lady and moved the topic from the overwhelmingly enormous Chinese population in the world to various aspects of Chinese culture.

I find that this type of make-you-wince-with-discomfort-because-you-can't-believe-people-are-saying-what-they're-saying conversation is actually not all that uncommon when speaking to many European people, particularly if they're a bit older. I'm not suggesting that all Europeans are ignorant, but many, especially the French, just don't censor themselves when speaking. Many believe absolutely crazy things wholeheartedly, and they just want to tell you about it. It's actually very honest in an almost charming way, if you don't get offended.

Over dinner later on that night, my friends asked me how it makes me feel when people say stupid things like that, and I realize that I didn't give them a very complete answer, because I was interrupted by our meals arriving.

It actually doesn't really bother me if I think or know that the person isn't purposely trying to insult me or my race or my culture. Often, they're just trying to relate to me, even if they might be doing an awful job about it. I get that some people are just ignorant, but they're not actually trying to be rude, so I'm ok with it. If they're not uncomfortable, I'm not uncomfortable, and I'll humour them. Besides, I can laugh about it later over dinner and it makes a great story!

And I know people like that won't likely ever get to appreciate awesome poetry like the following. Also written by the great 李白 (Li Bai), this poem urges readers to enjoy life while they can because time is fleeting. Now, at first it sort of sounds like he's only repeatedly telling everyone to go get hammered, which isn't entirely untrue, but it's actually more of a metaphor; this lonely, depressed genius always felt like his talents were not appreciated or utilized by the emperor, so he he derived his greatest pleasure from alcohol. Thus, drinking, in the context of his work, means enjoying life.

The translation is done by Professor Ying Sun of the University of Rhode Island, and "is intended to be idiomatic, apprehensible for western cultures, and rhyming whenever possible."

將進酒

君不見黃河之水天上來，
奔流到海不復回？
君不見高堂明鏡悲白髮，
朝如青絲暮成雪？
人生得意須盡歡，
莫使金樽空對月。
天生我才必有用，
千金散盡還復來。
烹羊宰牛且為樂，
會須一飲三百杯。
岑夫子，丹丘生，
將進酒，杯莫停。
與君歌一曲，
請君為我傾耳聽：
鍾鼓饌玉不足貴，
但願長醉不願醒。
古來聖賢皆寂寞，
唯有飲者留其名。
陳王昔時宴平樂，
斗酒十千恣讙謔。
主人為何言少錢？
徑須沽取對君酌。
五花馬、千金裘。
呼兒將出換美酒，
與爾同銷萬古愁。


Bring in the Wine (Li Bai, 701-762 AD, China)

Can’t you see the Yellow River coming from heaven,
Running to the sea with no return?
Can’t you see the mirror, high and bright,
Weeping over black hair at dawn, but white by night?
Enjoy life when there is prosperity.
Never tip a gold cup to the moon, empty.
Heaven has given me a gift and it’s my turn.
All my forture is squandered, but it will return.
Let's have fun - a feast with veal and beef.
Empty three hundred drinks before we leave.
Master Cen, Pupil Danqiu,
Bring in the wine and I'll keep pouring for you.
And I'll sing you a song.
Please listen and hum along:
The life style of the rich is all fake.
I’d rather stay drunk, never awake.
All sages in history were solitary,
Except those drinkers who left their glory.
When Lord Chen entertained in Ping-Le Palace,
Pricey wine was poured just for joyfulness.
Why worry about spending money, my host?
Bring in more wine and I’ll drink the most.
Take my spotted stallion and fancy fur.
Ask the lad to trade for the wine I prefer.
Drink away the eternal sorrow we all suffer.