After a two hour drive on an eerily empty auto-route, we arrived in Nice......well the road was virtually empty in one direction anyway, everyone seemed to by doing their best to get as far away from Nice as possible whereas we were intent on getting there!
Contrary to the usual French efficiency and excellence of their roads, we encountered a big problem when it came to actually finding a way into the airport.A new road layout was begun late last year and even by this time it is still not completed. As you come off the 8 lane motorway you suddenly find yourself almost in the centre of Nice, and in a grand canyon of high rise apartments blocks, but which way to go?
We knew the airport was somewhere on our right but exactly which road would take us there was anyone's guess! If we had been crows we could have hit the terminal in less than 10 minutes, if only it where that easy!
In true Irish fashion we choose the wrong lane and ended up on a magical mystery tour of the port area, and very nice in Nice it was too. The Mediterranean sea was blue, the sun was shining, Mercedes and Ferraris lined the quays, and the super yachts were bobbing in the bay of Cannes, but there was no where to do a u-turn!
After cruising the bay area we eventually made our way back letting the palm trees guide us and lo and behold there were signposts leading us right into the airport, we were saved and still on time!
By now it was lunch time and since it had been 5 hours since breakfast we were starving, stress also has a habit of increasing the appetite!
Once we had made our way through the usual trials of the 'baggage drop', queuing as if we were playing a game of snakes and ladders, then through security and passport control, we were able to head to the departure lounge and our last meal on French soil.
On our last visit here we arrived at the airport about 3 hours early so with ample time for lunch we investigated the French version of a 'food court' situated in terminal 2 above the main concourse where the French domestic and international long haul flights depart from. WOW! is the only way I can describe it! I highly recommend a visit but fast for 2 days before hand!
The French never neglect the stomach not even at the airport!
There were buffets of salads and cold meats and pate, fresh seafood dishes, pizzas made to order, full 3 course meals, soups, stews, pastas, rice dishes, spicy north African dishes, Arab dishes if it represented the population of France, then it was on the menu.
Then there were the tempting desserts, cheeses, breads of all kinds and of course an array of coffees and enough booze to put an Irish bar to shame!
We just couldn't resist trying a little of everything and we certainly did justice to the buffets, and as we boarded our flight I'd say we were well over the weight limit!
Surprisingly the buffet selection where you could have whatever from the salads, main course of your choice hot or cold, was only 16 euro per person with dessert or cheese and coffee an extra 6 euro.
The 'plat du jour' consisting of a main course (and there were 6 to choose from) and a dessert of your choice with coffee was only 12 euro per person. Simply delicious!
I doubt there is anywhere in Ireland you could eat so well yet so reasonably!
This time on our return journey we decided to make our way straight through to the departure area for the United Kingdom flights, positive that we would find food outlets there of equal excellence where we could indulge in a repeat performance.
How disappointed we were!
From what we encountered I can only deduce that the French have maintained the mindset that those from the UK/Ireland know nothing, and have no desire to know anything about food, because the selection on offer is certainly proof of their belief in our indifference to what they deem one of the most important pleasures in life.
A Frenchman once said that the British (including those from the emerald isle) like to murder their meat twice...once at slaughter and secondly when they cook it....I thought those days were long forgotten, obviously not!
We were greeted by a single food outlet that consisted of a small chilled food counter with a menu so limited I can repeat it exactly here for you!
Along with the obvious drinks of tea, coffee, hot chocolate and water, there were the usual fizzies you would find in any of our corner shops.
To eat, there was a selection of sandwiches, the only upside of these was that they were in baguette rolls!
You had a choice between 'chicken salad' which was of slices of something that at one time probably did come from a chicken but has since been chopped and processed beyond recognition and then reformed into something resembling a chicken breast but not quite with its artificial char grilled effect, then sliced and added to the bread along with a smear of mayonnaise that I was sure had never seen an egg, a leaf or two of limp flat lettuce and a couple of opaque slivers of tomato.
Then there was the 'tuna mayonnaise' this effort had tuna that had surely been put through the food processor and now resembled a fish paste more commonly seen during rationing at the height of the second world war!
Next was the 'baguette anglais'...yes...I kid you not...that's exactly what it was called! you had a choice of either plain ham with butter or slices of some unknown plastic cheese and ham with neither a dollop of relish nor mustard in sight!.For 'dessert' there were doughnuts....you know... the one's that come frozen and pre-iced with sprinkles or dipped in what passes for chocolate, where it is simply a matter of leaving them out at room temperature to defrost before serving them up and passing them off as freshly baked and glazed....yuck!....there were also the requisite pre-frozen chocolate brownies and chocolate muffins and wonder of wonders....scones!..... first time I have ever seen a cherry scone in France! but sadly not freshly baked, they were the same as those you will find in every cheap cafe or airport coffee shop, mass produced in some factory where cost effectiveness and profit margins supersede flavour.
The piece de resistance of the 'buffet' were the crisps and tortilla chips! and that was it.
We stood there dumbfounded and confused, our bellies clinging to our back bones with hunger. Had we been unknowingly teleported to some motorway service station on the M6?
Where were the lovely displays of assorted salads and fruits? we had been expecting, the platters of cold charcuterie, the bowls of tapenade, the pate's encroute, the fresh pastas, the standard midday hot meals guaranteed to set you up until it was time for dinner, the apricot glazed fresh soft fruit tarts, the fresh apple or pear tarts, the creme caramels or tart au flan's, the selections of ice creams, the rich chocolate fondant, almond or vanilla gateaux, the fresh choux pastries glutted with cream, the cheeses of the region, the fresh from the ovens breads, the bottles of red, white and rose wines, the aperitifs of pastis or kir or the calvados or marc de provence for after?......so I asked the man taking the orders and the lady taking the money at the till...."is this all there is? have you no salads, no hot dishes? no fruit tarts? even bread and cheese would be better than this"
Their reply was kind and sympathetic rather than offended and accompanied by two serious Gallic shrugs?......c'est comme ca!.....this is what the people ask for they said.
The lady viewed our disappointment with sympathy telling me she didn't like anything here either, she always went to the restaurant on the second floor for her lunch, along with the rest of the airport staff.
That was all very well for her but we were now trapped behind passport control and couldn't retreat, there were only two ways out of there, either on a plane or get arrested! so we were stuck, the English channel sized gap between the British/Irish and French food expectations slowly sinking in.
So great was our hunger we had to accept and take what was offered, I choose the ham baguette!
As we sat there forcing the food into our hollowed out stomachs and washing it down with copious amounts of mineral water, I just couldn't believe it....how on earth, after spending one or maybe two weeks if, they are lucky, in a country that has so much wonderful food in it's everyday cafe, supermarkets and truck stops never mind it's restaurants, how could any visitor or holiday maker wish to end their holiday by eating what I can only call fodder?... something tasteless to fill the emptiness.
But seemingly this is what the English/Irish tourist wants and asks for, so the lady serving told me... I had to ask myself... have we as a people really not learned anything about food over the last two decades?
As I sat there I had a vision of English speaking tourists sitting in cafes, restaurants and routiers all over France ordering nothing but steak haches and faux fillet's well done... with chips..... (just don't tell them their fillet is actually 'cheval') , all the while steering clear of the fresh shrimp pasta flambéed with Armagnac and finished with butter, cream and tarragon or the baked local goats cheese encroute with salad, or even the 'plat du jour', that lunch time staple always favoured by the locals who eat lunch in the village cafe, that comes with the dessert of the day, usually a rich, velvety chocolate mousse, lemon tart or 'flan' a simple baked egg custard made with proper cream and good vanilla, and with an espresso coffee to follow......even though it's only 12 euro, and the burger they have just ordered with no salad is 18 euro.... on its own!
Ireland has had a hugely burgeoning food scene for many years now that continues to flourish even after the celtic tiger has stopped growling, and with the arrival of so many different cultures into our country and the availability of flights out of this country, I was sure that our tastes had become more cosmopolitan and adventurous, maybe I am wrong, maybe we epicureans are in the minority among the indigenous population and the real truth is that the Irish still prefer their meat murdered twice and their cabbage boiled for a week.....someone please tell me...... am I wrong?
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