Jour de fête

I'd like to take this opportunity to say Happy Bastille Day to any Frenchies or Frenchie-loving non-Frenchies out there.

Not being a Frenchie, my earliest and fondest memories of Bastille Day are from French classes in high school, where Miss Woodman would bring in French onion soup, or some chocolate and a loaf of bread. We'd dutifully whack a few chunks of Cadbury Dairy Milk into a slice of white sandwich loaf and hey presto: pain au chocolat. I remember thinking 'Chocolate in bread? Man, those French are weird'. Of course when I went to the real France and had a real pain au chocolat, the penny (or the centime, as it were) dropped and I realised how inferior my high-school education was to actually being in France. I began to question whether Miss W had actually been to France, or whether she'd just translated pain au chocolat a bit too literally. Though when I went to Belgium and tried that chocolate spread they put on everything, it struck me that milk chocolate on bread wasn't that bad after all.

I just noticed while at lunch today that the Corner Bistrot in Bank St has "temporarily closed" and will be reopening somewhere else (hopefully on a corner, which will avoid a lot of confused looks from would-be patrons). I've been booked to eat there a couple of times but have never actually made it along, which is a bummer because it looked so cosy and, y'know, French. Also, Café 54 closed down ages ago. C took me there for my birthday a few years back. The food smelled and tasted great but the location kinda stunk. I went to 66 a while back too, and that was fantastic but it was before the new owners took over so I can't really comment either way on what that's like now. The only other French restaurant in town I've been to is La Guillotine, which is très authentique if a little pricey.

Feel free to insert your own snail or frog-on-crutches jokes in the comments.