Le Saint Pierre Restaurant, Golfe-Juan, France

June 12, 2007

We really exerted ourselves the previous evening at a wedding, and blasted our hangovers away on the beach the following day. The only fitting end to a day like this was to treat ourselves to a slap up meal by the water’s edge, in the balmy Cannes air.

Prawn cocktail appears to have become a holiday staple for me, or in this case, Emice d’avocat crevettes. It was a light and refreshing starter, in contrast to the general oiliness of most of my other meals so far. The fresh prawns had the meaty, chunky texture and sea flavour I love, and the avocado was perfectly ripe: creamy, soft, literally melting in the mouth. The portion size could easily have made this a main course, but the contents of the plate remained light enough to keep this as a starter.

My companions persuaded me that as we were in France, I really should opt for veal, and they reassurred me that the cruelties associated with veal production are old fashioned and out of date. Given the topics of our heated debates later on in the meal, and the controversial opinions that came out, I am dubious about their claims now, but when in Cannes etc etc. So, I went for the Escalope a la creme.

The champignons bit somehow got lost in translation, as did the pile of spaghetti sans sauce. I was left with a meal that I wouldn’t normally touch with a bargepole. The mushroom sauce was creamy-ish and had a sharpness that allowed me to swallow the mushrooms. The veal was uneventful, and really did nothing for me at all, and the spaghetti added nothing to the dish but extra carbs. My assessment of the meal possibly says more about the way I have brainwashed myself into a kind of ‘protein good, carbs bad’ philosophy, but generally I don’t think this is a bad thing.