Indian in Valbonne? order early

How was the new The Indian restaurant, the Kashmir, in Valbonne? Answer, still don’t know because of desperately slow service.

Patience, and that nice lady decorator, are not two expressions that one uses lightly in the same sentence. Add to this the extra volatility that is in evidence when she is hungry and you have the (nearly) human equivalent of an explosive unstable compound. To add further to the blue touch-paper dimension to this mix, sprinkle a manic dribble (this is a collective noun I have just invented to describe of young children being allowed to run around shrieking unsupervised in a small restaurant) of under 5’s, and you have a recipe for, well, no recipe at all.

We decided to go earlyish, on Friday, before 8pm and were immediately confronted by a plethora of shrieking hyper-active infants, and, after sitting down for 2 minutes, that nice lady decorator snorted loudly and made some far from under her breath comments about kindergartens and e numbers and badly behaved children, so I decided that perhaps a short hiatus before eating might be in order. We thus adjourned to La Kavanou close by, with the idea of returning a little later when the nasty little dervishes had exhausted themselves. We entered the wine bar to find it buzzing.

Amongst those buzzing were Viv and Matt “Cornish tsunami” Frost (use the search option below if you still haven’t read of his publicly stated sexual experience at the seaside in his youth), Matt having a purple patch (on his shirt) having already spilled a glass of red wine down himself, before 8pm. Not entirely unexpectedly, Viv, his long-suffering wife, remembers nothing of this amorous seaside adventure when his recent headline was discussed, even intimating that perhaps it was all a fantasy.

Anyway, after a bottle of chenin blanc, we felt ready to try again with the Kashmir, and when we arrived it was filling up nicely, indeed it was full when we left some 45 minutes later, having failed even to place our order. They say that dynamite, just before it is going to explode sweats profusely, but this is what I was doing as I sat in front of a female, impersonating a volcano, on the point of exploding as the waiting continued. Matt Frost, who is transpires has a brother called Steve Frost, a stand up comedian and well known for his Carling Black Label advert (whom I had met at Glastonbury a few years ago with old pal John Otway), came in to distract her for 10 minutes, having ordered a take-away, which was just being readied as we left. Given the sloth of the kitchen staff (in fact, were there any kitchen staff? At least 20 of the 30 diners had empty plates in front of them as we departed, hungry) I think he must have ordered it about last Wednesday. Thus in my occasional role as human bomb disposal officer, I gently guided her out of the restaurant up to the Valbonnaise, where we had menus within 30 seconds, and quite decent food on the table in under 10 minutes, proving that it can be done.

Saturday dawned bright and sunny, so golf clubs were dusted off and I went in search of the perfect round of golf with the landlubbers, or more likely, some juicy gossip for this column. However, they have got wise,they know that I am waiting for the smallest slip, the slightest indication of something untoward and so there is nothing much to reveal, except to say that I have confirmation that purple or mauve are still in, as evidenced by my picture today, below:

The man in purple recommends, well, purple. I am so relieved to have this comfirmed

Chris France