Fish ‘n chips in Valbonne

One of the most evocative attractions for me to move to Provence when the opportunity arose some 12 years ago was the food. A healthy Mediterranean diet, all that olive oil, fresh vegetables, salads in the outdoors and although not by any means the only lure, it was certainly amongst them. So what was I doing in a Fish And Chip shop in Valbonne?

Like when some climber was asked why he was tackling Everest, I did it because in was there. Valbonne is already very Anglicised, a fact that I personally like because it has the best of both worlds, all the French stuff that attracts us Brits, the sun, the quality and quantity of restaurants, the ancient unspoiled village with a sun dappled square, the architecture, the sea within 20 minutes drive but you can get away without speaking French, there is even an Indian restaurant (how British is that! – very British; it is the most popular food of the nation), and now we have a Fish And Chip shop, so I felt compelled to try it and quite decent it is too.

When I discovered last week that it was about to open I was intrigued, but when it became clear that it was being run by a French family I groaned with disappointment. It is a bit like how a Frenchman might view the idea of escargots or frogs legs being served in an English pub, but they nearly got it right. Hake or cod very nicely cooked without too much batter, mushy peas, and as you can see from my picture today even supplying HP Sauce and Heinz Gherkin Relish, but the let down was the chips. However, overall a very good effort, except for the price. 16 euros for cod and chips? That’s about £13.80 at today’s excellent Currencies Direct exchange rates – it would have been half that amount the Arundel chippy, but I guess you don’t get to sit down and have a generous glass of wine with it there. If you did you might get beaten up for being gay.

I know I have not been very active with this column recently but life is still going on down here. The regular Gentlemen’s lunches have followed Friday morning tennis as night follows day. As is customary, the Wingco and I thrashed Master Mariner Mundell and Blind Lemon Milsted in two sets of blinding tennis last Friday (blinding due to the position of the sun and my judicious use of the lob), but I don’t recall what happened the week before. For new readers of this column the venue for lunch is always the Auberge St Donat which has a fixed 4 course menu including 1/4 wine for 16 euros. The operative phrase here is “including wine”. Should there be three of you dining and collectively you want red, white and rose wine (a tricolour the Wingco calls it) they bring you a bottle each. Once consumed one looks around the restaurant to see if others have left any and then careful wine minesweeping (winesweeping?) is enacted. Because of the slight nautical connotation to the word minesweeping you will not be surprised to find out that the Master Mariner Mundell is particular adept in this department. In fact I may hereafter refer to him as the Master Minesweeper Mundell.

Banter is at the centre of discussion and this collection of mostly public schoolboys generally take kindly to my presence even if it mostly so they can extract some humour at my expense . I like to think I give as good as I get, which is usually signalled by comments aimed at me such as “well he didn’t go to a proper school” or “whilst we were being educated he was out nicking cars”. This is often after discussions about spanking or having a fag (this is a particular area of deliberate misunderstanding on my part. Having a fag when I was young was about sloping out to the cycle sheds for a crafty No 6 tipped, whereas for the public schoolboys there is a very different interpretation).

As they might say “toodle pip for now, see you after the next exeat”.

Chris France