Wednesday, March 03, 2010

Who Dunnit?

I was most disappointed this afternoon. There I was in Carrouf doing the week's shop, buying packets of rocket, smoked salmon, chorizo, cheese, nibbles and bread - the sort of thing you make sarnies out of - and when I offered 2 of my Tickets Restaurant, they were refused.

The law on using TR has always been draconian, it just wasn't enforced. Now it is which means I don't think I'll be using them much. You can only use them on weekdays on the sort of food I never or hardly ever buy. You can buy ready-prepared and ready-to-eat meals such as salad and sarnies, and that's about it. You can't use them to buy food to make your own sarnies or salads which I think is most spiteful.

If the Powers That Be think I'll be dashing into a restaurant every day from now on, they can think again. I won't, because I go home for lunch and watch Agatha Christie mysteries on ITV3 followed by Wycliffe. You don't get that in a restaurant. You get, often, average food, served slowly, and I don't eat that much in the middle of the day anyway. One has to consider one's figure...

I won't be buying ready-prepared salads either. They have a funny taste. I occasionally buy sarnies, especially on the road to Nice or back, with my TWDB, but that's not exactly a frequent occurrence. So I'm gutted really, that I can't use Tickets Restaurant in Carrouf any more. It was dead handy. I'll have to try Intermarche instead.

It's funny how I'm going through a phase of watching Poirot and other Agatha Christie mysteries at the moment. When I was sick last week, I watched everything like that I could get my hands on, and if it wasn't AC, it was Wycliffe, and Heartbeat. What's really strange is that when I mentioned this to my mother, she said she's also glued to AC mysteries, and that my brother is going through a reading phase of AC books.

Weird.

Talking of books, apparently I should be on Amazon soon. I'm quite gobsmacked at the prospect. It's not my long-suffering novel that's finally hit the shelves, but the kiddy books I was commissioned to write. Watch dis space!

7 comments:

  1. In what way is a chorizo sausage NOT a ready meal? These people want to get with the vibe in 21st century France.

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  2. Congratulations on the books...the novel will follow.
    Spiteful, isn't it, the way they're interpreting your ticket. I wouldn't go to a restaurant either...too much risk of food poidoning from the stuff they're buying in ready made from the supermarkets.

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  3. Can you not save up the tickets and use them in a really good restaurant for a special occasion? I seem to recall doing this in Paris, or has this practice now been restricted as well?

    I am looking forward to searching for your book on Amazon, let us know when it hit's.

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  4. Jon- it's not actually between two slices of bread in the form of a sarnie. Talk about splitting hairs (or not, for hygienic reasons).

    Fly - I avoid those places too. I can do better at home, but that's not saying much.

    Dash- you can only use a max of 2 now at any one time. I can people just not getting TR any more, especially as they have to pay half the value. What's the point if you can't use them?

    Mind you, this is France so maybe there'll be a subtle but inevitable unofficial relaxing of the rules to keep TR afloat.

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  5. Following the TR discussion and reading your posts and others comments, I have come to the conclusion that France is definitely resting on it's Laurels, as far as restaurants are concerned. There is not one great restaurant in our department. They are all at best, mediocre, I have a confession to make, we rent out part of our house as a gite, and when the guests arrive, they always ask us for restaurant recommendations, well I can't recommend any of them, I just tell them to go to Spain! This is a dreadful state of affairs for a country that has a reputation for good food! What do you think? I also get really pissed off, when my French friends slag off the food in the UK (they have never been)which has come on in leaps and bounds since the 1950's.

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  6. Please excuse my spelling and grammar, I have been at the wine again!

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  7. You're right, Dash. Many French restaurants think they can dish up any old vacuum-packed rubbish and the dumb clients will think it's great.

    That might be the case for tourists, although I have my doubts, but you'd think a stroppy French crowd would complain loudly. Mind you, with the rapidity that restaurants open and fold, perhaps their clients are complaining, with their feet.

    I get really sarcastic when I hear the same old blah blah remarks about eating out in the UK. The stereotype from the middle of the last century really doesn't apply any more.

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