Put that in your bouche and mangez-le!

It is a common myth, particularly in France, that French food is simply the best. Sometimes yes but as often as not, not! A lifetime of eating out in France and elsewhere proves that London restaurants now have the edge over French ones for inventive, delicious and often reasonably priced meals. If you aim for the top in France, you may get the best but if you don't want to spend a king's ransom, you can often wonder where they got their reputation.

Take last week. Lunch in an establishment right on the coast where, on a clear day, you can see the white cliffs of Dover and where the basement sports two large tanks full of live lobsters. It is a fish restaurant and the daily menu with half a dozen choices for each course, ends up offering you just two types of fish with slight variations, a coquille de poisson which contains only salmon and a dessert which is meant to be choux pastry filled with whipped cream, in spite of affirming that the cream really was fresh cream, turns out to be disgusting whipped UHT cream. No vegetables, just boiled potatoes.

Many of the cheaper restaurants offer only tinned vegetables and pommes frites are the order of the day. Horse meat is not unknown either. In many parts of France, the restaurants are very dependent on the english and many of them make the effort to have an english menu. Where they get their english from is another matter. La soupe de poisson avec sa garniture (croutons, rouille and grated cheese) comes out as fish soup and its table linen in one good restaurant in Le Touquet. At least that's better than in Spain where one  menu offering a dish of pork and green beans - cerdo y judia - came up with  pork with jews!