Gastroplod

waiting in line at the boucherie, Place St Francois, Vieux Nice

Talk about a view – this was mine for a full 50 minutes last Saturday.  We waited and we waited and we waited: and then we waited some more.  All I wanted was to pick up a couple of grillades de boeuf at a great price, but the entire population of Vieux Nice descended simultaneously on la Boucherie Chez Francis, standing 12 or more deep,  with a mission to supply themselves and their extended families with sufficient meat to outlast the current geological era.  And every piece cut precisely, if you don’t mind…. We noticed a certain correlation between the apparent poverty of a customer and the exactitude they demanded of their butcher (of whom I counted 10 either working the counter or sawing away in the backroom).  Escalopes of this, paupiettes of that – yes, joint those rabbits and cut their heads in half while you’re about it.  Surely some kind of class warfare going on – the well-dressed expressed their outrage at the wait, only to be rebuffed by the garrulously painstaking staff, while each scruffy personage, once having achieved first place at the counter, prolonged their position in power for as long as their wallet extended.  Many euros and even more minutes later they would finally relinquish prime place and saunter over to the cash register to pay and collect their spoils – all bagged, tagged and delivered by overhead conveyor belt. What an amazing operation.

the crowd starts to thin - note mountain of orange body bags bottom left

Happily we had already bought tickets for a charity gala at Nice Opera House – a splendid neo-classical edifice with sumptuous interior – which turned out to be an evening of unmitigated musical delights and the perfect gilt-edged, velvet-trimmed, crystal-chandeliered antidote to our afternoon of waiting in line with the hoi polloi: and just a five minute walk from home through the Old Town’s pedestrianised streets.

Boucherie Chez Francois : Place St. Francois, Vieux Nice

Nice Opéra House : 4 & 6 rue Saint-Francois-de-Paul, 06300 Nice
Tél. 04 92 17 40 00