Mediterranean Part V: Cannes, France

I’ll admit I was not too excited about going to France. I have heard that the food is very rich and usually over the top gourmet. Foie gras, escargot, and rich meaty dishes cooked with heavy amounts of red wine? Actually, the last one sounds delicious. Having already spent enough money this trip, I was hoping I would be able to find some decent street food. It was an overcast and windy day when we arrived in Cannes.


There’s not much going on in Cannes when the film festival is not there, but there is still a lot to see and eat. We saw the famous theater, Chuck Norris’ hand print, and some fancy hotels. Then we walked a couple of blocks in and strolled down the back streets and alleys. We stumbled upon a farmers market that was closing up (we missed the good early morning rush). Since we didn’t have any way to prepare fresh food if we bought it, we moved on to bigger and better things. Like fresh crepes.


This crepe was one of the most delicious morsels of food I ate the entire trip. The fact that I stood there and watched a guy make my crepe from start to finish was amazing. Real French crepes are big and thin. As you can see by the picture the crepe maker is approximately 18” across. The light batter of egg, milk, butter, sugar, and wheat flour is poured onto the middle of the flat iron and spread around by a little wooden dowel contraption that evenly spreads the batter across the entire iron. The wooden tool is dipped in water first so the batter doesn’t stick to it. It is then spread so thin it becomes translucent. Once the first side is done, he effortlessly flipped it over and asked what I wanted inside (I think. I don’t speak French). With a choice of fillings, the wife and I went with our favorite. The crepe man then produces a large jar of Nutella (just like the ones in Venice) with what I thought looked like a basting brush in it and proceeded to coat my crepe with a thin layer of the chocolate hazelnut spread. Since the dough is so thin he did not brush the filling on. Rather he sort of rolled it on. A few seconds later he folded the crepe in half three time to create a pie shape and handed me my first French food. Here is a picture of me scalding the roof of my mouth since I couldn’t wait to eat it.


The crepe was hot and doughy and sweet. The dough had more of an egg taste to it than I expected, but not in a bad way. The sweetness of the melted Nutella was out of this world. I could have scarfed down several more of these. As I sat there eating and pondering what my next crepe would be filled with (a little Grand Marnier perhaps) I saw some place else that I had to go to my first time in France. I am a big movie buff and I *had* to find out what they called it here.

Yup, McDonald’s. And it really is the Royal with cheese. We didn’t eat here.


After more strolling around Cannes we decided to stop for lunch. There were two stands very similar in menu almost right next to each other. One had a person in almost every chair. The other had almost all open chairs. We went to the first one.



For lunch we went with a Roma Panini (It had been three days since we were in Italy and we missed it). Prosciutto with Roma tomatoes and fresh mozzarella on a grilled baguette. We have a panini maker at home, but ours don’t even compare to this one. The sandwich was grilled for so long and the tomatoes were so sweet they almost melted into a sauce on the bread. The cheese was fresh and bright white and the saltiness of the prosciutto balanced everything out. The bread was very fresh tasting. Nice and crunchy n the outside and warm and slightly chewing on the inside. The panini was pressed in the grill so most of the air pockets in the bread had collapsed which added to the textures of the food. The wife burnt the roof of her mouth on the cheese. And (here’s the best part) they served beer. We ordered up a couple of Stella Artois (Belgian beer) to go with our Roma Panini while we were in France.

We still had time to kill so we walked back towards a candy shop that the wife had seen earlier. Both being the huge fans of candy, we stopped in and bought a kilo or so. It all looked good but nothing was really familiar. The wife is a huge gummy fan so we got a bunch of brightly colored, sugar coated chewy gummy candies. Oh my GOD were they horrible. There was no name brand or even any flavors listed. We picked our selection purely on looks. Bad idea, by the way.


On the way back to the ship we picked up a bottle of champagne and walked past this place. Chink’s Thai Restaurant. With a chef named Puki, you can’t go wrong.



That night on the ship I tried escargot for the first time. I don’t have any pictures so I’ll just say this. The snails in this dish acted purely as a carrier for butter and garlic. And it was good. Not chewy or rubbery like I had expected them to be. They were in fact quite smooth and almost melted away into the garlicky butter sauce that they swam in. Next stop, Tuscany. I’m drooling just thinking about the food I ate there.