Fine Dining Debacle

The mere mention of France conjures up vivid images in people’s minds: the lofty spire of the Eiffel Tower sparkling at night, the palatial Louvre museum housing some of the world’s most famous artwork, and the magnificent chateaux of the Loire region showcasing the wealth and power of their original owners. But one particular image is so synonymous with France that it isn’t confined to a single location and is ubiquitously found in every corner of the country – the fine dining of French cuisine. French haute-cuisine is world-renowned as high-quality gourmet dishes created by master chefs, and evokes an air of arrogance served by haughty waiters. But underneath this pompous façade lies a plethora of amazingly delicious food that is an essential indulgence when visiting the country.

It is into this culinary world that I enter one evening, stepping into a fancy restaurant to experience a traditional multi-course dinner and being immediately greeted by waitstaff wearing specially tailored suits. I feel conspicuously under-dressed in my wrinkled khakis and polo shirt, but am politely ushered to an empty table and handed a menu written entirely in French. Fortunately, I took several years of French language classes in high school and college, so I have a rudimentary understanding of basic phrases that allows me to stumble through ordering dinner. After browsing through the menu and hearing his recommendations, I place my order with the waiter in broken French, and he leaves to inform the kitchen.

A basket of freshly baked bread rolls is swiftly placed on the table, which is a welcome sight to my grumbling stomach. I immediately swoop in and place a roll on my plate, eagerly anticipating the taste of fresh bread smothered in melting butter to whet my appetite. Rather than tear the bread apart with my fingers like an American barbarian, I assume an air of elegance in this fancy restaurant and pick up my knife to slice the roll in half. Without explanation, my hand slips and the bread roll flies off my plate and lives up to its name by continuing to roll halfway across the restaurant, nearly tripping a passing waiter. To add injury to insult, I notice that my hand is the same color as the red flush of utter embarrassment washing across my face. Despite using a dull butter knife to cut the bread, I had somehow managed to slice open my finger with the blunt blade, and a stream of blood was draining from my flesh. Grabbing the closest object I could find to stanch the bleeding, I wrapped my finger with the elegant white cloth napkin from my lap, forever staining the napkin with my ineptitude. Despite wanting to run out of the restaurant in humiliation, I kept my composure and anxiously waited for the appetizer to arrive to distract my nerves.

My first dish finally arrived, and I could smell the comingling scents of butter and garlic emanating from my escargot platter. Keen to redeem my prior blunder, I carefully reached for my fork and cautiously ate each delicious morsel of escargot one methodical bite at a time. Despite the unappealing impression that eating snails can evoke in people, I truly found them to be delicious, and I savored each one with delight. Having eaten the final escargot without any further mishaps, I was regaining my confidence and ready to take on the next course of the meal.

The meal fortunately progressed without any more troubles, and I devoured the remaining dishes of the dinner which included some braised chicken in wine sauce (coq au vin) and a little bit of duck liver (foie gras) as a side. After the main courses were completed, I opted for the cheese tray to accompany dessert. The French truly prize their diverse cheeses, and I wanted to partake in this experience. Not realizing that a cheese course was such a production, I was startled when the waiter rolled over a large cart filled with twenty types of cheeses underneath a plastic lid. My mouth began to salivate at the thought of tasting new flavors of cheese that I’d never heard of before.

With a quick motion of his arm, the waiter lifted the lid off the tray, exposing the prized contents… and that’s when it happened. The olfactory overload of the combination of intense cheese odors hit my nose with a fierce uppercut, causing me to reflexively cringe in repulsion before I could regain my composure. Smirking in victory at having conquered yet another boorish American, the waiter proceeded to describe each particular cheese in lengthy detail, starting with the hard cheeses and gradually concluding with the soft and moldy goat cheeses that literally melted on the plate from decay. Throughout the entire demonstration, the scents of atrociously smelly cheeses enveloped the entire table, settling like a cloud upon my being and soaking into my clothes. Holding my breath and starting to go faint at this point, I quickly pointed at a couple of the less repellant cheeses and made my selection in the hopes that the lid of death would soon be lowered back onto the tray. After a dramatic display of slicing the cheeses and delicately placing them onto my plate, the waiter obliged my silent pleas and finally sealed up the rancid dairy display and rolled it onward to the next unwitting victim.

Recovering from the attack on my senses as the air slowly cleared, I began to taste my cheese selections with trepidation, and they were surprisingly delicious! Turns out you can’t necessarily judge a cheese by its pungency, because I savored each bite with honest delight and cleaned the entire plate. At the end of a nearly three hour dinner, my stomach was stuffed and my eyelids were starting to droop from exhaustion. Emptying out the rest of my bank account, I paid the waiter and thanked him for a wonderful dinner despite appearances to the contrary, and I began the short walk back to the hotel. For many reasons, this would be a traditional French meal I would never forget, as it had pushed all of my senses to the limit. And in the process, I apparently found the trick to clearing out a wide path on a busy sidewalk as well, as all the pedestrians avoided the cloud of cheese funk that wafted around me the entire solitary stroll home.

The infamous cheese tray on full display

Some foie gras delicately prepared