this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2024
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When I was traveling internationally there was a few countries where packing snacks was required. This was especially true if you were stuck in conventions or meetings for the week.
France was the consistently the absolute worst country for food. Everybody pretends to know what they are doing making complex dishes. Here's a hint, they don't. I had more inedible food served to me in France than any other country I traveled too.
So why the Michelin star system started in France makes perfect sense to me. In a nation of shitty food, these are passibly edible.
As for the marketing side of it: artificially creating a impression of superiority and exclusivity is a core technique to sell luxury items. It's been around for as long as some people have believed they were superior to others. Yes it is dumb, but it works.
Next time avoid tourist traps and go to places listed on le fooding or, well, the Michelin guide :)
I have to side with @The_[email protected] here.
I live in Belgium and I've been to France many times, for both work and leisure. I've eaten very well in France on occasion, but generally speaking it is indeed harder to find good places to eat, and reviews and even recommendations by local coworkers often haven't been in line with my own experience. The amount of overpriced leather shoe sole steaks that I've had to endure... Paris is obviously the worst, because of the many tourist traps and it being an unfriendly city in general, but even in the Provence and in smaller towns, we had to be more mindful of which place to pick.
Especially finding good "simple" food in a casual setting can be a challenge, I mean, nobody wants to do the full white tablecloth 4-course fine dining thing every night. Here in Belgium, even in touristy places, you can always find a decent brasserie or casual restaurant where they serve the simple classics well, things like moules frites, a decent entrecôte, flemish stew, or even a simple pasta or burger.
There are bistros like that everywhere in France (minus the moules frites I guess :), maybe I'm used to spotting the nice ones but I've almost never had a bad experience with them.
Next time you should check on le fooding like I said above, that's what I use when I'm in a new place and so far I've never been disappointed.
I know, it's just that I have had more mediocre experiences with them, to say it kindly.
Didn't know about le fooding, will try to keep it in mind next time.
This actually reminds me that I had one of the worst steaks in my life in Paris; I asked for medium but it was fully cooked, overcooked actually, yet cold. My onion soup was also cold. The only silver lining was we got a more expensive bottle of wine and only later back at our room noticed on the receipt they didn’t charge us for it. That was our second bad result after looking at “highly rated” nearby listings on Google Maps in Paris so we stopped using Google Maps. Fortunately my wife’s aunt had given her a Michelin “Routiers” book, which I think was less fancy than the standard Michelin guide, and we ate at an excellent restaurant the next night, just not as close to our rental.
It was such a a stark contrast when I would hit 3 to 5 countries in 2 weeks. The only places close to as bad as France was Chile and Tunisia. And honestly it wasn't inedible in either of those countries just very bland and boring.
It seriously was a shock the fist time I went and put it down to bad luck. Then every return trip was exactly the same.
Thank you for the website; I’ll send this to my wife. Her parents emigrated from France to Canada before she was born and we went to France last year with her parents to visit their family, her first time over since she was a small child. We’re hoping to get back a lot sooner!
Such a very french answer...
When traveling for internationally for business, as the guest to the country you don't pick where you eat. The host normally takes people out to a decent place or has food catered. So these were all places picked by locals.
My bad, I assumed you'd have done a little bit of research and exploring before labeling the extensive and varied French cuisine as "shitty".