Is it still worth mentioning it: we love our life in Annecy. Still, as unbelievable as it seems, there are some things I sometimes miss about London. Burgers, for instance.
It is a widely known – and accepted – fact: the French have straight-out-of-heaven-good bread. Then, we have great meat, too (yes, I know, from time to time, I switch from “the French” to “we”. It is called “a little bit of self esteem boost has never harmed anybody”) since we don’t believe in mad-cow beef, over here. Last but not least, the French also do very, very good fries indeed, although the Belgians will try to tell you they invented it all and theirs are better. But then, fries are called French fries; not Belgian, is all I need to say.
So, I will ask you, since it seems all the necessary ingredients for the perfect burger and its must-have side-dish are available; HOW COME IS IT IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND A DECENT BURGER PLACE IN ANNECY? I recently got so desperate that I even ventured into a Mc Do (the “French” translation for Mc Donald’s), of all places. Granted, it will never happen again, but this is a clear sign of how desperate things had become. I also toyed with the idea of opening my own burger joint, which would have been cool, organic, a real community place with a café, books, mountain photo exhibitions and even a little bouldering wall at the back if there was enough space. In a nutshell, the perfect place where everybody would have loved to stop for a Saturday post shopping snack or spend Sunday brunch. Then I realized I, for one, did not want to spend an early Saturday evening, let alone Sunday lunchtime, in a café when I could be happily having an epic somewhere in my mountains instead, and the idea quickly lost a tiny bit of its appeal.
Some may say that a burger is not exactly the epitome of British cuisine, and they would be right. But while there are a lot of things that the Brits took from their American cousins they’d better leave across the pond (in no particular order, “z” replacing “s”, fad diets, investment bankers), one may give them credit when they import something really worth it. Like burgers.
It is a widely known – and accepted – fact: the French have straight-out-of-heaven-good bread. Then, we have great meat, too (yes, I know, from time to time, I switch from “the French” to “we”. It is called “a little bit of self esteem boost has never harmed anybody”) since we don’t believe in mad-cow beef, over here. Last but not least, the French also do very, very good fries indeed, although the Belgians will try to tell you they invented it all and theirs are better. But then, fries are called French fries; not Belgian, is all I need to say.
So, I will ask you, since it seems all the necessary ingredients for the perfect burger and its must-have side-dish are available; HOW COME IS IT IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND A DECENT BURGER PLACE IN ANNECY? I recently got so desperate that I even ventured into a Mc Do (the “French” translation for Mc Donald’s), of all places. Granted, it will never happen again, but this is a clear sign of how desperate things had become. I also toyed with the idea of opening my own burger joint, which would have been cool, organic, a real community place with a café, books, mountain photo exhibitions and even a little bouldering wall at the back if there was enough space. In a nutshell, the perfect place where everybody would have loved to stop for a Saturday post shopping snack or spend Sunday brunch. Then I realized I, for one, did not want to spend an early Saturday evening, let alone Sunday lunchtime, in a café when I could be happily having an epic somewhere in my mountains instead, and the idea quickly lost a tiny bit of its appeal.
Some may say that a burger is not exactly the epitome of British cuisine, and they would be right. But while there are a lot of things that the Brits took from their American cousins they’d better leave across the pond (in no particular order, “z” replacing “s”, fad diets, investment bankers), one may give them credit when they import something really worth it. Like burgers.
2 comments:
Ok ok, convinced, I will take you out for dinner at the new organic burger place in Annecy-le-Vieux this week...Promised!
The husband :-)
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