The Gastronaut

Spent whole day walking the show. Quite a few customers here and also customers of our distributors, so much talking shop and promises of eternal collaboration (i.e. we’ll send you an order soon…). I had to stop at the stand of our gastronome Belgian and refresh myself every now and then with a cool glass of Corsendonk beer.

Dinner tonight with my largest German customer, who is also exhibiting at the show. I select a Paris institution: La Coupole in Boulevard Montparnasse, a brasserie founded in 1925 and still going strong. It’s a large place, with about 300 couverts. Good, solid, traditional brasserie menu: I choose the foie gras with the obligatory sweet white wine (a Gewürztraminer Spätlese from Alsace), followed by an extremely tender Chateaubriand with Béarnaise sauce – a far cry from the tough shoe I had yesterday! Ile flottante as a dessert – that is, “floating islands” of hard beaten egg whites on a lake of sauce anglaise (=custard). Yum!

My guests were suitably impressed by the food and the lively atmosphere (not many restaurants are packed full in Ludwigshafen on a Wednesday night…), and seemed to enjoy their soupe au poisson and grilled sole meunière. They even more enjoyed the bottle of Sancerre we drank. On my next trip to Germany, they promised to invite me to their favourite Gasthof that apparently does an excellent Saumagen. I’m not sure if this is a treat or a threat….

Back to the hotel at 11 pm, where I spent a good half hour talking with a garrulous Tunisian receptionist and his Japanese girlfriend. A weird conversation – he started off trying to flog me an Ecuadorian Panama hat, then moved on to world politics, throwing in references to European integration, the thinking of Sartre and Nietzsche, Chinese population trends, and the role of black Africa in Arab thinking. We concluded agreeing that de Gaulle was right in keeping the Brits out of Europe in 1967 and that Berlusconi is a shite. I assure you that we were all quite sober!

After the morning’s airport excitement, I finally get to board the 11:30 Air France flight to Paris. Compares very badly with Ryanair. Although there *is* some kind of service, it consists of an orange juice and a bag of peanuts, at almost eight times the cost of the flight last week to Stansted! Lo-cost competition has not arrived on the Paris route…

Arrival at CDG, then smooth transfer to the RER train towards Paris. The cleaning exhibition I am visiting is away on the other side of town at Porte de Versailles, and with two metro changes it takes me a good hour to get there. A little larger than the UK exhibition, and full of my products, with most stands displaying a few sprayers. Our gastronome Belgian distributor (who handles this sector) is doing his job well!

On to the hotel before dinner. I am staying near Montparnasse, an area of Paris I am relatively unfamiliar with, but close to the exhibition halls. The hotel room is a tiny box with barely enough room for the bed – not a good choice! Never mind, I won’t be staying much in there! Check out the TV news, praise Chirac for standing up to Anglo-American neo-imperialism. Have you read the report that the Bush admin has already divvied up the post-war Iraq reconstruction spoils? Of course Cheney’s Halliburton is getting the job of rebuilding the oil fields after the cruise missiles have finished destroying them. British companies are squealing as they haven’t had their “fair share” of the loot. Disgusting.

Anyway, back to the nitty-gritty. I walk along the lively Boulevard Montparnasse, full of theatres, cinemas and many restaurants. Spring is almost here, and the dehors of the cafés are full of people watching the world go by. My chosen restaurant tonight is Rotonde, Blvd. Montparnasse 105, at the corner of Blvd. Raspail. I regret to report it was not a good choice. As starter, I chose a charlotte de saumon something-or-other that turned out to be a baked potato with cheese filling on a bed of smoked salmon. Not a good combination. As seconds, I select the entrecote au beurre à la fleur de sel that promised to be a juicy steak, but turned out as a rather chewy, fatty, hunk of meat. I was not impressed by the accompanying gratin dauphinois either. No garlic to be tasted when the thing should have been reeking with it! I console myself with the light and crispy Millefeuilles à la vanille bourbon, and the half bottle of Lussac St. Emilion. There are better places to eat in Paris.

I am currently sitting at VCE, and am mightily pissed off: I arrived at check in for a flight to Paris at the usual 40 mins before the flight was due, only to be told that “due to security” the regs have changed and all flights close 45 minutes before departure!! Result: I have to be rebooked to a later flight, an have to pay a penalty fare to boot! Luckily I get to Paris only an hour later than expected, but it’s not a good start!