Trawl the Internet if you like, and you will not find a photo of Restaurant Le Molière, 43 Boulevard Aristide Briand, La Roche sur Yon.
OK, that's got rid of the nerds. Here's a nice pic they might find instead.
Now read on about one of La Roche's best kept secrets, which is just up one of Napoléon's avenues from the Palais de Justice and the Commissariat de Police.
It's in fact one of those "secrets de famille" type secrets. The sort which may have been lurking in the musty cellars of la mémoire familiale collective for a long time. Either as a consequence of its banality, or by virtue of underlying and unspoken concerns about what others, others from outside le cercle de la famille, might learn from it. [Get on with it. Ed]
Banal or informative? You will find out for yourself if you join the brisk queue at Le Self (sixties short-hand for Le Self-Service) at midi et demi on any working day. Well, midi trente-quatre to be precise. We are a four minute walk here from the Palais de Justice. Skinny fiftysomething clerical ladies in dark winter coats will join the line for entrées: carottes rapées, betteraves et céleri-remoulade à la mayonnaise.
There's always a rolling choice of hot main courses; elements of the menu change every day: onglet aux oignons...cassoulet maison...Cooking scents of ail et sauce au poivre fill the room.
Today's suggestion du chef was cabillaud et pommes de terre sautées. The chef de cuisine/serveur asked with a smile if your EWL reporter would like some beurre fondu and a sprinkle of persil. Desserts included several kinds of entremets et crèmes. This is French school dinners, forty years on, for people who'd never left the French Univers de l' Administration.
You then pay 9 or 10 Euros to the lively young lady on the till, and carry your tray to the wide staircase, because the ground floor is complet.
Décor is 1980's pseudo-rustic revival, revamped a year or two ago with a nod to emerging Ikéa. There are Formica faux-oak tables, and a real oak parquet floor. The latter matches the stairs. There is a silver-haired elegant chap reading Ouest-France.
Two burly fellows in leather overcoats are discussing in not-very-hushed tones the details of the police interview they have just administered to un prévenu. You surmise that they belong, in oxymoronic irony, to the Renseignements Généraux (Secret Police).
Looking around the room, the mono-ethnicity is striking. In this part of the rural "Far-Ouest", the population is primarily white-European. Add to this that the French administration, despite its proclamations of égalité des chances, tends, allegedly, to favour BBRs (a dubious nomenclature, appropriated by the extrème-droite Front National: "Bleu Blanc Rouge"), and you begin to understand why Le Molière is not likely to be a paragon of La Mixcité Sociale.
And then again, you'd be surprised...
The sound levels peak at 1.15 precisely, as diners and their synchronous gastric programmes become aware that it's coffee time, then back to work.
The black-jacketted tide ebbs back to the law-courts or the cop-shop, leaving a smaller contingent of retraités still on the Camembert course. Two retired soixante-huitard couples, all dressed in olive green leisurewear from Décathlon, are discussing the merits of their new camping-cars. One of their number confides that the new Hymer model, with WC et douche incorporés is a snip at 52 000 Euros. It's a long way to here from Les Barricades of mai '68.
In the quiet of 1.35 pm, the trays of Duralex glasses tinkle in the wash-up room.
Stepping out into the Boulevard Briand, with the train station just opposite, I am asked by a young fellow with dreadlocks, a roll-up and a dog if I've got 2 Euros to spare. The four retirees walk towards their camping cars after giving him a Ticket Repas luncheon voucher.
I contemplate the end of the French midday hiatus for another day, and the return to work, thinking that générosité and savoir vivre were also on the menu du jour.
The tray lady brings a bowl of water for the dog, who shows gratitude by crapping at the base of one of the boulevard's plane trees.
This could only be France at 1.45 pm on a mild, bright December day.
Lexique; Well, if you can't guess most of the stuff from the context, you'd have given up reading by now.
And you'd be sprinkling washing powder on your fish tonight.
AB
