Our First Dinner Out

Today we explored the city of Chinon, about 5 minutes west of where we live. We decided to grab lunch out, but we failed to remember at first that lunch is the biggest meal of the day here, so what we thought would be a quick bite, turned into a full meal with drinks at a lovely cafe.


Our ordering was limited to what I could understand on the menu as far as options went. In fact, I almost ordered myself a pastis, having heard of it many times in books about France. But not knowing what it was, I had the willingness to embarrass myself by asking about it first. The waiter tried explaining, but of course I didn't understand a word. So he brought the bottle for me to smell. My super-power olfactory sense indicated it is the French version of Ouzo or Sambuka, so needless to say I declined and ordered a cassis avec framboise having no idea what the "cassis" part was either, but knowing it had raspberry in it, so it couldn't be that bad. Having now had a whole glass, I think it was a plum wine with raspberry flavoring. Very nice.

I guess because it is tourist season and Chinon is a major tourist hot-spot, they actually had chicken nuggets and french fries ( de poulet et pomme frites) on the menu for the kids! Hooray! David and I had a salad with lettuce, tomato, ham, and hard-boiled egg followed by chicken with penne pasta and a tomato, pepper & onion sauce. To top it off we shared a raspberry mousse that was divine! Bo & Vivi enjoyed an ice cream novelty that was actually quite novel indeed. Unbeknownst to any of us it had pop rocks in it! All the sudden the two of them got the strangest looks on their faces and then began laughing. Fun surprises can be in store when you can't read labels!