We were both in Chinon this morning, but doing different things. A young friend of ours has her English conversation presentation looming in two weeks, for her BAC. Two subjects: the history of human rights and global cities. Not easy. We see her, her sister and mother quite often. Sometimes for coffee and conversation. Usually Mike is talking to the two girls in English and their mother Isabelle and I are nattering away in French, generally about arts stuff. She's far more comfortable with Spanish than English, so French is happy medium. We occasionally go to the cinema together as well. Lovely family. Today however was different. Mike was going for a concentrated session of English, while I was at the AGM of Chinon's Cinéma Rabelais. We have joint membership of Cinéma Rabelais and Cinéplus. I've mentioned them in various blogs before. But just to recap Cinéma Rabelais is the name of the building and has a management that schedules the more commercial films. They work with Cinéplus who look after the arthouse film side of the programming, and show films on Thursday evenings as well as organise the film festival in September each year. Out of interest the theme this year is L'Extrême Orient, which will be showing Korean and Japanese films amongst others.
Just recently Cinéplus heard a rumour that the cinema might be moved to the industrial zone outside Chinon, near to MacDonalds and Leclerc. I touched on this in another blog. I went along today really to hear the 'other side' of the discussion, having been to the Cinéplus AGM. The mayor was present this time and gave an indication of the level of discussion surrounding 'the rumour', as well as confirmation that economically no one wanted to touch the project. One woman said today that the communities on the other side of Chinon for whom the centre of town is not readily accessible, would welcome a serious discussion. They feel cut off and left out. So it's bit tricky.The accounts were interesting as they showed the audience range and take-up.
After all that we drove over to Pouzay today, which from us is around 12 kilometres. It has a similar size population to Cravant, but by comparison is more built up. We were over to have lunch at a restaurant that specialises in seafood, au-gardon-frit. From the outside it doesn't look particularly big and first impressions on going in, is that it isn't. But in fact there is as much space outside as inside, so probably 120 covers plus.
We'd heard about au-gardon-frit from some people we met at a birthday party a few weeks ago. It sounded interesting so we booked. They told us the food was excellent quality, a good price, but that the decoration was antiquated. If the food is a pleasure to eat, antiquated decoration is fine with me. Everyone was really friendly. The atmosphere was very pleasant and yes it is a bit 70s with the heavy pinewood panelling on all the walls and the ceilings. But no matter. There's a choice of five menus with varying price ranges and à la carte. There are of course alternatives to fish and seafood, for anyone who wants them.
Lunch was just fab. The most gorgeous fish, perfectly done, nothing elaborate. Well there's no need really when the product is that fresh. If you're not an oyster fan, then our starter wouldn't appeal. But given we went for the cheapest menu for our first visit, which is always a good test, the starter of eight beautiful fresh oysters was an absolute treat. Haven't had plump oysters like that since the last time we were in Cape Town. Will definitely go again.
Footnote: if you hang on for 18 seconds of advertising to finish, here's a little film about au-gardon-frit. In French of course, but it's straightforward and with the visuals isn't difficult to follow.
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