Le Jockey

Le Jockey
Amiens Centre
France

A little Bar Brasserie, this was the first place we came across on this grey and drizzly day. Not having anything else to compare it to, we decided to try it. At first, I was disappointed because of the amount of cigarette smoke, but I relented when I remembered we were, after all, in France, and anyway after a while it became less obtrusive. A bottle of the house red set the scene. The Marg and Rayanne tried Croque Monsieur, and Croque Madame (the latter has an egg on top) respectively. Karl ordered a mushroom omelette (Sorry Sir, No mushrooms!) then settled on Ham Omelette. I tried a "Flammenkeusche" (Maybe spelled incorrectly - this is effectively a Pizza without Tomato). All of us were impressed with the food which we all agreed was of a much higher quality than we would expect from a similar establishment in England.

An additional bonus was the staff. The waiters were extremely helpful, and gave us all assistance in our attempts to speak and understand French - they spoke slowly and clearly enough, and made efforts to understand us, without any fuss at all. I make a point of telling you this because it contrasts vividly with our experience the following morning at the boulangerie, where the staff behaved with outright hostility, making no attempt to understand or be understood. I do not exaggerate when I tell you that "Quatre Croissant, s'il vout plait", whilst pointing to the enormous tray of croissants which dominated the counter, was met by "Que?". It would have been easy to let that cloud our perception of the French, had we not had such good experiences elsewhere.

Sandro and Marg

9th October 1999