Back in Nice, France Part 5 - restaurants along the coast

If there is one thing that there is plenty of in the south of France, it’s restaurants.   While we certainly have our favorites in Nice, we also favorites in most of the surrounding towns.   Here are three of our favorites.

The town of Mougins is about 20 miles toward the southwest, just north of Cannes.   We used to go to Mougins when Roger Verge had two restaurants in the village – his famous Moulin de Mougins opened in 1969 and he opened L’Amandier de Mougins in 1977.   Verge died in 2015 in Mougins.   In July of this year, we ventured back to that area with friends and had a wonderful lunch at La Mediterranee, a mostly seafood restaurant in the middle of town.   The fish is very fresh; they bring out your whole fish for you to see before it’s cooked and then it’s  fileted at your table.   The desserts are all delicious – we had the moelleux au chocolat  (cake with a gooey center) and the tarte au citron, a not too tart lemon dessert.   There are many restaurants in Mougins.  This is one worth trying.  La Mediterranee is located at 32 place du Commandant Lamy (+33 4 93 90 03 47, www.brasseriemediterranee.com).

On the other side of Nice is the small coastal town of Beaulieu-sur-Mer.   In the port area is string of about a dozen restaurants, all are probably pretty good, but we ended up at the African Queen for lunch on three different occasions over the course of a month.   I guess we like it.   Sit outside under the permanent covered area.   We tried their hamburger and fries, the creamy burrata, and the duck breast with a huge piece of foie gras sitting on top.   Service is perfect and we’ll proabbaly end up there again on our next rip.  African Queen is at Port Plaisance (+33 4 93 01 10 85, www.africanqueen.fr).

On the western outskirts of Antibes just before you get to Juan les Pins, right on the Mediterranean is the wonderful Plage Keller.   This is a beautiful beach restaurant with large white umbrellas and is perfect for a sunny day lunch.  Have anything seafood related.  Maybe even start with a glass of champagne and end up with the pineapple carpaccio for dessert.   Then take a long stroll along the coast toward Juan les Pins and head back for another champagne.   You can find Plage Keller at Plage de la Garoupe (+33 4 93 61 28 23). 

Back in Nice, France Part 3 - Food

Over the years we have tried many different restaurants in Nice.   Every year a few have closed and a few more have opened.   Here are three of our favorites:

La Table Alziari is located deep in the old town area on a small side street.  The restaurant is family owned and, during the summer, most patrons sit outside where they squeeze in 8-10 tables.   Over the years, the menu has almost never changed.  Some of our favorite first courses include roasted red peppers in oil, the white bean salad, Provencal eggplant and the petits farcis (stuffed onions and zucchini).   While not on the menu, they almost always have deep fried courgette blossoms. They are among the most tender and light I have had in Nice.  The waiter (I believe a son-in-law of the owner) gave us the recipe for his batter!  For the second course, try the daube d’agneau (a traditional lamb stew served over pasta), the pasta with pesto sauce, or even the steak tartare and French fries.    The best dessert is the chocolate pie – a gooey mountain of chocolate in a flaky pie crust.  La Table Alziari is located at 4 rue Francois Zanin (+33 4 93 80 34 03).

Bistrot d’Antoine is a typical French bistrot with all the fuss and noise that you imagine.   It’s best to have a reservation, but sometimes you can just drop in and they will have a table for you.  On the first floor is the open kitchen behind a counter and about 10 tables.  The quieter upstairs holds about 8 tables.   For your first course, try the terrine de campagne (the house pate),  or the wonderful foie gras canard.  There is almost always a pasta and a risotto.  For your second course, the magret de canard (grilled duck breast), the filet de boeuf, and the lentils and sausage can’t be beat.   For a change, try the assiette de fromage or cheese platter in place of dessert.  Bistro d'Antoine is located at 27 rue de la Prefecture, a street just north of the Cours Saleya (+33 4 93 85 29 57).

Le Plongeoir is one of the most unique restaurants in Nice.   It sits just east of the port  area and is not really on the water, but in the water.   You walk across a small bridge over the water to a very open outdoor restaurant built on a rock about 50 feet off the land and about 20 feet above the water.   As would be expected, the menu is heavily laden with seafood dishes and also with a large array of salad options.   It’s a unique experience to be sure and on a beautiful sunny day, a great way to spend an afternoon.   Le Plongeoir is located at 60 blvd. Franck Pilatte (+33 4 93 26 53 02, www.leplongeoir.com).

Back in Nice, France Part 2 - Transportation

Nice, France is a port town with a population of about 350,000 people.  It is the fifth largest town in France.   We have been going to Nice most summers for the past 25 years, so have quite a bit of experience in getting around Nice and the surrounding Cote d’Azur area.  In the early days we always rented a car, primarily to get out of Nice to visit the surrounding towns up and down the coast.  But the car would also sit for days while we spent time touring Nice.  Parking could be very difficult to find even though there are quite a few underground parking garages scattered around town.  But parking wasn’t cheap, garages were often very crowded and the parking spaces were often very narrow and could be difficult to maneuver a car in to. 

For the past 15 years or so, we have been relying almost exclusively on public transportation to get around Nice but also to get to other towns in the area.  Nice has a great, large port with ferries shuttling passengers to towns up and down the coast as well as to Monaco and various ports on the island of Corsica.   Nice also has a great, recently renovated train station just north of the downtown area (about a 15 minute walk from Place Massena).  Nice is part of the extensive, mostly on-time French railroad with trains going to most towns along the coast, as well as inland locations.  The Nice bus system is also very extensive with local buses criss-crossing the town and taking tourists to near by towns, many of which are not accessible by train.  An ancient central bus station was torn down about 5 years ago and now bus stations have been scattered all over town.   You can also sit on the beach all-day long and watch planes bring in sun-worshippers to the relatively-modern airport located just to the west end of the town. 

In recent years, Nice has begun to focus on getting people around town.  In 2007, Nice inaugurated its second-generation tram system (a first-generation system operated in Nice and a few surrounding towns from 1879-1953).   This new tramway is a 5.5 mile above ground single line system that carries over 90,000 people a day along a route from the northwest through downtown to the east.  Trams run about every 4 minutes via an electrified overhead cable system.   A second line is currently under construction and will carry passengers along a 7-mile route from the port in the east part of town to past the airport in the west.   The 20-station line is scheduled to begin opening in 2018 with the last stations opening in 2019.  Many of the stations in this new line are above ground, but as the line passes through the downtown area, the stations will be located underground.   Also, I remember seeing, a few years ago, a prototype tram car positioned on the median of the Promenade des Anglais as perhaps a future system along the sea, but nothing has come of that line since. 

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Road Trip through Mississippi - Day 9 - Memphis

Memphis is known for blues music, but frankly, I was disappointed by Beale Street.   It is definitely a must see, but it is a bit on then seedy side these days.  There are lots of bars, restaurants and music venues with bright neon signs and lots be music blasting from all of them.  The venues were usually larger than I had imagined hey would be and the music I heard was not blues, but more folk and rock.  Over the course of 3 days in Memphis, we had some great BBQ, so it was definitely worthwhile. 

We also went to the Cotton Museum, a ground floor exhibit area in the former Cotton Exchange Building.   It’s a good history of how cotton transformed the south and focuses on the social and economic impacts of the crop.