What a bore

(Watch for the pun later.)

Rather late posting today, partly because I was out to lunch and partly because it has taken so long to write it!

One evening during our week in France turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. We had gone to our favourite restaurant for a meal. This restaurant has a distinctly dismal appearance from the outside, a sort of downcast look which is not helped by its situation at possibly the busiest crossroads, next to one of only three sets of traffic lights in town. One opens the door and is immediately pitched headlong down three steep steps into the bar. French bars are completely different from English pubs. There is no warm, welcoming feeling to them; they are plasticy and usually have rectangular, formica topped tables lined up in neat rows, with hard chairs to sit on. Granted, this bar is not quite as bad as that, but an English country pub it is not. The restaurant is through a narrow arch and down another step.

Once in the restaurant, one could be forgiven for thinking that one had passed through a time warp and was back in the 1970s - or even 1950s. At first glance, the floor appears to be tiled, but it is actually covered in lino. The bottom half of the walls is covered in wainscotting stained a deep brown, the upper half of the walls having been painted in what is now a rather dirty-looking cream. Or is it magnolia? The window frames and a door into the street are painted dark brown. (That door, by the way, is permanently locked and duct tape has been placed over the edges to prevent draughts coming through.) The windows have net curtains at the bottom half, and I'm not at all sure those curtains have been washed in the six years or so that I have been eating there. The ceiling has beams - also stained a dark brown. Hanging from the walls and some of the beams is a collection of ancient woodworking tools and, somewhat incongruously, a wooden coffee grinder. Also decorating the walls are a number of pictures, including a rather dark landscape, an old photo of somebody's great grandparents, a pin-and-cotton spider's web on black felt and a mock horse's collar complete with plastic flowers. There are pots of artificial flowers on each windowsill and a five-foot tall artificial laburnum in full flower. Goodness knows how they all get dusted – or even if they ever do. Standing against one wall is an ornate upright piano, and just beside the entrance is a large charcoal grill on which the meat and fish is cooked.

The tablecloths are bright yellow with bright blue tulips – a garish combination – and the napkins are a pale blue, a colour that manages to clash with both the yellow and the blue of the tablecloths. None of the colours actually seems right in this setting. And on each table is another pot of artificial flowers.

The restaurant is owned and run by two very nice gentlemen who would be quite at home in Brighton. One is in charge of the front of house, while the other is in charge of the kitchen and cooks the meat. They both greet us effusively when we arrive, with kisses for Mrs S and handshakes for me. The first time the kisses started I backed up against a handy pillar, but I needn't have worried: I'm obviously not their type. All joking aside, they are always very pleasant and we usually manage to crack a feeble joke somewhere in the conversation. It has to be a feeble joke as neither of them speak as much English as I do French, which is little enough.

Despite the ambience, we always enjoy eating there as the meat is the best we have ever had in France. Starters will usually be tartar of crab or ham, warm goat's cheese salad or terrine of scallops in lobster sauce. Snails are also on the menu but I avoid these as this restaurant only serves six whereas I get a dozen at the village restaurant. The main course might be a thick steak or a thinner one served with shallots, or turkey escalope served with a mushroom sauce, or salmon, or a fish called panga which I have never seen anywhere else. As I said, the meat and fish is cooked on the charcoal grill and is served just the way I like it cooked. With the fish one gets a serving of rice but there is a portion of chips with the meat. With all dishes one is served seasonal vegetables and a jacket potato. This potato is the restaurant's signature dish and is prepared in a way that nobody who has eaten there with us has been able to work out. One day we might be bold enough to ask how they do it! Desserts include creme caramel, a chocolate cake, ice cream etc. With wine and coffee this costs just over fifty euros and in my opinion represents very good value.

But we were disappointed last week. To start with, our favourite waitress no longer works there. Aged about nineteen or twenty, she is a sweetie – not especially good-looking but with a delightful smile. She had got to know us and was not beyond having the occasional dig at an English couple in a most charming way. Then it was Michel's night off, Michel being the chef, and neither Max (front of house who was meat chef for the night) nor the waiter nor the woman who cooks the vegetables could get the charcoal to light. Out meat ended up being cooked in the oven and it was just not the same. But we ate there again a few days later and all was back to normal, except that mademoiselle had not returned.

What did make the first evening memorable was the sight of a wild boar on the verge as we drove back through the lanes, the first either of us had ever seen.