My latest tour of Europe has taken me to the fair city of Montpellier today.
Just about to head out on the pop, so I shall be keeping an eye out for our correspondent...

Monsieur Monty, ou etes-vous?
ps - any good restaurants I should visit?

There is fuck all duck or sanglier to be had round there M Allez, they are likely to offer you fish soup and claim it is a proper meal. Probably best to get a pizza.

That's rank bad planning, M. Allez, waiting till after 8 to tell me.
Chairman Spender's the one to ask about eating here like.

All sorted. Did a reckie during daylight hours and found a fine spot in the centre. Just off out now

Ah......La Creperie.....dribble...

Fuck all to do with crepes like.....

Twenty good scoff houses in Montpellier.

Twenty-one before too much longer.

Ended up in a lovely little resto Place de la Comedie

Am I reading too much into that statement?

M. Allez, hope you enjoyed your (invisible) visit.

Still enjoying it, though it snowed this morning...

He's going to open a chinkies in Mpellier!!

The words presented may not be the ones inputted ..Thanks Tapatalk

Or a pie shop

The words presented may not be the ones inputted ..Thanks Tapatalk

Either would be welcome. Mmmm...Mucky Mary's!

Whenever I hear of Mucky Marys I remember walking back into me front room one Friday / Saturday to see a fellow Poolie asleep in his Curry Special.

We've all fallen asleep into a MM special curry in our time, haven't we?

Tonights pouching was done in a fine 'Brasserie' along the Avenue de Toulouse...Just to be loyal

Yoiu can't knock a good brasserie but if Mr Spender opened a Chinese that would be excellent news for the French Poolie massive and my plans for a special exiles T shirt. Also good for people who are sick of restaurants that claim to be 'Asian' and are just shite. Unless Spenders was shite too in which case I would just pop in for a beer and some free prawn crackers.

...or some 'nems' for about 3 euros...

I'm tempted to say that nems are the poor man's spring roll but they are the best thing about any visit to an 'Asian' restaurant in France. Slightly crunchy and dipped in chilli sauce... num num nems.

Nems and a bag of proper Chinese chips with plenty of vinegar and I'd be very happy.

Me and our rass completely concur with this assessment of 'Asian' restaurants in the district. They don't know what they want to be and yet all the necessary is available.

Possibly not, but there's a lot to do.

Don't know about Montpellier but round here you've got plenty of people who like good food and travel enough to know that different Asian cuisines are exactly that-different. They're also happy to eat spicy food as the North African places show and will pay well if the food is good.

The response to this market from most Asian restaurants as they call themselves is a scatter gun approach featuring 50 dish buffets of poorly flavoured sugary crap that could be from anywhere. A couple of the Indian places are marginally better but not by much. I'd guess that a place selling well cooked, reasonably authentic food from a specific Asian cuisine would make very good money.

It's exactly like that in Montpellier too. But let's say that there was a restaurant that offered purely Cantonese bait and you knew what you were going to get and it's consistently good, maybe you'd embrace Asian cuisine more enthusiatically.

The 'riz Cantonaise,' that we saw in about 20 outlets bore fuck all similarity with Cantonese rice that I know about and that our rass cooks.

Sloppy trays of microwaved greasy noodles aren't going to make you dive for your wallet but fresh cooked, generously portioned, genuinely authentic Chinese grub might.

Nems are OK, but they're Vietnamese, not Chinese. The Chinese do 'roll your own' pancakes with duck, spring onion and cucumber, accompanied by a soy or sweet chilli dip. You'd know it as Peking duck, but it's not.

Anyway, I'm giving the secrets away here!!

There can't be that many Poolies seriously considering setting up a Cantonese restaurant in SW France so I wouldn't worry too much on that score. I honestly reckon that the sort of place you're describing would do very well by offering a pricier menu in the evening and a good lunch deal earlier in the day. Strikes me that the key thing for lunch is not too expensive and reasonably quick- out the door an hour after arrival having had two or three courses. Evening time and you can stick the price up, serve slower and do lots of smaller courses- people who want decent food but not always traditional French would love it and you would do a canny trade in drinks where the mark up looks big to me (bottles of Tsingtao from the Asian supermarket are 20 euros for a box of 24, in the Asian restaurants nobody bats an eyelid at 5-7 euros a go).

If only I could cook, run a business and had some capital...

Well tonight I once again ate in Monty's best kept secret (though a little less well kept since I let Mr & Mrs Spender in on it).
I've even convinced Alain to keep a stock of decent beer alongside his cans of Heineken.

For the specific Asian cuisine, we have a really excellent Thai nearby. Real proper Thai. They even have grasshoppers and stuff.
And it's rare to be able to eat there without a booking.

Oh and I don't mean the one in our street called "Les Petits Siamois" that Mr Spender prolly spotted. That one's always empty so point proven I guess.

Well, I pouched in the shabby-chic Brasserie du Dome on Avenue de Toulouse, and delighted in an entrecote (bleu) which was bigger than the plate, and with a seperate salad which would have been a meal in itself.

My kind of scran, and miles better than any of the faux-Asian stuff, which imo has had its day.

Still, nice to be back in the land of shite grub

I was a bit shocked when you first mentioned Avenue de Toulouse and good food in the same phrase. But it now appears you mistook it for Avenue Clémenceau. Easy mistake to make.
Anyway, since you've buggered off now, that information is no longer of any use to you eh?

Yeah, it was just along from the Lycee, so more Clemenceau, but hey, it was dark!

Overall, though, heartily impressed by the city in all of its festive glory, particularly its Arc de Triomphe.

Maybe that's the key Mr M. Specific. I read a million menu's and none of them were very inspiring in the Asian bracket.

OO-err...