DINING AT MONTE CARLO

Hokitika Guardian, 7 April 1926, Page 3

DINING AT MONTE CARLO

Tbe tendency on the Riviera, espec-

hilly at Monte Carlo, is to make dinl.i.'rs later and later. Nine o’clock is a comparatively early hour to start. At ninny of the smart restaurants, and at the Sporting Club, tables are booked for half-past nine and it is no unusual tiling for dinner parties to begin as late as ten o’ctocre. One result of this late dining i a considerable curtailment of suppers. Some of tho restaurants which used to make a speciality of a supper business now close down alter the dinner. Of course, there are. plenty of attractions for the night bird. 'I here are restaurants anil cabaret shows which are open all night; but even

at these the formal set supper is a tiling of the past. The people who patronise them, in the early hours desirea few sandwiches, bacon and eggs, or kippers in the early morning, but they don’t want- a regular tnlde-d’ bote supper. And the dinners are shorter. The long table-d’hnte with its six or seven courses, is, I am thankful to say almost a thing of the past. Even at gala dinners—which, by the way. are much overdone—five courses are regarded as ample, and tit ordinary dinners seldom more than throe or four courses are served. I have had some of tho best arid some of the worst dinners of iny life in Monte Carlo—nnd some of the worst were at the most expensive and pretentious places. You do not always find the best food at an hotel-de-luxe. But if you know your way about—and there is no place where local knowledge is more desirable—you can do yourself very well for . comparatively little • money, anil certainly get better value than in London. 1 paid recently forty francs for dinner at an hotel-de-luxe and hated it, and eight francs for an excellent dinner at a small restaurant and enjoyed it. But the best plan. if not the cheapest, is to go onlv to those restarants where not table-do-hote is served. Here you ran order as you like and he certain of getting what you want and getting it good. Although you can get everything in Monte Carlo, the veal at restaurants is as a. rule-better than the mutton or beef, and there arc many delicious ways of serving it. One little restaurant T know makes a speciality of hoileil beef as a plat du four, and very good it is. It is wheeled up to you piping hot, and with its attendant vegetables is a satisfactory lunch in itself. Tt costs. including vegetables, 7 francs—at present rate of'exchange about Is 2d. Game, I am inclined to avoid, but T have had good Italian partridges and some wonderfully flavoursome wild clink and ’ woodcock.