It's Me, Sara Louise

{fondue}

Sometimes we like to meet The Londons in Aix-en-Provence on a Wednesday night for a mid-week treat of the dinner variety. They travel an hour northwest, and us an hour south. It’s the perfect meet in the middle.

Since we don’t like to dilly-dally on these nights, we usually go straight to Bistro Romain where The Husband indulges in the all you can eat carpaccio he loves so much (while I sit back and watch the carnage). But this last time, he asked me if I’d find a new place for dinner (I guess he’s trying to widen his horizons beyond raw beef). Planning happens to be my thing so I set to task, and found three places. Three because I figured I’d give them options (I’m a planner not a dictator… contrary to what you may have heard), and we’d hedge our bets on closings and full tables. I even wrote directions from the first restaurant to the second and then from the second choice to the third because if I had a motto, it’d be ‘always be prepared’. So we had our plan.

Do you think The Husband stuck to the plan? (FORESHADOWING)

On the way to Aix, The Husband turned to me and said (very excitedly I might add), that he knew of THE BEST PIZZA place on Cours Mirabeau (Cours Mirabeau is like Aix’s Champs-Élysées). I thought it was a bit curious that in all of my trips to Aix-en-Provence with The Husband, this was the first time I was hearing about this awesome pizza, but I was willing to forgo the planned restaurant choices and handwritten directions because if there is one thing that living in Le Petit Village has taught me, it’s to be flexible (if you aren’t flexible, France will make you flexible!). And as long as this pizzeria was nice enough inside and Mrs. London and I could sit back with a decent bottle of red, who was I to complain. “Of course it’s nice” he assured me, “It’s on Cours Mirabeau.” Well alrighty then.

We met The Londons and popped into a bar for a quick apéro… “What will it be,” I asked, “pizza or tapas or pasta?” (Tapas and pasta were the first two choices on the pre-planned restaurant list). The Londons gave a shoulder shrug while The Husband shouted, “I want sushi!“

WHAT?!?!

Where the hell-o-operator did sushi come from?!

Sometimes all one can do is take a deep breath and take control. “You wanted pizza,” I reminded him, “show us where the restaurant is and we’ll follow you.”

We walked a bit further down Cours Mirabeau and then The Husband stopped, looked up, and turned around in a circle. And then I saw him bring his hand up to his mouth and breath in “oh“, which is never a good sign. “What?” I asked. He looked at me, “I forgot it’s for takeaway pizza.” Of course it is.

Now, do you think we went to one of the pre-designated restaurants on the list, or do you think we let The Husband follow his nose while we followed him? (If you are new here, you might not know the answer to this, but if this isn’t your first visit to Le Petit Village than you definitely know the answer… we followed the nose.)

And that’s how after ten minutes of wondering around in the rain, the nose led us to a fondue restaurant. It wasn’t part of the plan, but I’m flexible like that.