Just another cake in France

For the last 5 days, H and I have been strolling around the Savoie area of France for the first part of our honeymoon.

Today we set off with the idea of walking around the different forts which were built in the early-to-mid 1800's when France gave this area back to the Sardinians (les Sardes). After about 20 minutes we decided it was coffee and cake o'clock and hoped the first fort, Fort Marie-Christine, would be able to satisfy our desires. Sure enough there was a restaurant inside the fort with a pretty courtyard with chairs and tables.

Excitedly we entered the restaurant and, ignoring the signs 'gourmet restaurant' and the placards proudly declaring the establishment featured in various good restaurant lists that exist in France (e.g. Gault et Millau), H demanded coffee. The waiter looked at us blankly, obviously weighing us up to be tourists, and proceeded to speak in French. As we stared at him foolishly, he then said 'deux café?'. 'Yes, yes!' was our response and we blundered back outside to sit in the then sunny, courtyard.

A few minutes later the same man appeared with two espressos. H cheerfully made eye contact with him and said 'cake?'. I hopefully looked at the waiter as he replied in French ending the sentence with 'pasticcerie'. 'Oui!' I intervened however this did not seem to impress the waiter, he muttered to himself in French, then proceeded to clear the table next to us and took the dirty cups etc. back inside.

Shortly afterwards another man approached us. He said a sentence that ended with the word 'gateaux'. H proudly responded 'No, no, cake.'. I laughed and explained to H that 'gateaux' is cake in French, which made H laugh too. We composed ourselves and listened to the waiter describing two 'cakes': one with raspberries and blueberries, the other chocolate and pistacchio. Opting for two of the chocolate ones, the waiter returned to the restaurant.

It wasn't long before the first waiter then brought out two, spongey/soufflé-y type desserts that were scrum-diddly-umptious. Another win for team Touri!