South of France Vacation, Club 55, French EU Compliance
A host recounts a recent vacation to the South of France, including visits to Saint-Tropez and San Rafael. Observations are made regarding the famous Club 55 restaurant, a chance sighting of Gordon Ramsay, and the local disregard for European Union smoking and labor regulations. The travelogue concludes with a description of Bastille Day fireworks viewed from a penthouse near the Carlton Hotel on July 14th.
south of france· saint-tropez· club 55· gordon ramsay· bastille day· european union
00:01 Gone for a week, but hopefully not forgotten. Once again, welcome to the program that comes to you from two different sides of the globe. It is no agenda. Here in the Curry Manor in the lovely and affluent suburb of Surrey known as Guilford, I'm Adam Curry. And I'm up here in Northern California. I'm John C. Dvorak. John, it's good to talk to you again, my friend. Yeah, you were on vacation. Yeah, and I apologize. I forgot to tell you that I was going on vacation. Well, I think I did tell you, but I forgot to tell you that I wasn't planning on doing a show. Yeah, you were wasted in the south of France, I understand. I was not wasted! Nothing of the kind. It was fantastic though. I've never been on vacation to the south of France and I have to say I think I have my new holiday destination all figured out. Everybody says that. That and Portugal is the other one they like to go to. You know, I've been to Portugal a number of times and I think it does not compare. I really, really like the south of France. And you even say France. So, um...
01:04 I know it's horrible. Oh, I went to France. I went to the south of France no less But you went, a lot of people go, I mean, I would recommend the South of France to anybody. But you went to the high rent district. I mean, when I go there, it would be, I'd be floating around. I actually probably would even, which isn't technically the South of France, go to Provence. Or then if I was gonna be in the South of France, I think Nice is probably more along my... or even Monte Carlo, which sounds ritzy but it's not as fancy as where you went, which is San Trope. Well actually we stayed at a friend's house in San Rafael, which is between Cannes and San Trope. It's a small village, but we did day trips. We went to Cannes and then we did go to San Trope twice with the big powerboat, the way you're supposed to do, right? You roll up there and
02:03 there's no it's fantastic you you park in front of Nikki Beach have you heard of Nikki Beach yes did one of those are places where the Russian mob hangs out exactly the Russian mob and all of their chicas it's fantastic and actually we had dinner at lunch at Club Saint-Gonzank which is pretty famous restaurant on the beach right nearby and it was really... We're Russians. And actually Gordon Ramsay was there when we were having lunch. So everyone was on high alert and looking spiffy and doing their best. Oh really? What was he doing there? Did you go up to him and say, hello I'm Adam Curry? I think you're... He surely would have heard of me. He must have heard of me. I've heard of you. No I did not. He was just having lunch. By himself? No he had a couple friends there. It was like totally overcrowded. I mean this place, there's a line outside the... what you could call a door I guess.
03:05 That must be 50 people who have you know no reservation and subsequently no chance whatsoever of actually getting down and and and having a meal So how was the food? I was very good and what they do is they they have these each table gets like this big It's like a now this is let's go back. This is sank on sank. Is that the name of the place? Yeah, so 55 Club 55 sank on saying very famous restaurant and And when you sit down and it's a dump, right? It's like a beach hut with tarps, you know, strung over the top of it. I mean, there's nothing special at all, except for the fact that all the beautiful people are there. And each table gets this huge, like,
03:45 like a like a side of a tree you know with bark and all and it's probably I'd say about five inches high and on that you know hollowed out tree slice or slab if you will they put huge amounts of you know raw vegetables like Wait, wait, wait, I'm not getting the description correct. Is it like a stump? Is it round or is it long and it's cut down the middle? What's it shaped like? Imagine if you took a tree and you sliced off a piece of the bark, say about two or three feet long. Sliced off a piece of bark? Yeah, except really a deep slice, so maybe a couple inches thick. So like a canoe. Oh, okay. Right?
04:25 And then, so you have the bark on one side, which has been modified a bit so that of course doesn't roll around on the table. And then the top part is all clean, you know, flat wood. And then on that they put cauliflower and cucumbers and tomatoes and radishes and all kinds of stuff. So that's really nice. Everyone's just kind of picking at that at the table. I'm surprised, I'm surprised before you go on with the description, that the EU allows it. Because of the trees, you mean? Yeah, I mean they have this thing about how you can, you know, what food can touch and they have all these rules coming out of Belgium and I'm stunned by this. I'll tell you, the French as far as I can tell don't give a shit about the EU. I mean they're smoking everywhere, they're doing everything that is not supposed to be possible in the European Union.
05:12 Okay, that's good. Yeah, no, it's excellent. Not that people should be smoking, but I'm just saying it's good that they're still French. Also, most of the people I met and talked to definitely don't work 34 hours a week. You know, it's more like 54. So, another farce. But great weather, man. It was just... But wait, let's get back to the food. You got the plank of wood. It's got some cauliflower on it. Yeah. Okay, so then I had artichoke. uh... st is esteemed artichoke and uh... which i can like nearly take off the leaves in the close you get to the center to the heart of the artichoke the more stuff there's on the leaves uh... okay and uh... and i had uh... state car car uh... which is basically a a big slab of raw meat yeah always a risk house good though also good and uh...
06:09 The only other spectacular thing worth mentioning on this program is the 14th of July which is kind of the French Independence Day known as a They call it a couple different things, but it's a steel day steel day. Yeah, we were invited to Someone actually Patricia was invited and so you know we all went along this apparently quite wealthy woman who was throwing a party in her apartment, but her apartment was the building next to the Carlton Hotel, rooftop penthouse with, you know, I don't know how big this rooftop penthouse was, just on the, you know, the rooftop part of it, but there were easily 70 to 80 people outside comfortably.
