Denis Le Niçois

Sometimes you are looking for the perfect restaurant to fit your imaginary experience of a place, this time I was seeking a specific dish that somehow weaseled its way into my brain as the ultimate experience of this place. I wasn't sure what I wanted to eat in Nice, France, and I had been grazing on baguettes and cheese rounds and hostel breakfasts for a day or so, but then all the tourist restaurants in the cobbley-street area down by the boulevard told me I wanted Niçoise salad. And as it turned out, I did. I didn't know if I was just reveling in the cultural fantasy of the millions of Riviera travelers who came before me, expecting that one can only consume this place by ingesting a specific combination of greens, tomatoes, eggs, olives and anchovies. So after much self-conscious solo wandering, I found Denis Le Nicois to satisfy my eating and people watching needs.

The menu wasn't much of a challenge because I came in knowing what I wanted- for me, an unusual dining circumstance. Looking back, this menu makes the restaurant seem like the ultimate in tourist traps, but the salad I had was exactly what I was looking for. I'm sure any of the crepes would have had the same effect- as it turns out, when people order the dish a city is famous for, they aren't necessarily enacting a tourist caricature- the dishes are done so often that they really are that good. At least at Denis, which also featured a crazy old man sitting at the table next to me and who appeared to be allowed a continuous supply of red wine. He may have been Denis.