Restaurant Name: 'Sur le Pouce'
...from the bit in
Shallow Hal when the restaurant chair collapsed beneath her. I nearly died (only with embarrassment) when my tiny wooden stool did the same thing. In my defence, I thought it was all a bit rickety in the first place - should have swapped with the dear husband. Anyway, I did that thing where you leap up and pretend you're ok. The waitress shrugged and dragged out a new stool. We saved money that day as I ordered slightly less food than usual!
Sur le Pouce means literally 'on the thumb'. The French have an expression 'un morceau sur le pouce' meaning to have a quick snack or a bite to eat. It was well-named. It is a typical busy, fast turnaround restaurant, pretty basic really. There are a few tables outside and seating indoors, upstairs and down. (We were upstairs as it was February and too cold to eat outside.)
This restaurant is on the corner where rue St Francois meets rue Sainte Claire, not far from the fish market and opposite an extremely popular butchers shop. Just look for where all the dogs congregate. If you're vegetarian, don't sit looking towards the butchers - you may be off your salad as some of the sights here are fairly gruesome.
Favorite Dish: Sur le Pouce is fairly scruffy and there is a take-away counter onto the road for serving portions of freshly made hot Socca. The road is not the prettiest in the Old Town either, but don't let that put you off, we had a respectable meal here, quickly and cheaply, which suited us very nicely that day. It's the sort of place you might not choose back home but will cheerfully accept on holiday as being all part of the relaxed atmosphere of Nice and the Old Town, if that makes sense.
The food is local Nicois cuisine and the special here is a plate of Nicois specialities called '
L'assiette Nicoise de tout' for 11 euros. The husband had this all to himself, but I reckon that with the basket of bread, there would have been enough for two sharing a light lunch. It consisted of 'les farcis' - 'stuffed' and battered or frittered vegetables and sardines with olives and salad (see inset photo). The husband enjoyed this far more than he expected (I told him to try it) I had a plate of socca, the local chickpea flour pancake for 2 euros and the daughter wolfed down a savory ham and cheese pancake which didn't look too thrilling but she enjoyed it, 6 euros. The meal for the three of us inclding half a bottle of red house wine came to exactly 25 euros. Good value.
Worth coming just for the plate of Nicois specialities. Most of the other diners had this and most of them were French. It seemed to be very popular with everyone. Sit down carefully.
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Theme: Local
Comparison: less expensive than average
Phone: 04 93 13 98 23
Address: Sur le Pouce, 4, rue St Francois, Old Nice
Directions: not far from the fish market in the Old Town in Place St Francois. Open 'non-stop'
Where the following 3 roads meet, forming a small square (triangle really); rue St Francois, rue St Claire and rue du Collet
Website: http://www.allaboutnice.com/restaurants_in_Nice
Other Contact: no need to reserve
on Apr 19, 2004
