Adventure is everywhere – eating mussels in Normandy, France

After 7 months of traveling in South East Asia I’ve probably had enough fried noodles vegetable for the rest of my life.. Going to France to see back the Boyfriend thus isn’t only a treat for our relationship as well as a true feast for my taste buds. Wine, bread, cheese, cream, milk.. need I go on?

Of course France appears extremely clean and organized after months in Asian countries, but to prove that adventurous dining is not exclusive to Cambodia’s street food markets, Boyfriend and his parents invited me to dinner at ‘La Cale‘.

‘La Cale, is not a restaurant, it’s a concept’, I was told.

The place is a hodgepodge of sixteenth-hand furniture, soft porn paintings, and a collection of extremely ugly ceramics. While the sausages are barbecued inside the restaurant on the fireplace, underdressed teenage waitresses scream loud to get their pans of mussels to the right customer. ‘Un reèl bordel.’

Ever seen a restaurant that puts up signs reading: “Don’t worry, all our rats passed the sanitary control” and “Probably the worst restaurant in France”?

Tripadvisor shows reviews varying from ‘horrible, never again’ to ‘CULT, going here year after year.’

And it attracts quite a crowd. This restaurant was probably the busiest I’ve seen in a long, long time. Posh and slum, young and old: everyone joins tables at La Cale. And quickly it proved why: the mussels are extraordinary delicious.