La Clef de Voûte

Late, late, late. Again.

Marie huffed and scowled as I wolfed down my dinner and slammed back a couple of pre-game whiskeys. We scuttled down the wet cobbles to the nearby Clef de Voûte. We had almost been there once before, but the queue was so long, and there was some doubt about the availability of booze, so we had bailed out.

Having established that there were refreshments to be had, we were determined to be there in good time and at the head of the queue this time.

Emerging into Place Chardonnet, we were confronted by a large group of people outside the door. Luckily they turned out to be waiting to go into the theatre next door. We were the first at the Clef de Voûte. And it wasn't open yet.

After a quick beer in a nearby bar, we returned and were first in.

As the name suggest, the club is in a vaulted basement. The main room has a small stage, and seating in rows for about 60 people. There is a bar in a side room -- pretty spacious as underground jazz clubs go -- with four bottled beers and six or so wines by the glass. The loos (at least the mens') are pretty good: you should be able to bring your mother here.

I'm not reviewing the band, but have got to mention them, as they were fantastic. It was the R Cuoq-A.Jambon quartet (sax, guitar, drums, contrebasse) with guest soprano saxophonist Emile Parisien. They were all great, but Parisien and drummer Nicolas Charlier in particular were astounding. Parisien writhed like a possesed snake-charmer as a cascade of incredibly fluid and inventive melodies flowed from his sax. On the first number I feared that the drummer was an over-player, but it soon became obvious that he was just bursting with Keith Moon-like energy and enthusiasm which he put to fantastic use in the rest of the set. 

The clientele was the usual jazz club smörgåsbord: young, funky afro-ed dudes to ageing hep-cat fedora-decked finger-clickers, with a majority of perfectly unremarkable people in the middle. 

Great night, good value, brilliant music. 

Decor: 4/5
Service: 5/5
Price: 4.5/5
Toilets: 4/5

La Clef de Voûte, 1 Place Chardonnet, Lyon (google map)

http://www.laclefdevoute.fr/

Kelly's Bar Quiz Night - Redux

I blogged about the quiz at Kelly's Bar before, and said that I expected that the quizzing would improve with practice, and it certainly has.

We went with a group of friends last week and the pace and quality was excellent, and there was a good turn out and atmosphere.

Highly recommended, and by far the best quiz we have been to in Lyon.

I was also greatly impressed by the (English) barman-with-a-mission. The guy had one goal: to serve as many people as he could, as quickly as possible.

I'd forgotten that this is how it's done in Britain, and have missed it. With no exaggeration, he was serving at five times the rate which I have become accustomed.

So I'm upping my 'service' rating to 5/5.

Top quiz, top barman.

Wallace Bar - Quiz Night

Thursday night, and not much fancying trying to squeeze into Paddy's Corner for the quiz, we decided to head out to the Wallace Bar for their free quiz night.

We left it a bit late, and only arrived at 21h15, and the place was packed. Not a seat in the house.

The Wallace have a system common to many Oirish pubs in Lyon (though the Wallace is supposed to be Scottish) where a human clot of patrons stand or sit shoulder to shoulder at the bar, making it bloody awkward to get served. You then have to carefully extract your beers from between them. Any physical contact will earn you a dirty look for having the temerity to buy drinks at the bar, when everyone knows that bars are for sitting at.

Drinks purchased, we hovered near a table which had a little bit of space at the corner where we could put our drinks down, and the quiz started.

The English quizmaster and his French assistante have a zany, zoo-radio style. I started off liking it, but it did get a bit wearing after a while. Who would have known that the hilarity of amplified burps quickly palls? Marie hated it from the start. If you like that sort of thing, well, they do that sort of thing very well.

The questions were well organised, with good sound and video (for the picture and 'observation' rounds), but the pace was fast, almost frenetic. Tobacco top-ups had to be completed with celerity.

I've had some issues with The Wallace in the past (maybe I'll blog about it some time), but had no problems this evening.

I enjoyed it, and would recommend it, but Marie didn't, and wouldn't.

I had a quick chat with the quizmaster as we were leaving and he told me that he also does a quiz at Flanagan's on Monday nights.

I would strongly recommend getting there by 20h30 so you can bag a table.

Decor: 4/5
Service: 3/5
Price: 3/5
Toilets: 3.5/5

The Wallace, 2 Rue Octavio Mey, 69005 Lyon (google map)
+33 4 72 00 23 91
Dreadful, truly appalling website: http://www.wallacebarlyon.com/ 

Le Jardin de Berthe

My parents were visiting, and on the last night we wanted to go somewhere which had plenty of meat-free offerings for Marie.

Le Jardin de Berthe is renown in Lyon for their huge range of salads — around 40. Many of these contain meat, so omnivores may not be disappointed. If you really — really — don't want a salad then there are some ravioli-based dishes on the menu, but I'd probably advise you to go elsewhere.

The 'Jardin' part is perhaps a little misleading: the dining room is a vaulted cellar, not a verdant courtyard. There are a few two-person tables on the pavement outside if that kind of thing souses your herring.

The first thing I noticed was how LOUD it was in the dining room. It was impossible to hold a normal conversation as all the diners were bellowing at the tops of their voices. The situation improved later, so I guess it was due to a particularly noisy group whom everyone had to shout over. But to start we were all yelling like yuppies in a Bishopsgate wine bar.

Menus are in French — usually no problem — but we were puzzled by the meaning of gésiers, which appeared in several salads. Marie didn't know because she doesn't eat meat. My parents didn't know because they don't speak French. I just didn't know.

The waiter didn't know either, but he went to ask the chef, and came back with a few samples on cocktail sticks. They turned out to be bits of chicken stomach (that's how the chef described them anyway). Gizzards to me, and quite tasty if you don't stop to think about it.

We all picked our salads, and Pops ordered a bottle of Côtes du Rhône.

In very short order, four enormous salads arrived.

And they were huge. I think I was the only person to finish mine. Pops has ordered one with a 'mixture of chicken and veal, à la kebab'. He had taken this to mean thing-on-a-stick, but that's brochette in French: a kebab is that greasy elephant's leg thing that kebab shops put up to keep the flies away. So he was not too impressed with that, but it looked OK to me. But then I guess I eat fried chicken stomachs, so cannot be classified as particularly fussy.

I like my wine to be either good, cheap or both. The Côtes du Rhône was none of the above.

We had desserts; mine was great tarte au citron with a slightly unnecessary and over-sweet caramel sauce. Maman raved about her ice-cream.

I enjoyed my salad and have already been back to repeat the experience. It was much quieter this time.

Salads €10 - €13, bottle of wine €14.

Decor: 3.5/5
Service: 4/5
Price: 4/5
Toilets: 3/5

Le Jardin de Berthe, 3, Rue de Fleurieu, 69002 Lyon (google map)
04 78 38 24 46

La cannoise

Pizzeria, restaurant, glacier et bar. Nous étions au paddy's pour le match France/Uruguay (on aurait mieux fait de rester chez nous d'ailleurs), bref nous avions deux heures d'avance, nous avons donc décidé d'aller voir la pizzeria d'à coté .

Et c'est plutot pas mal,on était pas déçu. On y trouve tout ce que l'on peut attendre de toute pizzeria qui se respecte: de bonnes pizzas !youpi!
Pour le reste ,ben ,à par les desserts qui semblaient pas mal, c'etait trés moyen. Mais les prix sont plus que raisonnables . Par exemple ma salade était à 4 euros, peu de garniture mais une vraie sauce au lieu d'huile d'olive.

Je n'ai jamais été une grande fan des pizzerias de quartier, mais celle-là j'y retournerais volontier lors de petites faims occasionelles.

Nous sommes repassé devant, une semaine plutard ,vers 20h00. Il faisait beau et la terrasse était pleine . Je crois que ça résume bien cet endrois :
Si l'ocassion se présente ,pourquoi pas ? c'est bon et sympas .

Decor:3/5
Service:3/5
Price:3/5
Toilets:N/A

La cannoise, 6 rue de cuire, 69004, Lyon (Google map)

Kelly's Pub - Quiz Night

Marie was doing that fully-ready leaning-against-the-door-jamb thing and eyeing me critically.

"OK, two minutes. I'm nearly ready". I scrabbled for my bag and camera, and downed a pre-game shot of whiskey. "Let's go."

We scuttled down the traboule and hurried to Kelly's Pub. Marie was concerned that the pub would be full and we wouldn't be able to get seats. After all, that's what would have happened at The Smoking Dog or Paddy's Corner if we rolled up without leaving a good half-hour before the quiz started.

Arriving at 20h45, the pub was largely empty and I snaffled a prime terrace seat while Marie did the honours at the bar.

It was still happy hour, yet a pint of Guinness and a glass of vin rouge came to €9. Marie groused about the English barman's inability to understand her French.

The bar is large, with lots of tables. There's a pool table which costs €8 per hour. There are several TVs showing sport.

The music was middle-of-the-road cock-rock. The kind of music Citroën use to advertise cars. We loaded up on nicotine and retired inside to be quizzed.

The quiz costs €1 per entrant. The French quizmistress asked the questions over an indistinct PA system, then the questions were repeated in English by her assistante (who had a better microphone technique). The quizmistress seemed to enjoy her moment in the spotlight and chatted with her friends over the mike, confusing the hell out of me.

There were rounds on geography, science, music, pictures and sport.

Questions were OK — not quite up to the standard of the professionally produced UK pub quizzes, but not bad. The quizmistress stated that phones were banned, and anyone using a phone would be kicked out, which is a good policy which should be enforced at all quizzes.

Verdict: If your wallet can stand it and you fancy a quiz on a Monday night, then go for it. You'll be able to find space for a largish group, and you should have fun. I expect that the quizzing will improve with practice too.

Happy hours: Guinness €4.50, vin €4.50, misery hours: Guinness €5.70, vin €4.50

Quiz Monday at 21h00

Decor: 4/5
Service: 4/5
Prices: 1/5
Toilets: 4/5


12 Quai Romain Rolland 69005 Lyon, (Google map)

Pizza'Pentes (Delivery and Takeout)

Pizza'Pentes is our regular pizza delivery operation. Sometimes we get take-outs there too.

There's not much to say — a good sign, in my book.

The pizzas are pretty good, though the menu is a little odd — for example, there's no Hawaiian, but they do have pizzas with potatoes or barbecue sauce.

Delivery is fast and reliable; and there are no problems paying by card at the door.

Picking up a pizza there is usually interesting. The pizzas are ready in 10 minutes. You may be served by an eight year-old girl.

Once we tried to buy a bottle of diet coke, but the guy refused to sell it to us as it was out of date. I'm not sure that diet coke degrades over geological time-scales, never mind over the short term, and it makes me wonder why he had it on display if he wasn't going to sell it. Maybe he likes us, or only sells out-of-date coke to weekend drunks.

If you're after a delivery or takeout pizza in Croix Rousse, Pizza'Pentes is a good bet. It's on Montée Saint-Sebastien by Croix Paquet.

Buy two, get third free on delivery, buy one get second free on takeout.

Decor: 1.5/5
Service: 4/5
Prices: 3/5
Toilets: N/A

Pizza'Pentes, 43 rue René Leynaud, 69001 Lyon, 04 78 27 27 27 (Google map)