samedi 17 mars 2007
There is a restaurant chain here in France called Flunch. It is usually found in malls. I guess it based on the basic American all-you-can-eat, but it isn't. I was quite excited for my first flunch experience, as I had been wanting to go for over a year. (Yeah, okay, just one of those things.) Alain and I picked the absolute worse time of the week to go for my flunch initiation- Saturday at lunch time. Basically you go and grab a tray and silverware, then wander through a first part picking out whether you want cheese, salad, fruit, bread, soda, or dessert. Then you pay for the things you have picked out and you can also pay for one of the meals- things liked grilled steak, hamburgers, etc. Then you take your ticket over to the grill and wait forever for them to cook up your main dish. (A few well-placed elbows help). You then fight for a table and eat your meal. Eventually someone comes around to clear the trays, but not usually at the pace that the tables are vacated/refilled, so the new people pile all the trays on another table. Last time I went, we sat outside. It was a nice day so a lot of people were sitting outside, but the wait staff hadn't come by for awhile. There was a huge pile of trays on one of the tables. A lady with a stroller bumped it and they all came crashing down. Miraculously, only one plate broke.
From Wikipedia
Flunch is a popular French fast food chain.
The brand is similar to McDonalds and Quick, but only has chains in France and Portugal. It is rumoured that the name originates from a combination of the words "French" and "Lunch", creating the hybrid word "Flunch", but the official origin is from "fast lunch". The main difference with McDonalds or Quick is that Flunch does not provide hamburgers or sandwiches, but regular meals with a large choice of first course, main course and desserts. Many branches are located in shopping malls. One
particularity of Flunch is that you pay for the main course, but can get unlimited vegetables to accompany it.
French people don't see Flunch as fast-food, but as self-service. A real similar example in the USA is found in the South, K & W Cafeterias.
Flunch has been expanding to Portugal for ten years, and has 3 restaurants in the Portuguese cities of Oporto, Almada and Faro. The Oporto Flunch has about 1000 square metres.
There is one near where I work. The guys go there almost every single day. Main dishes are about 5-10 euros. I just find that eating lunch at any restaurant gets expensive if you do it every single work day, so have started bringing my unflunch lunch and only go once a week with them. Oh and the Unlimited Vegetables are really great choices like french fries.
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4 commentaires:
I don't think I've ever come across one in my trips to France, but it seems like a place to at least try sometime.
I enjoyed reading this. Will have to keep my eyes peeled for one in France!
Hello from Provence,
At 12h00 in a flunch it is very difficult to find a place to eat...
;)
I haven't been to a Flunch in over ten years, but I do remember it being a strange quasi-cafeteria experience you describe. Ha, I love that the trays just pile up and up! Funny the name comes from the English "Fast Lunch" because "Flunch" doesn't sound too appetizing at all to the Anglophone ear...