Know your meters and your liters

When you belly up to the bar in France, it helps to know your metric measures - and I’m not talking poetry.

Here’s a couple of guidelines - the smallest, most miniscule beer you can order is a ‘galopin’. That would be 15 CL or 15 centiliters. Ask for a ‘galopin’ pronounced galopan (without pronouncing the last n) and the bartender will be impressed.)

The next step up for a beer is 25 CL, and finally the 50 CL for serious beer drinkers.

In wine, this translates to:
Un verre - which would be one glass of wine
Un quart - which is 25 CL (pronounced un ‘car’) (two full glasses)
Un pichet or Un carafe which is 50 CL (four glasses)

If you are going to a casual restaurant (such as Pizza Roma) mentioned in today’s post, you can order a quart or a pichet rather than a bottle. The house wine is usually perfectly acceptable to go with pizzas and pasta.

(For most French restaurants, you don’t need to know your grams, but remember for Italy, some tourist spots sell fish and steak by 100 gram portions. Normally a serving of fish or steak shouldn’t exceed 200 grams, but always specify, the number of grams you want served to you! This is especially important for Venice and Florence.)