Chez l'Huitre

Our second night in Nantes, we ate at a restaurant called Chez l'Huitre in Nantes. We sought out this oyster restaurant ("Huitre" means "oyster" in French) after visiting an amazing parking-lot market earlier in the day, where there was copious cheap seafood that made us want to take advantage of being near the ocean.

We expected good oysters, but the delightful, kid-friendly service from the two owners themselves was a surprising treat. First, they appeared with a bucket o' colored pencils and markers for the kids to draw on their paper placemats -- maybe a common thing in the U.S., but not here! Then, after Dave had finished his appetizer of a half-dozen oysters and one of the owners (also named David) was getting ready to shuck a bunch more for the next table, Molly and Betsy walked over to watch. He not only explained what he was doing, he gave them each a lesson in how to shuck (after a wink to the parents and an explanation that he would "pre-shuck" the oysters out of view of the girls)!

When we left after the meal, the other owner gave each of us a white tulip (see the canister above Molly's head in the picture?) and was thrilled to get hugs and bissous -- kisses -- from the girls. The next morning, we looked at the bill and realized they had only charged us for one of the children's meals.