We spent a gorgeous day with our niece, meandering around the village of Le Touquet Paris-Plage, a small beachtown in northern France. It didn’t occur to me until after we saw this restaurant with extra EXTRA large hamburgers, that today is the 4th of July. Happy 4th of July! We would’ve commemorated my birth country’s independence here at Jean’s Cafe, which is a restaurant à la americaine (and à l’anglaise) but we had just finished eating some tasty tapas just up the street. Incidentally, I don’t think I’d want the Hamburger XXL, especially one that costs 17 euros, just a little more than $26. (I might be tempted by the ribs, however.) I don’t think I’d want anything XXL unless it was a French pastry or artisanal chocolate or Italian gelato or a pizza pie from Giordano’s.

We couldn’t resist but ask Jean’s Cafe how XXL the Hamburger XXL was exactly because we all knew that if we had an XXL burger in the U.S., it’d be like a 5 pounder of ground beef, with an extra cheese-like substance, a head of iceberg lettuce, 8 sliced pickles (amusement park-size), a whole sliced onion, waterfalls of ketchup and mustard – all inside a bun the size of seat cushion. You know? Anyway, the XXL is 250 grams of hamburger meat, roughly a half-pound of meat. That’s a LOT for French people but maybe a measly morsel for Americans. Ok, it’s huge, I realize, but I keep thinking about that Simpson’s episode where Homer eats 4.5 pounds of steak… so a half a pound is…you know how the French say… Les doigts dans le nez. (literally, fingers in the nose, which is suppose to mean, “piece of cake”).

tags: france travel le touquet extra extra large hamburgers in france 4th of july