Yes We CanCan: Bastille Day Binge in Cairns

C'est Bon is our go-to French restaurant in Cairns. The food is sublime, Nicolas the patron is full of French quirks, always coming up with new ideas. He runs a tight ship, the staff know who's boss, it's all as dramatic and Gallic as it can be.

The Bastille Day Dinner of six courses, ranging from gougeres, crab, coral trout, to boeuf bourgignon and a blockbuster dessert tower to rival le Tour Eiffel. The place was booked out to the rafters.

A glamourous French-Canadian singer and her audio system stormed the ramparts of our auditory canals rendering us mute with a tsunami wall of sound as she belted out the Marseillaise, massacred Celine Dion, Edith Piaf, Leonard Cohen and Françoise Hardy, before displaying her true forte as an operatic steamroller.

Reeling from the shockwaves, unable to converse at 1 meter distance across our table, in contrast our table neighbours were blown away too, but ecstatically giving her a standing ovation.

Absolute pinnacle of the evening were the CanCan dancers, a bevy of luscious, jobbing students from James Cook University, exploding into the restaurant for a highly polished, acrobatic, knicker flashing 20 minutes of mayhem.

After kir royal, bottle and a bit of excellent Coonawarra cabernet sauvignon, 6 courses of impeccably splendid cuisine, we too were exploding into our taxi home.

Yes, we certainly CanCan, and we certainly CouldCould!

Gougere au chevre, dry walnut chutney with smoked duck cream

Crab salad with green apple, tarragon-lemon vinaigrette, pickled celery

Creamed celeriac with shaved red radish salad, lemon and Dijon vinaigrette, puffed buckwheat

Filet of coral trout, beurre blanc citron, confit fennel, saffron panisse, citrus pearls

Boeuf Bourguignon

Dessert Tower

Petits Fours

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C'est Bon, Restaurant, Cairns, Bastille Day, Meal, Dinner