Le Rugby’s food and drink correspondent follows up his hearty steak-frites main course with the only possible choice of dessert. But is it mousse, or is it merde? Pat du Jour zig-zags expertly between the cream and the crap

So you’ve chosen the venue of your rugby weekend in France, having deliberated over big city Toulouse, by-the-sea Montpellier or the backwater qualities of Bourgoin. You’ve put up with the hassles of the airport, caught the navette into town and checked into your budget hotel. A few beers later and you start to find your bearings. You’ll also start to find you can’t ignore the unmistakable sound of a grumbling stomach, understandably so as it’s been a long time since you had beans on toast in the Little Chef on the motorway.

Having decided on a restaurant, you’ve gone for the menu du jour ("...we get all this for €15?!"). The salade de gésiers doesn’t touch the sides, quickly followed by the steak-frites and copious amounts of bread. The waiter then asks for your choice of dessert.

My advice: always, always go for the mousse au chocolat, but be prepared for what ends up in front of you. Sometimes you get a mousse of supreme quality. Sometimes you end up with a bowl that would be more at home in a dog’s kennel. We take six offerings and ask the ultimate dessert question: mousse ou merde?

This is a great example of what to expect when you order a mousse au chocolat. This baby was served in a cosy, back-street restaurant in Oyonnax. It’s got a rich, dark, chocolatey feel to it. Its surface is nice and flat, just begging to be broken by a spoon. The bowl is of the correct cylindrical shape, allowing the eater to set off at a sprint along the circumference of the mousse, but to gradually slow up as the bottom is reached. There can be absolutely no complaints about this dish.
Mousse 1 Merde 0

This so-called mousse was dished up in a large restaurant in the centre of Lyon. Oddly enough, I’d avoided treading on a few similar looking pavement piles as I made my way there. There’s no other way to describe this – it looks like a dog turd. It’s the right shape, the right colour, the right texture and that pointy bit that signals the point in time where the dump comes to an end. Throw in the fancy, star shaped bowl and it’s a crap way to round your plat du jour.
Mousse 1 Merde 1

What a thing of beauty this is. It rounded off a great plat du jour in a cheeky little back-street bistro in Bayonne. Firstly, let’s cut to the chase. It looks like a pudding, not a poo. Take a look at the depth, the texture and that superb colour. Blimey, this stuff is so thick you could put it on a trowel and lay bricks with it. To test the authenticity of your mousse, put some on your spoon and turn it upside down. Your mousse won’t budge if it’s bona fide. This baby passed with couleurs volants.
Mousse 2 Merde 1

Où sont les gendarmes de merde? This poo-like pudding was ordered in an over-priced eatery in the centre of Paris. It’s got the distinctive layers that culminate in a swirly peak, the classic hallmarks of a terrier’s turd. Dog owners the world over will be used to finding such creations in their back gardens on a daily basis. Chefs are meant to tantalise and tempt the eater by the look of their creation. A peg to the nose would be most people’s instinct on being presented with this so-called mousse au chocolat.
Mousse 2 Merde 2

This is more like it. Served up in a little establishment in Perpignan, it’s unmistakably a chocolate mousse. That dark, rich colour is just begging to be eaten. This looks the kind of mousse that puts the lid on a great meal. If this thing of beauty doesn’t trigger a touch of the gout, then nothing will. The surface has been penetrated to reveal a light, fluffy body with a wonderfully smooth texture. Again, the bowl is minimalist. There’s no need for fancy crockery when you’re packing this sort of punch.
Mousse 3 Merde 2

But, what’s this? It’s a late equaliser for Racing Club Merdique! Unlike our other two examples of excrement, this offering, dished up in a cafe in Toulon, looks like the result of a dodgy lamb bhuna. Its colour is too light, added to which is a suspiciously runny consistency. The chef has just dolloped this into the bowl without any finesse or care. If you stuck this in the freezer for a few hours, you could sell it to pranksters as fake poo. Come on Chef, this isn’t what a mousse au chocolat should look like.
Mousse 3 Merde 3