By JESSICA YU
Tucked away on a little street in Shek Tong Tsui, on the northwest side of Hong Kong island, is one of the city's more serendipitous finds: Walking into underground café Les Boules is like walking out of south China and into a French neighborhood picnic party. The sounds of live harmonicas, piano music and French murmurs lure you in, and the petanque courts will keep you there.
For the uninitiated, petanque is a game in which a small wooden ball is tossed down a lane. Participants then attempt to toss larger metal balls as close as possible to the wooden ball. Each player is allotted a set number of balls and players can knock opponents' balls away from the wooden one. It's a lot like bocce ball, and perhaps most popular—and intensely played—in the region among Laotian tuk tuk drivers, who play it along the side of the road in Luang Prabang.
Les Boules isn't a place for fancy pants or Jimmy Choos—competitive spirits (sometimes enhanced by liquid ones) will soon have you kicking up clouds of dust as you run down the petanque lanes, wielding a measuring tape to argue over whose ball is a fraction of a centimeter closer.
In between rounds of petanque (the first hour costs 80 Hong Kong dollars a person, or about US$10; the second hour is HK$40 a person), engage in some banter over a plate of saucisson (HK$50)—a variety of French sausage—and (mais oui!) a bottle of wine (HK$50 a glass) or perhaps pastis (HK$40 a glass).
Underscoring the quirky, laid-back nature of the place, Les Boules opens at 3:15 p.m.
18 Woo Hop St., Shek Tong Tsui, Hong Kong. Tel: 2872 -0102
Open Tuesdays to Sundays, 3:15 p.m. to 11 p.m.
www.lesboules.hk
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