DATELINE: Albertville

The French dining experience is supposed to be exquisite, but for Mike Moran, exquisite is hardly the proper adjective.

If the United States Olympic Committee’s press chief chooses to take the rest of his meals in his room here during the Winter Olympics, it will be entirely understandable.

Here’s his tale:

“The first indication that it wasn’t going to go well was that they didn’t have bread for a sandwich. In France, no bread.

“When we walked into the restaurant, there was one booth left and there was a parka on the table. So Dave (Ogrean, USOC broadcasting director) nodded to the two couples in the booth next to us, ‘Yours?’ and started to pick it up. The guy jumped out and acted very agitated . . . and grabbed the coat and . . . put it on the table between the two couples.

“On one side of the booth the guy was sitting there, and the girl was on his lap, and they were hugging and kissing and having their wine and smoking. The other guy and his girlfriend are just sitting there, having their coffee and smoking. I never smoked in my life, but I caught up on second-hand smoke.

“They serve our food, and I’m looking across as I’m about into my third bite of salad, and the guy’s holding up a large brown and white rat by the tail--the rat’s squirming around.

“And then I realize what had happened. The rat’s been nesting in the parka that was on our table, so that was why the guy got agitated.

“A little bit later, I look over, and the guy that has the rat also has a cup of hot chocolate in front of him. The rat is out on the table, lapping out of the hot chocolate. The rat is like a cat, up on its haunches, paws up on the cup. They’re not even paying attention to it.

“I get my camera out and whack a picture of that right away because I don’t really believe that it happened.

“And then a little later, they get up to leave and the guy puts the rat in his pocket and we say, ‘bon soir, ‘ and off into the night they go.”

Probably looking for Chuck E. Cheese’s.