Trying
to decide where to eat in Paris can be tricky. It is a big city that can
offer all sorts of cuisine and the choices come in all price ranges. When we
went to Rome last year we had a pretty clear
image about what Italian food is…but I’m not really sure what typical French
food is. I tried to post a question about this on different forums but I’m
not sure I became any wiser. It seems like the food depends on which area of
France you go to. The last time we went to Paris we were not that
adventurous so we ended up eating quite a lot of junk food. I guess it also
has something to do with how much you are willing to pay for a meal. I would
like to recommend everyone to write about their experience when it comes to
eating in Paris, good or bad, so that other travellers can get a better
idea. You can e.g. give your feedback at
www.tripadvisor.com
or post in my
own forum. You don’t have to write much: where the place is, was the
food great or extremely bad, was the service OK and how much did it cost.
Before
I went to Paris I also posted on forums to get suggestions on where to eat
and I got quite a list that I brought with me to Paris. But theory does not
always go hand in hand with real life. If you have travelled several couples
you will know that it is not always easy to come to an agreement on where to
eat, when to eat etc. The only goal we had was to try and eat something
French while we were there (even if all of us love Thai, Indian, Italian
etc). But luckily my wife Nikki and I are pretty good friends as company on
the trip (Olav and Allis) so we didn’t end up in fights when trying to find
a place to eat.
On
the first night we were walking around in the Opera district and we couldn’t
find a place to eat and we had nothing on the list that was near buy. We
took the metro to get to Pompidou center and we just walked around. Just
when the drizzle and lack of options was becoming too much, we came upon
this place called
Le dos de la Baleine at 40, rue des Blancs Manteaux. It was more or less
empty when we came in so we were getting sceptical.
But
we sat down and the waiter asked if we wanted aperitifs we went for kir as
that was more or less the only thing we recognized of the things he rambled
off. Kir is a blend of white wine and blackcurrant liqueur or crème
de cassis. La Baleine served a champagne and crème de cassis mix - it was
great….or maybe it was just great because we were finally back in Paris and
in good company :-) As a starter I had a risotto with a couple of shrimps on
top and that was pretty good. Nikki had some vegetables with mozzarella and
basil ice cream on top.
Yes,
it sounds a bit strange but she certainly enjoyed it. As the main meal I had
lamb carré with a sort of pommes noisette. Nikki was a bit on the
adventurous side this night so she went for the veal served on top of a cake
of potato and with a few fried snails on the side. For dessert we had the
“orgasme au chocolat”…I guess it can’t have been that great because Nikki
can’t remember it :-) But all in all it was a good meal, the food was
presented in a great way and the service was good even if the waiters didn’t
speak that much English. In the end I think we paid 200 € for the four of us
including a 30 € bottle of red wine. Pretty reasonable by Norwegian
standards of a 3 course meal with wine.
We
stayed at Timhotel Tour Eiffel in the 15th district so one night we
decided to eat in the neighbourhood. Based on a recommendation from one of
the guys in the reception we went to a place called
Le Café du
Commerce located on 51 Rue du Commerce. From the outside it didn’t look
like much but when we came in an impressive place revealed itself. There was
a small indoor courtyard and the restaurant tables occupied three floors and
there was an abundance of green plants in the atrium. It was quite a busy
restaurant with waiters running all over the place.
I
guess they were quite busy because when we ordered our waiter served us the
wrong meal and when he noticed he came back and removed it to put it on the
table next to us. I also had to wait quite a bit as the waiter managed to
serve me the wrong starter twice. But when I got the chevre salad in the end
it was pretty good :-) For the main meal I went for something boring as a
steak as the menu was not that exciting. For dessert I had the tiramisu
which was not great…I guess it is better to have this when in Italy. We went
for a pretty cheap table wine for our meal…as we don’t know that much about
wine I think we bought one called “Vin de pays du Gard, dom.
Monpertuis”…since my name is Gard. Well, that was a bit of a mistake because
the wine was not very good. The meal cost us about 140 € for the 4 of us. As
a summary Le Café du Commerce is a place with nice atmosphere but the
food was not that memorable. The waiters also seemed to struggle to handle
all the customers. Nikki reckons he was a ‘newby’.
After
a morning stroll in Rue Cler we walked past this little shop called Il
Giramondo (located on 175, Rue de Grenelle). They had all sorts of delicacies for sale, ranging from
cookies, risotto rice, olives etc. Before we left the store I noticed a
small sign saying “Restaurant” and it turned out that they were also running
a small restaurant in the basement.
So
we made a reservation for the same night. The restaurant is tiny and I guess
there was room for about 20 people. The atmosphere was nice with thick white
vaulted walls. The service was a bit relaxed…when the waiter opened the
bottle it was not served so that we could taste, for instance. But the main
meal was excellent. We had the buffalo mozzarella and gnocchi for starters
and the main meal was veal medallions and risotto (yes, I do enjoy my
risotto). We also had some cookies for dessert but they were pretty dry and
I could have done without them. The meal was 85 € (including a 25 € bottle
of wine).
One night when we were getting hungry and without a
plan (again :-) ) we ended up at a place called
Hippopotamus grill
located near the opera. It is a chain so there are Hippo restaurants all
over Paris. The place seemed pretty popular and we had to wait in the bar
for a few minutes before we got a table. We were just there for a quick meal
and I guess that is what we got. Nikki went for the spareribs and I went for
the traditional sausage andouillette. I hope that I don’t offend too many
people but the sausage was horrible.I don’t know if this is the way it is
meant to taste but it had a very distinct smell and taste of swine and I’m
not used to that. I would not really recommend Hippopotamus. The service was
not very good and the food was not any good. But if you just want something
fast and cheaper - go to McDo instead.
Based
on a review in the guidebook we decided to try out La Rotisserie Du
Beaujolais one night. This is located at 19, quai de la Tournelle and I
think we just walked there from the metro station Cluny La Sorbonne. When we
came we asked if they had a table and the guy asked if we had a reservation.
We said no and he was shaking his head as if in disbelief. It turned out
that he was just joking because there were tables available in the small
restaurant.
We
decided to go for cray fish and onion soup as starters. The onion soup was
very good but be warned…all the cheese on top can ruin the appetite for the
main meal :-). For the main meal I had the traditional coq au vin and Nikki
had rabbit and we had a bottle of Beaujolais on the side.
But
the best part of the meal was still to come…the chocolate cake for dessert
turned out to be a chocolate fondant variety…which means that the inner core
of the cake is still a bit on the liquid side. That served with a good and
warm custard made the night for us :-) The meal was exceptional and it was
probably the best meal we had in Paris. It cost us 100 € for the two of us.
The only negative thing that I can point out was the service. It was not
intentionally bad. They just had a problem with the logistics. The Swedish
family next to us got dessert served but they were one portion short. So the
young girl of the family had to wait for like 15 minutes before she got her
ice cream and they had to ask for it a couple of times. We also had to more
or less beg for the check and it took forever to pay.
One thing is for sure: it is useful to know a bit of
French when going out to eat in Paris. The menu might be only in French and
then it is nice to have some idea what chicken, veal, pork etc is called.
Breakfast
We
had the option of eating breakfast at the hotel for about 8 € per person. We
did do this a number of times and the breakfast was not bad - buffet style,
so it was “eat as much as you want”. We did go for a breakfast at a typical
French café by the metro station of La Motte Picquet Grenelle.
The breakfast was OK but it didn’t include much more than we could get back
at the hotel: a baguette, a croissant, some orange juice and some coffee.
And the price was about the same…8 €. If you are in Paris on a budget and
want to find a cheaper option I would recommend going to a grocery store to
get a pre-made sandwich. At places like
Monoprix located near
the metro station La Motte Picquet Grenelle they had different sandwiches in
the grocery store on the second floor and it was also possible buy juice and
also pastry from the bakery on the ground floor.
Finding popular places by coincidence
We
did come across a couple of places by coincidence when walking around Paris
that I would like to mention. The first one was in the Montmatre area after
we had been to Sacré Coeur de Montmartre. . We just wanted a quick lunch so
we stopped by a place called Deux Moulins. There was a movie poster
in there for the movie ”Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain” which I saw a
few years back. Well, last Saturday when I looked at the DVD in a shop I saw
a picture of Deux Moulins on the back of the DVD. From what I hear it has
changed quite a lot since the movie…or maybe they just changed it for the
movie. We had a club sandwich there and that was OK.
The
French fries were fresh and pretty good at least :-) The place looks a bit
run down and the men’s room was not very appealing...at all. Make sure you
take have some wet cleansing serviettes handy - the sink was totally covered
and out of order when I was there. The other place we found was Cafe de
Flore. We had been on a Da Vinci code tour and ended up in Saint Germain
and we just wanted to find a place for lunch. We saw Café de Flore and
thought it looked good. It was only later that I saw that it was listed as a
separate attraction in the guidebook. I guess the prices should have
indicated that it was a popular place...10 € for a glass of beer is a bit
expensive even for a Norwegian :-) But the onion soup was pretty good there.
Coffee
If you have read the trip report from Rome last year you will have noticed
that we do enjoy a bit of coffee :-). In my opinion you should try out the
following places for good coffee:
Café
Malongo at Galleri Lafayette. I think that they have other stores
as well but we only tried out the one at GL. We tried stuff like Java cafe,
cappuccino, espresso etc. The java café was intense by the way. I think it
was ½ a portion of dark chocolate sauce and ½ portion of espresso and topped
with lots of whipped cream. Their espresso chart is impressive...there is a
separate menu because they have so many espressos to offer :-) Another place
that you can try is
Columbus café. This is a chain of stores spread around Paris and they
serve a very decent cup of coffee. We had a few cups of very good cappuccino
there. Well, if you get really desperate and
feel homesick I guess Starbucks is also an option ;-).
As in Rome there must be thousands of places to eat in
Paris and
the trick is to find the places that are worth visiting :-) Taste
is a very subjective thing and I guess food that we enjoyed maybe not be to
everybody’s taste. But I hope that this has given some sort of indication to
what Paris has to offer.
Review of L'Ascot in March 2007
I
went to L’Ascot with a couple of colleagues in March 2007. We found
the recommendation to this place in an old Pariscope (a free booklet that
tells what’s going on in Paris, what to see and do etc). The restaurant is
located at 66 Rue Pierre Charron (between Champs-Elysées and George V (see
the
interactive Google map to see location of the restaurant) . We just
walked there from our Hilton hotel by the Eiffel tower (see
the review)
and it didn’t take long…but can you really trust a Norwegian recommendation
when it comes to walking and distances? :-)
When
we came in the interior didn’t really stand out in any way and it looked
like other Parisian restaurants that we have been to. But the service were
good and we were greeted and taken to a table and the waiter also noticed
that in our group there was a French person…and hence he got a menu in
French and we got a menu in English. After the trip to
Paris last year my
traditional aperitif has become Kir…or Kir Royale. We enjoyed the Kir Royale
while looking at the menu. I’m a bit embarrassed to tell what I had….when I
travel I do try to be a bit adventurous and try special local delicacies.
I
did have in mind that I wanted to try out the snails (escargots) but I
chickened out by ordering the onion soup. What can I say…I just wanted to
have a good safe meal :-) The onion soup was good…but then again I guess it
is hard to go really wrong with onion soup in the first place. One of my
colleagues did go for the escargots as a starter and it looked pretty good
and I did regret my (boring) choice. For the main course I went for lamb
carré and it was served with only mashed potatoes. It sounds pretty boring
but the taste of the meat and sauce was very good…but the mashed potatoes
could have been tastier. We had a very good red wine by the way…I think it
was a Bordeaux by the name of Perron.
For
the dessert I went for the classical Creme Brulée. I tried to make it at
home just a week or two before I left for Paris and I was not sure if I had
gotten it right. But judging from what I got at L’Ascot I think I more or
less got it right. Creme Brulée is mainly made from eggs, crème, vanilla and
sugar…and it makes a great dessert. And the melted sugar on top makes it
complete…at least for a guy with a sweet tooth :-) As a conclusion I can say
that I would not hesitate to go to L'Ascot again. My colleague took the bill
so I'm not sure how much this meal cost us.
Feel free to go to the
next page to see more pictures from our
stay in Paris. |