Nelson's Weblog

Particularly good Paris dining

This fall I wrote 39 blog posts about restaurants in Paris. Here's the places I thought were particularly good or worth returning to. None of these are the best restaurants in Paris, but rather are chosen for their comfort and the care of the staff.

Au Burguignon du Marais, 4th: One of our favourite bistros, went many times.
Le Caveau du Palais, 1st: Excellent traditional bistro on Ile de Cité
L'Ambassade d'Auvergne, 1st: Comfortably formal restaurant.
d'Chez Eux, 7th: Crazy but excellent rustic country food.
La Reine Blanche, 4th: Good neighbourhood place on the Ile St. Louis.
La Verre a Soi, 17th: Lovely simple restaurant run by my friend Evelyne.
Les Fous d'en Face, 4th: Excellent lunch, particularly if you can sit outside.
Le Brasserie de l'Île St. Louis: Classic Alsatien brasserie on the Ile St. Louis.
Boulangerie Malineau, 4th: My favourite place for croissant.

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Le Moulin Fleuri

One place we found in France that I don't want to forget: Le Moulin Fleuri. It's in the middle of nowhere about 10km south of Tours. It's the kind of place that can only exist in France: a little place in the country, a beautiful and tranquil view, and a great restaurant with an impressive wine list. It gives the impression of having been a roadhouse for travellers for a hundred years. We bumbled into this with our Michelin guide for lunch one afternoon and got a much better lunch than we were expecting. There's a little hotel too, I think it'd be wonderful to stay there for a night.

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La Truffière

We had a truly excellent dinner the other night at La Truffière in the 5th near Rue Mouffetard. An excellent menu of French classics with some emphasis on truffles, but good broad coverage. The room was great, the staff was friendly, an amazing wine list, everything that goes into a comfortable dinner. Often hard to find in combination in Paris!

The one drawback is the place is very expensive. 110€ per person for the big tasting menu, and precious few bottles under 100€. (Note: this is much higher than listed on the web site. Hmm.) The non-smoking room was about half Japanese tourists and only one French table, I suspect their prices generally keep the locals away. Still, we had a perfect meal, so money well spent.

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The lacy crêpe

Crêpes are one of France's lovely little fast foods. You see them on street corners made to order with some Nutella or butter or the like and they're pretty satisfying. But crêpes can also be a real meal, a specialty of Bretagne. Jason and I had a great lunch in Rennes during our little trip: ham and cheese crêpe, chocolate crêpe, some cider.

Paris has a zillion crêpe joints, but only a select subset are serious authentic Bretagne places. Like the Crêpe Dentelle, a casual little weekday joint in the 2nd near the charming market street Rue Montorgueil. The delicate buckwheat crêpes were deliciously buttery. The homemade salted caramel made for a delicious dessert crêpe. The cider by the bowl wasn't my favourite. But for 11€50 you can get a full meal of three crêpes served by smiling pleasant people. What's not to like?

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Le Suffren

I don't know the area around the Eiffel Tower well. The immediate area is a giant park and tourist hell, and south of there is ugly and inhuman in scale. But it's also a popular place to live and work. And there are some sympa restaurants there, like Le Suffren.

It's a straight-up brasserie, lots of closely set tables and a menu with food options from oysters to fresh fish to steak to my pasta with tandoori chicken. Many of the locals were eating seafood, including an enormous fruits de mer platter, so maybe that's there special thing. The lunchtime crowd is fun, a bunch of Parisians enjoying a good meal without much fuss. And the service and food are a notch above the usual brasserie. Recommended, particularly if you're in the area and want something truly Parisian.

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At their place

Auberge is French for "inn", traditionally a homely little place where you could get a room for a night and a home cooked meal. There are precious few auberges left anywhere in France, let alone Paris, so the name now implies "restaurant with cozy food". Such as the Auberge d'Chez Eux, a lovely casual little place near the Eiffel Tower in the 7th.

The southwest cooking is strongly on the "hearty" side, not sophisticated. But it's delicious and honest, paricularly the homemade charcuterie and desserts. Our dinner last night included an assortment of homemade salads, a fantastic salade gourmande with cured duck breast and foie gras, an impressively rich stew of deer, and a whole pheasant cooked with morels and girolles.

The hazard of this place is they love serving way too much food. My first time there I ordered the charcuterie sampling, which ended up being 12 kinds of dry sausage, 6 kinds of hot sausage, and a little fresh boudin noir to finish it off. That was the appetizer; my main course of two duck legs was to come. This kind of excess is atypical for France, and frankly a bit unwelcome, but it's done out of a generosity and joy of serving customers good food to make them happy. So you go with it, and just eat what you want, and it works out.

The wine list is surprisingly good; we had a lovely 1995 Madiran. And my friend Richard was crazy enough to finish his meal off with a glass of flaming prune eau-de-vie, a remarkably theatric presentation that ended up nearly burning his lips off. Everyone laughed, we ate a bit more dessert, and enjoyed the pleasure of a friendly auberge. It's no wonder Chirac took Putin here for dinner.

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Vous aussi dites cheese!

It's not all elegant dining in Paris; today's lunch was a hamburger, fries, and coke at Restaurant Quick, the French take on McDonalds. It's expensive by US standards at 5€90 for the basic burger meal. How is it? Nominally a little better than McD's but nowhere near In-n-Out quality.

But what prompts me to document this ignominious meal is the current "Say Cheese" campaign. Special meals include a hamburger with three slices of cheese, the intense raclette, and some nasty looking goat cheese burrito. Yes, in a land with a fantastic variety of local artisinal cheeses, "now with more goo!" also sells.

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Chez Marianne

In the middle of the Marais in Paris there is a Jewish quarter with a complicated 800 year history. These days it's mostly home to recent Jewish immigrants from the Middle East. It's a great neighbourhood to find a quick cheap lunch, something different from the usual French food. Felafel, schwarma, bagels, etc.

One of the best known places there is Chez Marianne. It's an overgrown traiteur; their primary business is selling premade salads, deli foods, etc. But over time it's evolved into a restaurant with table service and is now quite popular at lunch. My assortment plate had hummus, tzatziki, roasted peppers in oil, feta, and a meatball. And some excellent pita bread. Way too much food, but good.

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Le Lutetia café

By no means is Le Lutetia worth a special effort for a short term visitor. But if you're in the neighbourhood of Notre Dame or the Ile St. Louis this little café is a good bet, much better than other nearby options. The folks are friendly, the coffee's good, and you have a wide selection of little snacks or more serious meals. They make a good American-style hamburger, nice meal-sized salads, and had a good looking onion soup. The staff is also very friendly and there's even free WiFi. Le Lutetia is our "around the corner" place.

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Auberge des Deux Ponts

Paris is expensive. So it's nice when you find something like the Auberge des Deux Ponts, a casual little restaurant right in the middle of the Ile St. Louis. Despite the location the lunch menu is a low 10€90 for three courses. I had a very good salad with warm goat cheese, a decent paupiette de veau (ground veal, spiced), and some ice cream. Nothing too special, but the staff cares about what they're doing and the place is good, nearby, and cheap.

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Cheese to the rescue!

The Rue Mouffetard is what the Left Bank / Latin Quarter would be if it weren't overrun by tourists. It starts at the charming Place de la Contrescarpe and runs south a few blocks on the far side of the hill from the Bd. St. Michel nonsense. The street is home to a bunch of student dive bars, "ethnic" restaurants (Greek, Chinese, Indian, ...) and several fondue joints. Some of these places are hideous (like Chez Papa, whose salad was dressed largely by the lettuce washing water), but if you choose carefully you can have a good inexpensive meal in a fun neighbourhood.

It's been cold, so last night Ken and I went for fondue at Assiette aux Fromages. 15€ gets you more melted cheese than you can eat along with a nice bit of ham and salad. There's lots of other things on the menu, some even not cheese-themed, but it's clear you come here for fondue or raclette. And they do fondue well. We'll go back if we have time.

PS: the blog title comes from an awful marketing campaign by the American Dairy Association. The theme was that any food could be made into a delicious meal just by adding cheese. I can't think of a more succinct summary of the American approach to food.

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L'Enoteca

A few days ago I had about enough of French food so I went looking for something "ethnic". Paris is big and there's all kinds of food here, but Indian, Thai, Mexican, even Greek are all a bit dicey. So we ended up with Italian, at a little place near me in the Marais called L'Enoteca. I'd walked by a dozen times, always impressed by the care of the daily menus and wine choices.

Generally in Paris if you find a place where the staff cares about what they're doing, you'll eat well. As it was at L'Enoteca. My strongest memory is of the pasta with duck. Excellent fresh tagliatelle, shreds of duck nicely peppered. Simple, elegant, perfect. The Italian wine list is excellent and modestly priced to match the menus. It's clear the owner has pride, and that translates to a good experience.

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L'Ambassade d'Auvergne

The best eating in France is in the country; in Paris what that means is finding places with regional specialities. L'Ambassade d'Auvergne is a good example, simple food from the Massif Central. But while the food is simple this place near Pompidou is elegant, good staff and nice tables.

I started with the assortment of cured pork; some ham, rillettes, blood sausage, and dry sausage. All excellent, particularly the ham. Ken was happy with his wild boar terrine but the best starter was the simple lentil salad with bits of bacon. Perfectly prepared. For a main corse we had duck breast and sausages, all served with aligot. Aligot is a riffe on mashed potatoes, mixed thoroughly with hard cheese to an elastic consistency. Hearty simple fare, very satisfiying. We'll be back.

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Le Petit Prince

One of my favourite casual places to go on the left bank is Le Petit Prince de Paris, a comfortable and lively restaurant not far from Pantheon. The menu is sort of updated classic French; nothing too inventive, but not dull either. And achievable, with good ingredients and appropriate attention from the kitchen. But I like the place most because it has a good buzz. It's been a sort of gay restaurant for 20 years; nothing overt, not in a gay neighbourhood, but popular with young Parisian men. Lately it's been featured in a lot of food guides (including Zagat) so it gets a much broader mix of people. But it remains festive and comfortable and a place I'm happy to know and go back to.

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Chez Cécile

My friend Richard booked us into this restaurant near Madeleine the other day. He knew it in its previous incarnation as a Burgundian brasserie, complete with cheap brass plaques commemorating regulars' favourite tables. It's morphed into Chez Cécile now, a comfortable restaurant with an ambitious chef. I'm writing this too far after the meal to remember details, but there were a lot of touches of inventiveness on the menu that worked. Meat flavoured with smoked hay. Ravioli with coconut milk and vanilla. Etc. New cooking, not hidebound French tradition, and it worked. We'll be back.

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Benoit

If you look in any guidebook for "authentic Paris bistro" you're likely to be sent to Benoit. It's been in Paris forever, was a favourite of politiians, bought by Alain Ducasse' prestigious company, and has even gotten a star from Michelin. But is it that good? Not really.

I've been twice in two separate years now and to be honest, the place suffers too much under the weight of its reputation. The clientele is 90% tourists, sapping the will and joy out of the staff there. The menu is classic bistro, which is to say a bit hackneyed. Everything is prepared well enough but nothing is particularly good. Nothing is bad either, and the service is very good. It's just uninspiring.

Paris is so full of honest and earnest places that there's no need to go to someone just making the motions. If you're looking for a good traditional meal in Paris and you're not sure how to find a place, by all means go to Benoit. It's certainly good. But if you want something interesting save the evening for somewhere new.

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Le Caveau du Palais

Ken pulled a real gem out of Zagat last weekend; Le Caveau du Palais. Everyone wants to eat at a bistro when they visit Paris, but the truth is most "bistros" are crappy French short order restaurants with the exact same menu. Duck confit. Steak with shallots. Broiled bass. Steak tartare. Roasted chicken.

The difference with Le Caveau is it's very very good. The food is prepared with great care and excellent ingredients. The terrine du porc was homemade, they just brought out a big casserole and said "cut yourself as much as you want". My duck confit was one of the best I've had in a very long time, with fanastically garlicky and leathery pommes sarladaise. Ken's chicken breast with cream sauce and morels was perfect as well. Good wine list, too.

It's rare to find a simple bistro that does so well. Benoit is where most people will be sent, and you'll do OK, but Le Caveau felt more like the real thing to me. The location is phenomenal as well, in the middle of the touristy Cité island but in a quiet corner on a handsome square. It felt like the kind of place where all the Parisian ministers go for lunch. On a Saturday night it was very quiet.

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Le Brasserie de l'Île St. Louis

As pleasant as my apartment is, I live in the middle of tourist hell just behind Notre Dame. So I'm generally suspcious of the restaurants a short walk from my place. But there are a few gems here, including Le Brasserie de l'Île St. Louis. It's a 135+ year old Alsatian brasserie right on the island, just to the left from the bridge from Cité. And it's a lovely casual little brasserie, lots of hearty portions of sauerkraut and cured pork and the like. Lunch today was some lovely slices of roast veal served alongside cauliflower au gratin. Nothing subtle, but made with care, cheap, and delicious.

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Le Reminet

Do you dream of going to Paris and eating in a little crowded hip bistro, inventive menu and a buzz? If so, Le Reminent is the place for you. Except one thing; it's bad.

Everytime we've walked by this place it was crowded with happy people. And the menu looked good. So tonight we went in and found a disaster in action. Ten minute wait to have anyone ask us about drinks or food. So we ordered food, asked for the wine list, then five minutes later are asked by the same person for our food order again. Lots of grumpy people sitting around demanding checks, service, etc. Clearly things were not going well.

The menu was ambitious but disappointing. My cod salad with capers was pleasant enough, Ken's croustillant of chevre was unimpressive. And both of us were served salad out of a bag. Partridge was a welcome item on the menu but came out overcooked and in a muddy brown sauce. Ken's steak was good meat, but again with the mud sauce. Desserts equally uninspired. Good? Earl grey tea flavoured creme. Bad? No other flavour.

The restaurant was packed with English speaking tourists, all smugly happy they'd found a sophisticated experience. The British forty-something gals across from us were drunk and taking two flash photos a minute. And the culmination of the meal service? The woman running the restaurant sat at a table in the middle of the dining room, patrons still having their meals, and proceeded to eat her own dinner and read a magazine. Shocking, unacceptable, and a good reason not to go back.

Sadly, about half the restaurants we go to in Paris seem to have similar lapses. I'll endeavour to write more about the good half.

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Musee d'Orsay restaurant

Paris is best taken at her own pace. And while the Musee d'Orsay is the #1 essential visit for any visitor to Paris, it can be a difficult place to pace. Hour long waits to buy tickets, giant crowds, a lack of good nearby dining. The solution for the tickets is easy; go a day or two in advance and buy tickets at the nearby kiosk. Then the day you visit you whisk right inside, no wait. (Except for today, where the kiosk was perversely closed.)

The solution for dining was also easy, but alas has gotten harder. There is a serious restaurant inside the museum, on the second floor in a beautifully restored ballroom. Alas, the service has gone downhill significantly since last year; the lack of linen makes the place feel just a bit too much like a dismal cafeteria. The menu is still slightly ambitious and the execution is still just as uneven. Our filet of pork was great, the entrecote serviceable, but the mushroom terrine was watery. I can recommend this place for lunch, but only as a comfortable part of an extended visit to the museum. It's a shame they gave up on the tablecloths and other trappings of a real restaurant.

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A La Tête D'Or

The entitlement of Paris is no matter where you are, there's a comfortable little restaurant a block away. In the middle of the city there's a lot more than one little restaraunt, so finding the comfortable one can be a trick. For today's lunch A La Tête D'or was just the thing only a block from Chatelet metro.

The bistro is run by a family from the Aveyron, but other than the advertised Aubrac beef I have no idea what that would mean for cuisine. The menu was quite pleasant though, straying far from the usual steak/chicken/fish dishes of the everyday Parisian bistro. I had a nice little filet of lieu jaune (pollack), a firm white fish like a cod served in a green herby sauce. Being in a hurry I appreciated the rapid service, but the fish came out a bit too quickly. I fear it was not prepared to order, but it was quite tasty. A little pichet of rich white wine, a homemade tarte tatin, and I was done with a very pleasant lunch 45 minutes and 28€ later.

BTW, across the corner is a pleasant patisserie where I bought lovely croissants a few years ago.

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Les Marronniers

My friend Richard took me to Les Marronniers first, for a quick lunch across from BHV in the 4th. It's a casual sort of cafe, excellent salads and small sandwiches. I went back with Ken because we were jonesing for the promising looking American-style hamburger, which was OK but a bit of a disappointment. Should have had the Sunday brunch like everyone else!

I believe in the afternoon / early evening this doubles as a place for a quick glass of wine for the young gay men that suddenly appear all over the Marais. Tres gentile.

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Camille

Camille is another fine Bistro in the Marais, Despite being in the center of the tourist zones of the 4th Camille seems to cater more to folks on lunch break or out for a Parisian stroll. Alas I've forgotten what we ordered, but I imagine we'll be back and I can report more then.

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Au Bourguignon du Marais

I've been to Au Bourguignon du Marais in the 4th twice now. It's a straight up bistro, simple French dishes, with a burgundian slant and a good wine list. The outdoor seating is quite pleasant on a quiet seat and the kitchen and staff are serious enough to make for a very good lunch.

Some favourite dishes.. A blanched tomato and fresh goat cheese salad, the classic hangar steak with shallots, and a surprisingly robust penne with chorizo. They also feature andouillette and it looks good, but I'm just not quite brave enough. Last time we were there we had a fantastic chocolate tarte, way better than anything else like it in Paris. Creamy and eggy, rich with chocolate but not too dense. Yum.

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ChantAirelle

If you want a slightly odd and rustic experience in Paris, check out ChantAirelle in the 5th. It's a simple restaurant featuring recipes and products from the Auvergne, plus a bit of touristy stuff stuck on front. Don't fear though, the staff is friendly and the cooking is good. Nothing we had was subtle; this is casual mountain food. But the potatoes and cheese dish was tasty with a delicious thin sliced ham. My "salmon trout" turned out to be salmon prepared as if it were a mountain trout; a bit bizarre, but good.

I'd say this place isn't worth a particular trip, but if you're tired of the Parisian experience you can get a bit of Auvergne feel for a cheap price. Nice outdoor space in back, too.

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Stéphane Martin

An excellent and innovative French place in the 15th, Stéphane Martin is what I keep expecting to find in Paris and missing. The chef is quite ambitious, with a changing and challenging menu. The highlight of our dinner was an Indian preparation of rabbit; quite strongly spiced but with the subtlety and integration of a French chef.

While the cooking is great the service is a bit uneven; it almost feels like they hired untrained staff. But they're nice and attentative, just a bit clumsy, so go with it and it's fine. The entire restaurant is non-smoking, a welcome thing.

PS: I promised to write more, and I will, but got sick of writing up the places I didn't like.

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Pain au chocolat

With many thanks to Jason Kottke for the recommendation, I just finished enjoying a lovely pain au chocolat from Boulangerie Malineau in the Marais about five blocks from me. Crisp, nicely layered, and warm, just a bit too buttery. A superior pastry, even for Paris.

One wonderful thing about Paris is the diversity of bakeries, cheese stores, butchers, etc. Everyone seems to have specific favourites; this place is good for pain ordinaire, this one for croissant, this one is more convenient. So much to learn.

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Degrés de Notre Dame: Moroccan

Ken and I have finally discovered a good area to wander from our place in search of dinner: between the Ile de la Cité and Place Maubert. It's close enough to the tourist zone to have lots of casual restaurants, but far enough on the wrong side to not be awful. Lots of promising options.

Like Degreés de Notre Dame, a restaurant with a pleasant outdoor seating area next to a modest hotel. Like most French restaurants of this type it serves the usual fare along with a speciality. In this case, Moroccan food. My tagine was fantastic, richly spiced and sweetened with raisins and plums. Ken's warm goat cheese salad was also excellent, although his couscous was a bit bland. Mostly we liked the place because they seemed to really care about serving good food and making people happy.

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Chicken and fries

Brasserie is French for diner and a lot of the French comfort food I enjoy is the French equivalent of the blue plate special of meatloaf and mashed potatoes. Poulet frites is one such dish: a quarter roasted chicken, some fries, and if you're lucky a little salad with mustard vinaigrette. Which is exactly what I had for dinner late on Sunday, then again for lunch on Monday.

Nothing exciting, but made well it satisfies. The chicken skin should be crisp, a little brown gravy from the drippings, the fries crisp and hot and just oily enough to not quite soak up all the gravy. Which, alas, is not quite what I got at neither Le Village Ronsard in the 5th nor Le Dôme in the 7th. Sunday night chicken is a risky proposition, and while the Monday lunch was better it wasn't made with much love. Just have to keep trying!

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But wait, there's more!

Below you'll find several blog entries for my first few meals in Paris. I'm going to try to keep this up. You won't find them in my main blog, but if you want to follow along either come to the Paris food sub-blog or else subscribe to the RSS feed. Merci!

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Les Fous d'en Face: Sunday afternoon

I had a lovely Sunday lunch today at Les Fous d'en Face, a sidewalk bistro with a great location. It's in the 4th at 3, Rue du Bourg-Tibourg, just north of Rue de Rivoli in a charming little restaurant lined square. Just the thing on a sunny Sunday afternoon.

My salade du chevre chaud was a surprise; the salade is served separate from the cheese, a fresh mild crottin that looked more like a poached egg. Very nice, a bit heavy. The salmon main course was excellent; fresh and well cooked if a bit plain. Dessert, a fresh strawberry soup, just the thing for the end of summer. Ken enjoyed his rabbit terrine but was a bit unimpressed with the veal cutlet and girolles. The Languedoc rosé we chose (Peyre Rose) was excellent if a bit strong for the day. A deep color, almost a red, and strong for a rosé (14%!). Excellent wine, just not the perfect choice at the time.

Our waiter was quite friendly and made the experience all the more enjoyable. Definitely a comfortable place for a tourist to visit, but being a bit up the Seine in the 4th it wasn't overwhelmed by Americans in shorts. Not cheap but not terrible, three courses will cost you about 30€. A good choice if you're in the Marais.

We went back and had another good lunch. My tuna was great, Ken's steak was not as good but that's what he gets for ordering steak in France. Our Beaujolais order (Chiroubles, of Eric Morin) got us a special friendly visit to explain what we'd ordered. The place is choosing wines carefully.

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Cheese at home

After all this dining out I couldn't take anymore, so we finally did some local shopping and had dinner at home. A trip to the local fromagerie yielded an Epoisses (Berthaut; like home, not raw milk), a St. Marcellin, and some very strong dry goat cheese. Along with some Corsican sausage, a baguette from the boulanger and some wine from Nicolas it made for a fine quick dinner.

One of my goals in Paris is to get friendly with a local cheesemonger, to be able to go in and say "what's really good today?". Cheese is a living complex thing, not to be shrinkwrapped and sliced to individual servings. Time to find that in Paris.

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Ma Bourgogne: classic bistro in the Marais

The Place des Vosges is one of those old European city planning miracles, a lovely square with uniform architecture surrounding a comfortable park square. There are a few good restaurants surrounding the square and Ma Bourgogne is a storied old bistro/café you can't miss. The tables under the colonnade are very comfortable so you can excuse if the food is a bit dull, if proper.

Ken and I made the mistake of both ordering some dry cured sausages. Which is what we got, giant chunks of sausage with no proper knife to cut them. Good enough charcuterie but not exceptional, and too much of it. Our steaks and frites came out better, particularly my bavette, but other than the fried shallots there wasn't much to dress the steak. Very plain food. If I had a bit more courage maybe I could be telling you how good the andouilette or tête de veau are, but having had those French soul food adventures once I'm not in a hurry to do so again.

If I'm in the area again I'd definitely stop in for a quick bistro lunch, but not worth a special trip. I'm still unsure about whether this restaurant is the same as the Ma Bourgogne on Bd. Hausmann in the 8th. I was there a few years ago, that place was marvelous.

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Mediocre pizza in the Latin Quarter

Hot on the heels of our lousy salad-in-a-bread-bowl, Ken and I finished another 45 minute marché de manger at some random pizza place we found in the 6th or 7th that was open and advertised "feu de bois". Nice enough neighbourhood joint, slightly rowdy and good spirited, but nowhere near good enough to warrant remembering.

The one thing I do remember was the gentleman sitting next to us, a regular. In his mid 60s, very large, slight difficulty moving. But well loved by the staff despite (or because of?) his tendency to flirt with the young male staff. His eyes followed every young man in the room, not rudely, just enjoying the scenery while dining. Tres gentile. He helped us get the waiter's attention a time or two, was friendly, but alas my French isn't good enough for casual conversation. I did get a good smile from him when I made a mildly intimate gesture with Ken, letting our friend know we were fellow travellers. Paris is good for people.

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The awful tourist joint with salad in bread bowls

The nadir of my dining in Paris so far is a joint right across from Notre Dame at the end of the Petit Pont. There's a string of several outdoor cafes; good for a beer, bad for food. Should have run away with I saw they proudly advertised "salad served in a bowl made of bread!". Nasty day old pizza dough, inedible. And the salade nicoise was lacking in all the goodness that makes a French salad. Hey, they're not all good.

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La Bouteille d'Or: Corsican near Notre Dame

Our first serious dinner was at La Bouteille d'Or, a fine restaurant with a slight Corsican bent just across from Notre Dame. We had no particular plan that night but the spacious tables and well dressed staff brought us in. And it worked fairly well.

Ken and I both had wild boar (sanglier) for our main courses. Very nice, if a bit plain in preparation. I confess I can't remember much about our first courses except that Ken's beignets of chestnut flour didn't work as well as we'd hoped. I think I had snails. But I distinctly remember the fantastic selection of Corsican cheeses we had to finish the meal, the perfect accompaniment to the dark red vin de Corse.

There are so many good restaurants of this caliber in Paris, I'm not sure this one is worth a special effort to visit again. But it was a good dinner for us.

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La Reine Blanche: convienient on Ile St. Louis

Our apartment is on the lovely Ile St. Louis. Dining options are limited here, but one place that seems to work well for a casual lunch is the Auberge de la Reine Blance. It's just a bit further west up the street than most tourists go and the door is kind of small, but inside is a very typical little comfortable lunch joint.

The menu is a bit ambitious for a casual place. Ken had an eggplant gratin with curry flavouring along with a rich, solidly prepared beef burgundy. I had an excellent set of snails in little puff pastry with pesto and a lovely millefeuille preparation of fish. Well executed, simple, not terribly expensive. We'll be back.

We went back, it was as good as remembered and is now our favourite neighbourhood place. I see someone agrees with me: it gets a 21/30 food rating in Zagat.

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Le Bouledogue, gay brasserie

Our second night in Paris found us stumbling around again looking for a restaurant, this time by heading off in a direction of the Marais we'd never been in before. We ended up at Le Bouledogue at 20 Rue Rambuteau in the 3rd. A tiny little place, half empty at 20:45 and totally full by 21:15. About half the crowd were skinny French gay men there for a quick pre-crawl meal. And proper brasserie service, friendly people, all good. (Except the weather, a miserable 30°C).

Ken and I both had gaspacho, passably good but nothing special. Ken's duck confit was undercooked but the skin was nicely crunchy. My breast of goose was absolutely fantastic, unctuously oily with just enough vinegar in the sauce to balance. We liked the place, but in retrospect maybe the food was just ordinary.

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Santorini: mediocre Greek

Our first few days in Europe Ken and I always do the same thing; wander around for 45 minutes looking for somewhere for lunch getting increasingly cross with the city and each other. Santorini, deep in the tourist maze of the 5th at 24 r. Harpe, is typical of the place we end up at. Good enough food, OK staff, nothing remarkable. We had grilled meat and a salad and were done.

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Le Dauphin

I have a soft spot in my heart for the friendly brasserie Le Dauphin even if it may not be among Paris' best restaurants. It's conveniently located near the Louvre at 167 Rue Saint-Honoré, the staff is friendly and easily accomodates English (or Japanese), it's open for dinner on Sundays, and it's lively but easy to get a table at.

The food is good and solid. They have a southwestern France bent (cassoulet, etc), but the menu is generally typical brasserie fare with some well considered specials. And while 37€ isn't cheap for a three course menu it's not bad for the quality and location. Ken and I always seem to end up here on our first night in Paris (it's near the hotel we favour) and for that, it satisfies.

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