Brasserie Molard: what kind of brasserie has no draft beer or traditional choucroute? Ate well anyway but think of the place as an Alsatian seafood restaurant.
Great.
gravlax with fennel salad
crab meat and asparagus
fish choucroute; four kinds of fish, smoked one was particularly good
trout
pavlova: ratio of cream to meringue was kind of extreme but it was good. There was a tart passion-fruit (?) mousse hidden by the cream.
chocolate liégeois
Chez Rene
free fromage frais thing with espelette and chives
celeri remoulade
photo of the leeks vinaigrette disappeared
boeuf bourguignon: really good though personally I would have liked less beef and more carrots and mushrooms
saucisson Lyon with warm potato salad and green salad
fresh fruit salad with cassis sorbet
creme caramel
I don’t think they were service continu last time I was here. Anyway they are now. For future reference, the upstairs dining room is nice though the downstairs is maybe more picturesque.
FInally got my white asparagus fix. Lovely though the hollandaise was a bit thick.
Didn’t get a photo of my wife’s watercress veloute. It was pretty brown and unphotogenic but tasty.
They ran out of lamb (Easter, everybody wants it and we didn’t sit down until 1:30) so I got ris de veau. Really good. Great sauce.
Came with potatoes. Simple as they should be.
Magret de canard: was expecting the usual sliced and fanned out rather than the whole breast in a sour cherry sauce. Very good, barely sweet.
St. Nectaire, forgot to take a photo until we’d eaten most of it. I love being able to get one good cheese. No unnecessary condiments.
Far Breton (basically a prune clafoutis): a bit overcooked so rubbery. Tasty anyway. Good ice cream.
Had a delightful lunch at Les Bancs Publics. Web site’s kind of weird, not obvious that it’s a restaurant. I believe the hours listed are wrong, it’s actually open until 2:00 am. Outside of meal hours it’s more of a bar though food is still available.
View from the table: these folks were getting drinks from the restaurant. Easter Monday is a national holiday so there was a constant parade up and down the canal.
Pate en croute, pate was good, croute could have been better.
cauliflower, pickled wakame, and almonds
Pot roast: we both got this. Great sauce, simple potato and cabbage were very nice.
I could swear I photographed the apple square and far breton. The latter was much better than yesterday’s, nice creamy custard.
Coinstot Vino: been on my list to try for years. It’s in the Passage des Panoramas. Half the tables are in the hall so it’s sort of semi-outdoors. There was a nice breeze on the warm evening.
No wine list, just have to rely on the server or look at the bottles in the cooler. Asked for lower-alcohol red and he recommended this lovely Ardèche VdF Syrah, only 11.5%.
huge marrow bones
Nice taramasalata. Couldn’t taste the uni. Got a glass of Chenin to go with it though the Syrah turned out to work as well.
Shoulder of black Iberian pig: good flavor but very chewy, grilling a thick chop doesn’t make a lot of sense to me for that cut. Great potatoes and sauce.
Good roast chicken. Fries weren’t great, which was probably for the best after the marrow.
Cheesecake, good though a bit dry like Italian, needed the coulis.
Apple compote with crumbled biscotti, nice light finish after a rich meal.
Good place and low prices, I’ll return.
La Fresque, recommended by a tour guide we met on the bus, he said he eats there three times a week. Apparently the menu changes daily.
If Google Maps tells you to go to the Les Halles Metro station, go to Etienne Marcel instead, so you don’t have to waste half an hour trying to find your way out of that architectural nightmare.
Roasted eggplant with Greek yogurt, parsnip chips, and I think pomegranate molasses was really nice.
Roasted whole dorade royale (gilt-head bream?), really good. Nice sort of salsa and more eggplant, all good. Rice was fine. Note to self: eat the collar first. It was the best bit and I got too full to eat the second half of it.
Beef filet tips with a nice slightly Thai-influenced sauce. Delicious.
Moelleux à la châtaigne (warm chestnut cake), new to me, really good.
Chocolate lava cake, my wife said it was very good.
We were closing down the place and got into a long discussion with our server about wine and whatnot. He brought us two glasses of Drôme from his hometown, delicious, I’ll order that when we go back.
Chez Michel
Free snails were rubbery and tasteless. Butter was super-salty. Weird.
Asparagus didn’t come together for me as a dish, The accompaniments didn’t enhance the asparagus or really work together too well.
Morel fricasee was more of a soup, really good though the bacon was overpowering when you got some in a bite.
Mandonguilles (meatballs) didn’t have as much squid flavor as I hoped. Pretty good but a little bland.
Salmon with sorrel sauce. Excellent. Perfectly cooked.
Creme caramel, best ever. The sugar was totally caramelized so not sweet, but not burnt or bitter. Great texture. Worth visiting just for this.
Supremes with Campari-orange jelly and lichi sorbet, excellent.
Bill was a bit steep because we ordered a bunch of wines by the glass. The entree + plat + dessert menu at €48 is a good value.
Those would be bulots (sea snails) not escargot. They definitely have a firmer, chewier texture, especially compared to that of land snails. Sometimes they’re served cold with a vinegary Dijon mustard or an aioli, but they’re also traditionally served with rye and salted butter. They’re often in seafood towers at oyster bars or classic seafood brasseries. Rarely do I find them great.
Yeah, bulot. Saw them at a market today. I’ve had great sea snails at Korean bars in LA, but a different species.
L’Alsace. Went because we were nearby and wanted choucroute garni.
They were out of the petite flammekueche so I got foie gras. Good, not exceptional. Good toast and plenty of it. Had a glass of nice Gewürztraminer vendange tardive with it.
Got the choucroute maison d’alsace arrosée au crémant d’alsace. Choucroute was very good. Red sausages were great, nice snap. Other meats were OK. Potatoes could have been better. Drank a very nice dry Gewürztraminer. Weirdly the bottles are only on the back of the food menu, the drinks list has only carafe wines. Fun time but there’s got to be better Alsatian food in Paris?
Or maybe we need to spend a weekend in Strasbourg if we want the really good stuff.
We planned to have dinner at Abri Soba, but they had a long line (reportedly the rule there), so we headed off to another place, but on the way came across Ardent, which looked good and had a few tables open. They specialize in large platters of grilled meat to share. Long wine list with a lot of unusual stuff, lots of Jura.
White asparagus with boiled and crisp soba and dashi was really good. Needed to get a spoonful of dashi with each bite or it was underseasoned, which was fine. Best white asparagus dish I’ve had so far on this trip. Got a couple of glasses of Chenin as the red was not going to go well with it.
Vegetables for the meat. Some really good stuff in there, nice assortment.
Unfortunately they were out of the veal chop, and the T-bone, so we got the pork, which was great. They bring out a handwritten list of the cuts available, we got 600g. Nice crisp crackling on top of the fat.
Pain de Gênes, which is not bread but almond genoise. I don’t know what all was in there but it was delicious.
Citron de Nice, good though more lemon than I wanted.
Great meal, friendly service, fun music. Nice contrast between the complex and creative starter and desserts and the simple, rustic meat course. We plan to go back and reserve a veal chop. I might go an hour early to study the wine list.
Filling in some other places for future reference.
Bistrot Rougement
Lucette fait de crepes
Went because we were jetlagged and it was close to the hotel. OK but wouldn’t go back.
La Guincheuse
Tried because it’s across the street from our apartment and gets good ratings on some sites. “Croque monsieur” was really more of a grilled cheese with ham, not very crunchy. Salad was OK. Gets a big crowd in the evenings, seems like a nice place to meet friends for a drink, wouldn’t eat there again.
Au Petit Riche
My wife got the house specialty, Quenelle de brochet sauce crustacés, a giant pike quenelle, which was excellent. I got a boar terrine that wasn’t great and a confit de canard that wasn’t either. One of those places where you can eat well if you order right.
Le Petit Piano
Fun lively place but my salade Perigourdine and andouillette were disappointing. Sometimes they have live piano music.
Breizh Cafe: chain but really good. French chef obsessed with buckwheat and Japanese cuisine. 14 locations in Paris, more elsewhere. This was our second visit to the Canal Saint-Martin location. The classic ham, Comte, and egg galette has a choice of three kinds of Bordier butter.
Bordelet tendre. Hard to beat.
Daily special with white asparagus, snow peas, etc. Really good. Great buckwheat flavor in the crepe.
Perfect mixed greens salad with crunchy puffed buckwheat.
Buckwheat ice cream with more puffed buckwheat. My wife got a dessert galette with buckwheat honey, buckwheat ice cream, and puffed buckwheat.
It occurred to me yesterday that you could eat at a different place for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day and never get close to trying every restaurant in Paris.
Because there are over 40,000 of them.
Had dinner at La Verre Volé, which was recommended by some friends at home, our Airbnb host, and (years ago) David Lebovitz. Walked in at 9:20 and got the last table. Crowded and lively. Would be illegal in the US as it was about as ADA-noncompliant as could be.
Did not photograph the quite long wine list.
Omelette with wild asparagus, wild garlic (the big leaves), and goat faisselle. Really good and not ingredients you’re likely to find at many other restaurants.
Boudin noir, excellent, as were the simple mashed potatoes. Great dish.
Apple-rhubarb crumble with raw-milk crème fraîche, so good. Barely sweet.
Rice pudding, also barely sweet. Delicious.
Definitely going back to this place. Best to phone to make a reservation, we almost didn’t get in.
Chez Paul is becoming a regular Thursday thing after shopping at the Bastille market. Reliable place for great versions of classic dishes, charming atmosphere, lots of locals and regulars.
Server gave me a hard time for saying this was “bon.” “Non! C’est tres bon!” Which is true, Morgon Côte du Py is as good as Beaujolais gets. Great wine.
onion soup
lardon salad
Confit was great, potatoes could have been better.
pepper steak
came with potato gratin
St. Nectaire
The “unmissable” tarte tatin, huge amount of apples. Best I’ve had in years.
poached pear plus apricots and figs
carafe rosé
white asparagus, warm, best of the trip so far
marmite with scallop with its coral and several kinds of fish
cod “back”
Both got the tarte tatin.
No Toto.
Les Rupins (“Rich Kids”?)
The entree-plat-dessert menu at €35 is an amazing value. I don’t know how they stay in business.
I’d call this an edelzwicker, though the winery does not. Very nice.
Asparagus soup. Not too rich.
Salmon on a bed of leeks in beurre blanc. Again not too rich. Maybe they don’t use as much butter as most places.
Dessert French toast. Excellent.
Lemon cremeux, intensely lemony.
