OT: Dining in Paris & London
About to head over the pond to Paris & London... and I am responsible for finding places to eat for the group. Anyone who has spent time over there that has "a favorite" cafe, eatery or part of town that they like to eat in? Most of our meals, we will be looking for reasonable to low priced food (well... as far as food in big cities is ever reasonable).
He forgot to add his stop over in Dubai
It wasn't Dubai, it was in Bali.
Montserrat? What is this, 1994? A little volcanic eruption put a damper on the party. Everyone knows St. Barts, Sint Martin, and Anguilla are where the jet set go to holiday in the Caribbean.
If you are going to try to act knowlegable, then at least get it right. The Dutch side is Sint Maartin.
The Michigan Difference
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Go to Le Soufflé in Paris. You won't regret it. It's not a "cheap" meal but it's awesome and very french. 3 course meal of various types of soufflés and they are delicious. It's one street north of the Louvre if I remember correctly.
Paris:
Le Petit Prince de Paris
-
12 Rue de Lanneau, 75005 Paris, France
+33 1 43 54 77 26
London
Yalla Yalla, a Lebanese place in Soho.
so you better eat fast.
Go to Normandy instead and you can get a whole pot of mussels for like 5 euro.
Just another big city and one iwth a ton of social turmoil just beneath the surface. Breton or Burgundy for example will provide you with a meal you will never forget. The best meal I have ever eaten was at what is called a "truck stop" in the alps. Everything is prepared fresh stating in the mornning, the chicken is killed, veggies, frogs legs. It was five courses and still the best meal I have had in my life.
Myself my French wife and her friends in their early 30's I was the only non Frenchie and so treated with the standard measure of French distrust.
Just book a ticket and go or go to Montreal first if you need baby steps. Get out of your comfort zone. The first time you feel that fear walking down the street by yourself in a foregn country realizing you can't say two words to even ask for a coke or ask for the bathroom. Man it's exhilerating.
Except that in Montreal it's pretty rare to find people who can't speak English - it's a very bilingual city. For that matter Paris pretty much is nowadays, too (well, bilingual might be overdoing it, but most Parisians can speak broken English anyway). They're still amazing cities, but if you really want that I-can't-communicate experience, you have to go more in the countryside.
Meh, I still had great meals in Paris, but I don't remember where. The meal I remember best was in Caen waiting for the ferry back, mussels and a bottle of white wine, and then drinking Calvados until the last possible moment.
London I couldn't tell you. Now Oxford...
with cheese!
big brain on Bret!
Paris:
L'As du Falafel in the Marais - good and cheap food in the Jewish Quarter.
Bistro Paul Bert (11th arr.) for a not so inexpensive treat.
Also Paris by Mouth has a website with excellent restaurant suggestions for all areas of the city:
As I am in the bankng industry, I have more familiarity with London. I would recommend the following:
Le Gavrouche - Gordon Ramsey's newest place.
Petrus - Staffed by none other than Marcus Wareing. Best meal I've had in Europe.
The Dorchester - A Ducasse, so you know it is going to be good.
Salon Park Lane - Great, albeit a bit pricey.
Pétrus is a Gordon Ramsey restaurant
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I third l'as du falafel. I don't know if you noticed but it was "recommanded" by Lenny Kravitz.
Seriously. Nearly every little bistro or sidewalk cafe will serve good food. And they have to; Parisians have high standards.
About the only way you could go wrong would be to eat in a place that caters more or less exclusively to tourists. Particularly American tourists.
There have been a number of articles reporting on the exciting trend of "heat and eat" cuisine in small bistros in Paris. Just like Sysco and US Foods, the French equivalents are providing restaurants from fruits/veggies/meat/seafood up to fully prepared (and frozen) meals that just require boiling water or microwaving.
Would bet most of us wouldn't be able to tell, especially after a 1/2 liter of cheap table wine.
Probably not a good idea in the long run, either, but perhaps inevitable.
Have a good trip.
I'd recommend checking out trip advisor and yelp.
Simpson's In the Strand in London was fairly good I thought (for English food). A couple of the British wankers I worked with in Switzerland were raving about it too.
My cool story bro is that I did eat there for a business dinner (I was a guest) and food was reasonably good. But during the meal, Brigette Nielsen walks in with this short muscular guy. We were fixated on her as she still looked hot (pre Flavor Flav), and her muscle bound guy kept walking around, it was actually Sylvester Stallone. End of cool story.
Speaking of Stallone and London, that is where I first saw "The Italian Stallion" in a store window. I didn't know at the time that Sly got his film start making porn movies.
