Felice

Ive had the goat cheese and spinach lasagna as well and agree that it's not very good. I recently tried the sundried pizza and flammenkuche and found both to be quite good.

What an amazing report! Thank you so much. It makes me long for a weekend in the countryside.

You might want to stay in a more central area and then as Pierre suggests, venture out in to some of the outer arrondissements for dinner. The 6th is a lovely place to stay, but aside from the marché biologique on Sunday I can't really say that it would suit your criteria for food as the marché on rue de Buci is nothing to write home about. The 7th might however, with the marché on rue Cler and a few very good bistros might be more what you are looking for. The 5th near rue monge might be another choice. The following link has a list of markets in each arrondissement http://www.v1.paris.fr/EN/Living/markets/markets.asp

My salary, as a waitress in Paris, was about 1500-1600 a month, INCLUDING tips. So, I recieved the SMIC (minimum wage) plus a share of tips each week. Incidently the tips were shared with the kitchen as well.

Wow how exciting! Will you be in Paris? Unfortunately I suspect that your salary will probably be less than you are used to, however you'll get also get social security which will include at least 5 weeks vacation pay, medical coverage and retirement benefits. You will also probably make a monthly salary and not an hourly wage. I know a few people in kitchens here and will try to ask what average salaries are. Fresh A and Pitipois might have a better idea.

Wow Jamie, that's a pretty impressive list list. How long will you be in Paris for? Do you want people to give you the ten that they would choose or something along those lines?

← Okay, Ill confess, it was the gourmet restaurant in Galaries Lafayette. To be fair, the waiter was really nice and knew the translations were terrible and said many people had complained. But, for those prices, dried out tuna is pretty unacceptable. My friend, who I normally trust, actually warned me not to get it saying it would be overcooked, but I didn't believe it because it said minute.

It would also be fun to study whether the quality of the translation and the quality of the food are correlated. How was your meal, Felice? Sounds like a rather fancy place. ← It was not a place that I would go back to as it was a bit expensive (45 € menu at lunch) and I've had much better for less. I ordered the minute de thon which would have been good except for the fact that it was very well done without even a trace of pink. I never complain but decided to tell the waiter since it was so obviously over cooked; I even saved a piece so he could even show the chef. He came back and said I was right that it was indeed overcooked but since foreigners don't usually like it rare they cooked it well. I told him it would be better to instead warn people that it was going to be served rare, rather than just assuming they won't like it and cooking it well. Here's another I just noticed on the same menu--the etuvé de céleri is a "drying oven of celery".

I stole a menu recently at a Paris restaurant which had some pretty strange translations: The "pressé de confit de gigot d'agneau et foie gras", came out as a pretty unappetising "pressed the crystallized one of leg of lamb and foie gras" and “langue & tete de veau, sauce aux aromatics" became "language, sauce and veal head". If you order a “barbue” it was a “beard” and the “filet de Saint Pierrre” would give you a “net of saint hones” in English.

That's great, I am so glad we could help you find them.

I think it also depends on the type of restaurant. In Paris, I'm normally able to eat three-courses without feeling stuffed and I'm pretty tiny. The menu (meaning a set-price menu) is also often less expensive than ordering à la carte. Some restaurants are realising that people no longer want three-course meals though and have menus which offer either entrée, plat (appetiser and main course) or plat, dessert (main course with dessert) for a fixed price. Many of the places I listed above only have a menu for a set price.

Hi Casey, 60-80€ is actually not such a bad buget. I rarely go to places which are much more that 30€ for the menu (3-courses) and these are some of the best restaurants in Paris. Here is a thread to which should list a lot of places. I'm sure there are others. http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showto...&hl=inexpensive This week's Figaroscope lists restaurants they recommend under 30€ and I'm sure John will list them in his Digest early next week. Most of the places they list have been discussed here before: L'Ami Jean, Chez Michel, Bistro Paul Bert, Le Temps au Temps, L'Ourcine, L'Avant Gout, La Regalade, La Cerisaie, Le Trouquet, Ribouldinge, Astier and more.... Have an amazing time and please let us know where you end up going.

Is it the same menu for dinner?

Thank you Dave, that was very sweet of you to take the time to share your recipe. I will print it out for my next attempt at makeing a pie

Merci beaucoup Pitipois and Bleu. I went to the marché Aligre this morning to get the last ingredients for my pie ( a banana cream pie) and was happy to see the Fruit d'or that Pitipois suggested, however my French friend who was with me made all sorts of faces and couldn't believe I would make a pie crust with it and convinced me into using all butter. I bought creme fleurette to replace the whipping cream and creme fraiche for the sour cream. I then signed on to eG after baking my pie and am so happy to see Lucy's post because this is EXACTLY what happened. My crust sort of melted and slid down into the plate . It was still good though, but now I know to use a French recipe for the crust. It was my first attempt at baking actually, so I was very happy with the finished product.

I am making a pie crust tomorrow and the recipe calls for vegetable shorting in addition to butter, any ideas of what this would be in France? It's a recipe from Dorie Greenspan's Baking: from my home to yours, which is being discussed HERE in the pastry forum.

A book I have called Les Meilleurs Produits du Terroir, Guide des Gourmands recommends the following foie gras in the Dordogne (they have many others as well but not in the Dordogne) Foie Gras Kuster www.domainedebarbe.com Manoir d' Hautegente www.manoir-hautegente.com Foie gras Perrier but delivery only within the region

I recently asked a friend in the wine business about these sales as well and he said the same thing, that the "best" wines are snatched up fairly quickly. He also said that buyers from the hyper-marchés will buy wine from small shops to sell at the "foires". They don't care if they lose money on these bottles because it gets people into the stores.

The passwords are normally posted on their website the day before the event or even the day of. The next one is on October 16 however the venue is listed as "secret" so it probably won''t be open to the public. The chef is Didier Elena of Les Crayeres, which explains why. I have not even attempted to go to the last few soirées (different from the festivals) because they tend to be VERY crowded. Unfortunately free food and drink tends to have that effect.

The first "Wine and Fooding Tour"of the rentrée is tonight at L’Alimentation Generale in the 11th. The Wine: CAHORS The tapas: Lamb The Chef: Héléne Darroze When: 18 September 7pm L’Alimentation Generale, 64 r. J-P Timbaud, 11e, M° Parmentier Password : Il porte des costumes Dormeuil, il chronique les brochettes dans The Guardian... Décidément, Alex Kapranos est un rocker à suivre.

I found the New Yorker article by Burkhard Bilger HERE on the W.K. Kellogg Foundation Website.

Hmm, it’s pretty difficult to pick a favorite for each category and I can’t say that I wouldn’t have an entirely different list tomorrow (except for the books, I love Jeffery Steingarten), but here goes: Bistro : L’Ami Jean Brasserie : Terminus Nord Patisserie (i’m not so sure about this one as I’m not that big on pastries, but if I were buying something I’d either go to Sadaharu Aoki, Jean Paul Hevin or Pierre Hermé) Cheese Shop: Quatre Homme Market –Marché Biologique, Raspail Boulangerie: Kayser Wine Bar: Le Verre Volé (but many many others too) ONE star Michelin restaurant Les Magnolias Favorite book on food in France—Jeffery Steingarten’s The Man Who Ate Everything and It Must Have Been Something I Ate

Wow, Ostrich with chestnuts is definitely not something you'd see in American public schools. Thank you for your insight on this Pitipois, it's very interesting. From the article I gathered that students in France are not offered a large selection and pretty much eat what's being served that day, so on Tuesday you might have ravioli, Mondays might be hachis parmentier, etc. Is this correct?

There’s an interesting article in the September 4 issue of the New Yorker by Burkhard Bilger titled The Lunchroom Rebellion, An haute-cuisine chef goes back to school. It tells the story of Anne Cooper, the new executive chef of Berkeley Public schools, and her enormous task of trying to change the way American school kids eat by ditching the nutritionally void industrial foods served in most cafeterias and replacing them with freshly prepared nutritious meals. Not an easy task by any means. Cooper uses the French school system as one of the models for this approach and visits some of the cafeterias in the town of Challans in western France where children are served three-course meals with dishes like shredded beet salad, braised salmon and lentils, and a cheese course. The cost of the French lunch with labor included comes to about 8$, with the children paying 2$, which according to the article is 3 times as much as is spent in the US. In France they are thinking about school lunches as well as kids get back to school, and this week, as John already mentioned in the Digest, saw the release of Cantines a collection of classic cafeteria recipes like petit salé aux lentilles, céleri rémoulade, and hachis parmentier which have been revamped by some of the best French chefs, like Alain Passard, David Zudas and Pierre Gagnaire. It’s interesting to see how different the French approach to school lunch is. All I remember from school lunch was really bad pizza and tater tots. Beurk! Unfortunately the New Yorker article isn’t online, yet, and I don’t know that it will be.

Actually there were two American chefs who had a "dinner club" in their apartment a few years ago, but I'm not sure if they are still here. It was called Aux Chiens Lunatiques. Perhaps David Lebowitz would know because they worked at Chez Pannise. Here is a link to their website; it doesn't look like it's been updated lately. http://monsite.wanadoo.fr/chienlunatique/ I'll write to them to see if they are still open.