[ Paris ] Restaurants without Stars

When one’s in Paris, one has to try some authentic French cuisine. We didn’t go for the Michelins this time, and opted for the smaller Parisian brasserie (most of them pretty randomly). The escargot in…the photo above was one of the dishes we ordered at Cafe Victoria. I must say… it tastes pretty… interesting…

Cafe Victoria

Cafe Victoria off the Champs-Elysee was a place we found because we were hungry and it was raining pretty hard. The interior decor was pretty much “Victorian” (in terms of theme).

Also had foie gras as appetizer. It was quite a big dish…

Then came the mains – salmon and haddock.

Café Victoria
A: 64 Rue Pierre Charron, 75008 Paris (off Champs-Elysee)
P: +33 1 43 59 93 55 ‎

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Brasserie l’Europeen

We stayed at the Mercure Hotel (pretty much attached to the Gare de Lyon station) so it was pretty convenient to get out and find some food around. We went to this restaurant called l’Europeen on the first night.

The restaurant seems to specialize in seafood (raw) platters. So you could see those dishes being prepared outside of the restaurant.

The seafood platter will have raw oysters, clams, scallops, etc. Don’t really fancy raw stuff (esp. when a family member got food poisoning some years ago when we had something like this in a pretty big Paris restaurant).

Again, just to make sure escargots are the same almost everywhere, we ordered that dish again for one last time, with smaller portion this time. I wasn’t too hungry so ordered Fish merchant’s soup with rouille and croutons. Think it’s pretty much fish stock + croutons with two kinds of cheese added and thrown into the soup.

The main – Fried scallops with shellfish cream and parmesan risotto. The restaurant is pretty big and was largely populated by Parisians when we visited it. Gets very busy on a Saturday evening. Must be popular among the locals?!

Brasserie l’Europeen
A: 21 bis, boulevard Diderot, Paris (right opposite of the street from main entrance of Gare de Lyon)
W: http://www.l-europeen.com/

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Brasserie Bofinger

This is the only place that we pre-researched. It was featured on a guidebook. The art-nouveau interior and the magnificent centre piece are just so eye-catching.

The restaurant was quite large but we still had to wait about 30 minutes as we didn’t make a reservation for Sunday lunch. We finally got seats on the upper floor.

What we ordered for lunch – Choucroute “Le meilleur de la mer” (for 2 people)
Homard entier, brochettes de Saint-Jacques au lard, lotte, quenelles à l’encre de seiche, haddock, beurre blanc au raifort, pommes vapeur. - Basically a seafood platter with the whole lobster and some scallops, fish, etc. The lobster was good!