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About
bellastraniera
a.k.a. Marcy Swingle - obsessed with food and fashion.View my photography website.
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Paris Restaurants and Bars
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Tag Archives: restaurants
Saxon + Parole
The Bowery was never the sort of place you’d expect to find a millionaire. Once home to brothels, flophouses, vaudeville shows, saloons and street gangs, this notoriously rough thoroughfare attracted an equally rough crowd - except, of course, for the odd millionaire or two. Peter Stuyvesant’s estate sat at the northern end of the Bowery in the 1600s, John Jacob Astor banded together with other wealthy families to build a theater here in the 1830s, and Gilded Age socialites flocked here at the turn of the last century.
There have always been a few of the one percent in the mix on the Bowery, the legendary destination for slumming it. But what’s changed is the setting – the luxe life has followed the one percent here. Now at 316 Bowery on the corner of Bleecker, you’ll now find sleek design and $15 cocktails where there used to be a hardware store and cheap hotel. (more…)
Onegin
Though I’ve never been to Russia, visiting there has always seemed like a good way to lose weight. A regimen of sightseeing all day with nothing to eat at night except a limited menu of meat and bread could be a new sort of Zone diet. So it was quite a surprise to go to this new Russian restaurant and find that it was the traditional Russian food, not just the scene, that would tempt us back here. (more…)
The Cardinal
What is it that makes a restaurant authentically southern? It could be obscure items like Cheerwine and Nu Grape sodas on the menu, a stuffed wild turkey bursting out of a corner in mid-flight, or the fact that a gentleman waiting in the unisex restroom line downstairs actually offered his place up to a lady. But ask a Southerner, and they will tell you that the Southern food experience is all about the sides.
At the Cardinal, a new Southern spot in the East Village, there are more sides than there are entrees, including baked beans, black eyed peas, yams, greens, mac and cheese, fried okra and corn pudding, just to name a few. Order as many as possible and you’ll feel like you’re at a big family barbecue.
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Tagged bars, BBQ, East Village, fried chicken, New York, restaurants, Southern food
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Lunch: Kuaile Hand Pulled Noodle Restaurant
Winter may have come early this year, but one reason to celebrate this is the earlier-than-expected enjoyment of noodle soups. Soul-sustaining ramen and hand pulled noodle soups, so neglected in the summer, are what gets us through the dark and dreary months.
In case you have any doubt about the specialty of the new Kuaile Hand Pulled Noodle Restaurant on Forsyth Street in Chinatown, the answer comes as soon as you walk in the door: Everywhere there’s the sound of slurping. The place is bare bones, with a few formica tables and not much in the way of decor, but there are already a good number of customers bent over Kuaile’s hand pulled noodle soup.
Breizh Cafe
On a rainy day in Paris, there’s little else as satisfying as a savory crêpe served up in a warm little cafe. There are many crêperies in Paris, but as long as you’re so close to Brittany, their place of origin, you might as well seek out the real item. Breizh Cafe brings the hearty country cuisine of Brittany to the Marais with dozens of types of crêpes, sweet and savory, and a variety of hard cider.
We arrived for a late lunch at quarter to three, but the place was still packed. Breizh Cafe has gotten a lot of press and is listed in a number of guidebooks, but don’t be put off by the menus in English and Japanese. Surprisingly, their crêpes are also big in Japan, where Breizh Cafe has another outpost. The staff is equally international, with French managers, Japanese chefs and a British waiter all at work on that particular day. The unifying factor for everyone here seems to be the love of crêpes. (more…)
Les Vitelloni
If you speak French, or if you can piece together a phrase or two on the page, it’s definitely worth picking up Le Figaro on the first Wednesday of Paris Fashion Week. The popular daily Parisian newspaper definitely has an in with the fashion world – chic Le Figaro editrix Virginie Mouzat is everywhere come fashion week.
This past season their feature “Fashion Food, les tables du mode” mentioned Les Vitelloni, a new Italian restaurant in the northern Marais, a neighborhood that has become a mecca of fashion showrooms in the past couple years. (more…)
Le Royal Turenne, Paris
With all the tips given so far for finding a good place to eat in a touristy area in Paris, a distinction must be made: there are places to eat, and then there are places to drink. If you walk by an outdoor cafe on the sunny side of the street and see that it’s full of French people, chances are it’s popular because it is bien situé.
There’s nothing wrong with the food at Royal Turenne on rue Turenne in the Marais. We had a steak au poivre there which sufficed perfectly for the first, very jet-lagged dinner in Paris. But we returned again and again not for a meal but for a seat on that terrace, watching the world go by over a cafe au lait or a kir royale. (more…)
Chez Janou
This little Provence-style bistro on a quiet corner in the Marais is no longer a neighborhood secret. If you arrive here on a nice evening, you won’t be the only one looking wistfully at the sidewalk tables, hoping to be seated.
So if the hostess tells you they’re “complets” (the French version of “we’re fully committed”), she’s not kidding. After two failed attempts to dine at this Chez Janou on two separate nights, I walked up for the third time, at the very start of dinner service, and tried again for a table. (more…)
Posted in food
Tagged bars, French food, Le Marais, Paris, Paris restaurants, restaurants
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Robert et Louise, Paris
If you’re a stranger in a strange land, sometimes it’s better to ditch the guidebook and get lost, as former Frugal Traveler Matt Gross recently did in Paris. After all, all the other tourists are probably reading the same guide books as you are.
But when it comes to walking into a restaurant blind, what should you consider? First of all, don’t be afraid to keep walking. It would be easy to settle on the first vaguely familiar place that comes along. (Presumably this the secret of Olive Garden’s success in NYC, a city full of good Italian restaurants, and the baffling success of Starbucks in Paris.) But the best finds usually come after some investigation. (more…)
Posted in food
Tagged bars, French food, Le Marais, Paris, Paris restaurants, restaurants, steak
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Le Petit Marché, Paris
The Marais neighborhood on Paris’ right bank may be known for its excellent shops, cool crowd and Galliano’s meltdown, but for great dining, most Parisians head elsewhere. Seemingly as soon as the area became trendy several years ago, the restaurants started catering to tourists looking for convenience over quality.
There are still some very good meals to be had here for a reasonable price, and since we were staying in the Marais this past trip to Paris, we decided to dine in depth in this one particular neighborhood. One key is to head away from main drag and look for places off the beaten path – as on the quiet rue Béarn just north of the Place des Vosges. Here a local crowd gathers at the outdoor tables of Le Petit Marché, a modern Parisian bistro with a pan-Asian spin to the classics.
Posted in food
Tagged Asian food, French food, Le Marais, Paris, Paris restaurants, restaurants
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