Paris
Wednesday, September 13
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The
Statue of a Greek actor on the east side of the
The Gardens, run by the French Senate, have
informative kiosques that explain the history of the place and provide a
lovely, colorful map.
The garden on the east side of the
The pond in the middle of the Gardens is a
popular spot on a warm day.
This is the only remaining of four sample meters
that the government placed here and there in |
Last Saturday night, in our attempts to find a reasonably priced
restaurant that could accommodate us without a reservation in the busy
Saint-Germain-des-Prés area, we passed a place called Le
Relais de l’Entrecote on rue Saint-Benoit, very near the brasserie Le
Petit Benoit where we did finally dine.
What impressed me that night about Le Relais de l’Entrecote was the
long line of people waiting to be seated.
We made note of that, and vowed to go back on a week night at a
slightly earlier time than we normally dine. Last night was that night. I
didn’t even remember the name of the restaurant, only its location and that
memorable line of people waiting. As
we approached, I saw the name and thought, good, Tom will be happy, it is a
steakhouse. It is hard to get him to
agree to go into a restaurant that has mostly fish and little meat on the
menu, and there are plenty of places like that in We did not have to wait, but the restaurant was already very busy at
7:45PM. Everyone working there was
female. That is very unusual. In These women were all wearing well-fitted black skirts (not short) and
black knit tops with white collars and white aprons. But these were not frilly French
outfits. They looked somewhat austere,
as if they were all from some conservative Protestant sect that believes in
well-fitted black and white clothing. As soon as we were seated, our waitress appeared, not with a carte, but
with a question: How would we each
like to have our meat cooked? I immediately answered “a point” (supposedly medium, but really more like
medium rare in He managed to order a big bottle of mineral water before the waitress
disappeared. She soon reappeared with
the water and a nice, simple fresh green salad with walnuts and a light
vinaigrette for each of us. I then
asked if it would be possible for me to have a half bottle of red wine. I had spotted these half bottles on a shelf
behind Tom. They were labeled with the
name of the restaurant, so I thought this wine would probably be a good
value. Indeed, she asked if I would like to have the house wine, because it is
quite good, she said. I answered,
“oui.” So, there we were, eating in a fairly big restaurant that was already
almost full of people, where everyone was having the same meal! The only decisions to be made here are how
you want your meat cooked, what you want to drink, if you are going to have
dessert, which dessert, and if you are going to have coffee after. The wine quickly appeared. It was
good – a Sometime after the salad and before the main course was served, two
youngish men were seated next to us.
One was clearly American, and the other was European (maybe French, or
maybe Italian, but he clearly was fluent in French and his English was only
somewhat accented). The European
obviously knew about this place and had been given the task of taking this
American guy out to dinner. They
didn’t really seem to be friends, just work associates. I was already figuring out that the steak and fries were served to each
person at least twice. Tom and I were
speculating about whether or not this was an “all you can eat” place, which
would be very un-French. Could this be
some version of that gross steakhouse in Then I heard the European man next to Tom tell his American assignment
that “they serve you twice here.”
After a little while, I explained to Tom that what we were seeing was people
being given second helpings. The steak arrived promptly. Our
waitress put the steak platter and the fries platter each on a little stand
on a table behind me. There was a
warming candle under each platter. She
carefully put a couple slices of steak on a plate, then a serving of fries,
then she carefully spooned the wonderful pepper sauce over the steak
slices. She repeated the process. And we were served. European steak is notoriously tough and chewy, normally. But not this steak. It was superb. An “entrecote” is a rib steak. I saw reviews on the web this morning that
indicate some Americans who have been to this restaurant mistakenly thought
this was filet mignon! That’s how
tender it was. But I could tell by the
shape of the steak and the texture of the muscle fibers that it was a rib
steak. A fine one. The fries were quite good. We were served our seconds, and we were quite content. We did look at the dessert menu, for
information purposes only. The list of
desserts is more extensive than we would have expected. They include the items one typically finds
on a French brasserie/restaurant menu.
All were very reasonably and very precisely priced. For example, items were priced at 5.10,
5.30, or 5.80. There was no rounding
up to the nearest half euro. We had no idea how much we would be charged for this meal. Nothing that we could see was posted inside
or outside. We just knew, if it was
this popular, it had to be reasonable. Indeed, each steak dinner cost 21.50.
Tom’s mineral water was 4.50, and my wine was 9. Not really cheap, but a very good value,
considering the high quality food (and of course, these prices include tax
and tip). And if you like fast,
efficient service – well, I’ve never seen anything better in We were entertained by
the European man’s efforts to explain things to the klutzy American man
seated next to us. The phrase “a
point” was something the American just could not, or would not, pronounce. He kept saying “a pois” instead. I thought, if he isn’t more careful,
someone will serve him peas with his steak! Note: If you order steak in
another Parisian restaurant, pay at
least 23 euros for your main course.
If you pay less, you will have a tough, chewy steak. |
