Dinner Recommendations

Saturday night, we went out for dinner with Louis's cousin Joan and her daughter Ellen, who were in town for Fashion Week (they have a boutique clothing store in Philadelphia). They left it up to us to choose a restaurant, a task we love and hate. Love, because we love discovering new places, and because we love eating! Hate, because there are so, so many great places to choose from, and there's always the danger that we'll choose poorly.

So what did we do?

Luckily, we've received a number of recommendations from people who live or have spent significant time in Paris. (The most thorough list includes the name, address, arrondissement, closest métro stop, telephone number, average menu price, and hours of forty restaurants offering meals around 35 euros; of five starred restaurants; and of four other famous patisseries/chocolateries/glaceries. (Thanks again, Jesse!!) If you're super nice, we might share it with you.)

As if these recommendations weren't enough, we've also found a number of useful blogs and review websites. At the top of the list are http://www.davidlebovitz.com/paris/ and http://chocolateandzucchini.com/ - these people are chefs and food critics who live and work in Paris. Who better to go to for advice on restaurants?

And if we find a restaurant that's not on one of those two websites, we can always look for reviews on the European version of yelp.com, which is called qype.fr. (Both websites look exactly the same, so there's either copyright infringement going on, or they're run by the same people.)

So what did we choose Saturday night? A tiny wine bar called Fish La Boissonnerie (recommended by Jesse) in the 6th, just around the corner from Joan and Ellen's hotel. We actually had their concierge call to get us reservations and found out they had no availability. So when we just happened to walk by a few minutes later, we were pleasantly surprised to find out they had just opened and had a table for us! (Tip: if you go to a restaurant unfashionably early, you have a better chance of getting seated.)

Our meal was delicious! But I'll spare you the details of exactly what we ate - it'll just make you jealous.