Stop one of the Paris gastronomic food tour commenced at Les Philosophes. One of my bosses is a Parisian by heart and makes it out to France nearly every summer. Of the list of places he recommended, this one sounded the most intriguing. Luckily for us and our travel-weary bodies, it happened to be a two-minute walk from the apartment we were renting. Unluckily for us and our travel-weary feet, it also happened to be a 30 minute wait on a happening Thursday evening. We braved the wait and stuck it out, and boy, were we glad we did.
Les Philosophes is a trendy cafe in the trendy Le Marais district, and the charming outside tables were filled with out-and-abouters relaxing the night away with their aperitifs. After a patient wait exploring the neighborhood and looking longingly at the menu, we were called in. The first meal in a foreign country is always the hardest, as we tried to decipher the menu without seeming overtly touristy. Luckily for us, we had a friendly waitstaff that was at least adequately happy to answer our questions. The waiter did look at me a little strangely when I ordered a rose (did I mean rouge, he wondered?), as I tried fruitlessly to explain it was for the ladies at the table. He ended up bringing the bottle over just to make sure I knew what the hell I was ordering.
The prix fixe ranged from approximately 18-30 euro and had a decent selection; everyone at the table ordered from the starter + entree menu. The onion soup was by far the best I had during my vacation. Strange aside: French onion soup in France is apparently just called onion soup. Weird. I had been eyeing the beef bourguignon, but my friend, the Food Network addict, claimed that was the dish he had been waiting for since arriving in Europe. I deferred to him, and in the interest of diversity, picked the lamb. The beef was better; my friend said it was one of the best meals he had on the trip. The ladies ordered some sort of fish, both of which satisfied them.
We finished the meal with a couple carafes of wine. I bludgeoned the French language in trying to ask the waiter's opinion on which wine was better; he accommodated and brought over two types of red for me to try. And after a couple days of us saying "benissimo!" after every Italian meal, we asked our waiter how to say that in French. He said something like "trainbend!" We said, "huh?" A couple days later we figured out he was saying "tres bien!"
Les Philosophes was indeed tres bien! read more