Benoit, Le Chartier & Terminus Nord

The benoit salad!

Me & my folks for a Christmas prezzy decided to go for a new year trip to Paris for a few days so I booked lunch at Benoit, a Michelin starred Alain Ducasse bistro, http://www.benoit-paris.com/ which looked rather tasty. They do a 3 course 36 Euro lunch menu which thought sounded rather good.
It's very classic looking inside with a nice buzzing atmosphere & we are shown to a lovely table in a corner so we can see the whole restaurant. I ordered a caraffe of dry white wine which was quite small & pretty expensive I thought at 40 Euros but tasted nice & we were given a little snack of 6 Cheese galette balls which went down very well. I had to ask our waiter for the lunch menu as he had "forgotten" & we ordered!

I ordered for starter the "Saucisson brioche, mache et vinaigrette truffee" which was sausage meat with pistachios surrounded in brioche served with a little side salad (see main photo). It was parfait & delicious! My ma had the "Salade Benoit" which was a meat feast of duck, chicken, pork, Mushrooms & eggs which was excellent & my pa had the "Veloute de topinambours et royale de fois grois" which was cream of artichoke with some lardons & a bit of foie gras thrown in. He ate it pretty fast & didn't say to much so I think he liked it quite a lot.

The Bomb!

On to mains, I went for "Lieu jaune roti, choux braises et au vin d'arbois" which was the bomb! It was roast pollack served on a stuffed cabbage with vegetables & a wine sauce/gravy. It was really delicious, tender & flavoursome! I could of ate it again.
Ma went for "Longe de cochon fermier cuisinee en cocotte, gratin de potiron au jus" which was a slab of pork with a pumpkin gratin. I had a bite & it was pretty tasty but the pork was slightly overcooked.
Pa had "Tranche de boudin noir risolee aux deux pommes" which was black pudding with mash, raw apple & a cooked apple! I had a bite to & the black pudding was lovely & spicy & the mash was really creamy. Quite a winner.

The Bomb of desserts!

So onto the really incredible desserts! My pa started chatting to the maitre d' as my dad is a pastry chef & trained in Lausanne & basically likes all things sweet. The Maitre d' liked this & said we could order desserts of the a la carte menu! Pretty pretty sweet! I went stright in & ordered the "Souffle glace a l'orange et au Grand-Marnier" which was cold orange souffle with lovely spongey cake in the middle with loads of Grand Marnier poured on top! The waiter left the Grand-Marnier on the table & when he left I poured a lot more on. It really was amazing! Possibly best dessert for quite a few years & I ate the lot. It was large to.
Ma had "Nougat glace pistache/passion" which was nougat ice cream with pistachio & passion fruit obviously which was beautiful to look at & pretty tasty & my dad had the "Millefueille classique" which had crumbly pastry & looked very good. We had a lovely red dessert wine with this & at the end after we paid the bill one of the waiters gave us free coffee, madeleines & chocolates! Definitely good excuse to go back & try it again, a lovely restaurant & lovely staff!

Frisee

Whilst I'm waffling about Paris, we also had a lovely meal at "Le Chartier" http://www.restaurant-chartier.com/www/visit/filsdesans.php, a real busy & atmospheric restaurant & very well priced! The waiters are pretty rude but it's all quite fun & I had a lovely steak & chips with garlic butter & a starter of frisee salad with lardons (only 3 Euros) & a nice & simple peach melba. Get there early, it get's really busy!

Yummy

And the last was "Terminus Nord" http://www.terminusnord.com/fr,  exactly opposite Gare du Nord station, a beautiful art deco restaurant with lot's of seafood as well as all the classics. I had some snails here followed by another steak (Pretty filling  weekend), with Bernaise sauce this time & we all shared a il flotante which was delicious. Even saw Juliette Binoche in there!
Thanks to Matt & Anne for Le Chartier & Terminus Nord recommendations!

Yauatcha

Lobster

Hello everybody! Been a while I'm afraid due to writers block & general laziness but raring to go with some new foody items! First off is Yauatcha on Broadwick street, http://www.yauatcha.com/soho/. It's a contemporary Michelin starred Dim sum restaurant & pretty tasty I hasten to add. It's also one my brothers favourite restaurants so we go quite a lot!
Me & Tony (my bro) bowled up on the 2nd of January so fairly quiet. We were shown to a pretty lame table right by a column so we asked to be moved to which we were given 2 different tables to choose from. Not a problem you might think, but quite integral to the plot for later.

We started on a couple of alcoholic grape cocktails. Not much flavour but definitely one of those drinks that creeps up on you then ordered what I have to say was incredibly fine food.

We started with "Crab shuimai, Lobster spinach dumpling, Chilli fried squid & Chicken taro croquette". The croquette was lovely & crispy on the outside, just like a yam paste dumpling from other old school dim sum restaurants! The Lobster was juicy & tender & the fried squid tender & perfectly cooked. Wasn't sure about the crab dumpling, only in the sense I thought it tasted of mackerel & didn't even realise I was eating crab until the waiter said so! But I still ate it so couldn't of been that bad.

Mongolian Venison

Then we moved on to the main dishes which were "Mongolian venison" which was so tender & tasty, "Steamed Halibut" which was really spicy & invigorating! We had some "Pak choi with garlic" as a side & I had a "Yebisu" beer which is a lovely Japanese beer.
So far all very good & possibly one of the best meals that me & Tony have had there. For dessert I had a "Raspberry delice". Not only did it look beautiful but it tasted delice-ous. Chocolate & biscuit going on inside, one of my favourite desserts I've ate there. I think Tony had a "Milk chocolate praline", I can't remember because mine was so good but he said his was good.

Delice-ous

We followed these up with 2 Irish coffees which were very nice & seeing as we were having a nice time decided to order 2 more. It was then that we were told we had to move tables because a previous booking that had cancelled had now decided to turn up! Tony didn't take it to well which I thought was fair enough & said that if we were to move then they should take the service charge off the bill. A couple of minutes later a waiter said this was fine, so we moved to a different table & then basically Tony thought we should leave anyway. There was a bit of an heated debate about the whole of the moving issue with a Maitre'D & a couple of the waiters & I heard Tony saying it was a disgrace a few times seeing as we are regular customers. We then left & Tony popped back in to have a go again whilst I hid outside a column so I don't think we will be going back for a while. Overall though the food is amazing but they really do try & feed you & get you out as soon as possible which can be a little stressful when it's not that busy & you're spending money! Oh & I did notice they do a £28.88 tasting menu for 2 People with 8 dishes & tea, Mon-Thurs 2pm until 630pm!