The House of Dog- Boca Raton, Florida

The "House of Dog" in Boca Raton, Florida, "houses" the most unique hotdog I've had in a long time. With an outside and inside eating area, a hotdog is always waiting. After a Sunday shopping trip with my brother and dad, we decided to try out the "House of Dog" as a lunchtime treat! We ate inside, and the decor fit the food well. The walls were made of brick and wood, and had lots of graffiti animals and logos.

The menu at House of Dog was over ten pages, with hundreds of hotdog possibilities! They had over a

dozen types of dogs and burgers, and chicken wings; along with all of the appetizers, and a build-your-own dog or burger section. Essentially each page of the menu as the same list of burger and dog options at the bottom, but has a bunch of different topping combinations they've created.  Again, this is all on top of the "build your own dog" topping section.  With so many choices, it was hard to decide; after going through the ENTIRE menu, I decided to dive into the "Disoriented Mushroom". The Disoriented Mushroom is a dog on a pretzel bun with guacamole, portabella mushrooms, sautéed mushrooms, sour cream, and teriyaki sauce. The House of Dog was pretty empty so we only had to wait a few minutes to receive our food. My hot dog was MONSTER! Overflowing with delicious ingredients atop a soft pretzel bun, this dog was worth the seven dollar price tag. Wait, what?

The culinary scene in Florida enables chefs to turn any common food into a high-end product. And that is what House of Dog has done. And while I will admit that seven dollars for a hotdog is pretty absurd, when you have beer-infused dogs with potato chips as a topping and premium ingredients, the taste covers for the price tag.  Most of the time. There is such an extensive list of topping combinations, that some of them reach the price of 15 dollars! Along with our hotdogs, we ordered a basket of potato wedges; their version of fries, for the table. I have to say, the presentation was on point. The wedges were "Belgian style", and were served in a dog bowl. It was a nice change from the traditional bowl, even if the wedges were so hot they burned my mouth. House of Dog had good food, but it was easily seen that they were trying to get the most profit possible. Instead of regular cups

and utensils, You were given a paper plate, plastic utensils and a paper cup. I guess it works in someway because the theme is somewhat grunge.

All in all, House of Dog was good, but not one of the best things I've ever eaten. The food was good and the restaurant really showed another side to traditional street food. I'm not rushing back for another dog, but I can confidently say that at some point in the future, I will be returning to the "House of Dog".

As always, I will be rating the places I go on my Cookie Counter Scale of Cookieness, with ten cookies being the perfect, warm, gooey chocolate chip cookie, and one cookie being a burnt, old, stale oatmeal raisin cookie. My Cookie Counter ratings for House of Dog are:

Food: 6 1/2

Atmosphere: 7

Service: 6

West Virginia State Fair- Lewisburg, WV

 In early August I went to the West Virginia State Fair with my family. The fair has always been an end of sumer hurrah for my family, and every year we get pretty excited for it. The fair is full of rides, games, food, exhibits, and contests. We ride everything and enjoy walking around seeing crazy things like alligator wrestling, pig races and cow pie throwing contests.  In my opinion, however, by far the best part of the fair is the food. Every year I have thought about getting something in particular, but always decided against it and regretted it later. This year I decided that I would finally get it - a deep fried candy bar.

My Mom's LARGE bag of Kettle Corn!

   This year we were able to go on opening day and we were there just as everything was opening.  As soon as we bought our tickets for the fair and entered the gates, I made a beeline for the fried candy bar stand.  The stand is the second store from the opening gates at the fair. Coincidentally, the candy bar stand also happens to be right next to a kettle corn stand, which is my mom's favorite fair food by far. Every year my mom gets a bag of kettle corn, and has to choose between the two sizes, small and large. Every year before the fair my mom says she will get the small because she eats too much and she feels sick the next day; but every time the fair comes around, she somehow always ends up getting the large bag.  This year was no different, a large bag of kettle corn starts the day.  Anyways, back to the fried candy bar. Although there were many great-sounding choices like Twix, Milky Way, and Butterfinger, I went with a Snickers.  It turns out my fried snickers was the first fried candy bar of the fair! It only took a minute or two for them to fry up a candy bar, and once I got it, I could barely contain myself. I was about to take a giant bite into the  candy bar that I had been waiting so long for, but as I began to take that big bite, I stopped myself, and just in time. Because the candy bars are made to order, they are straight out of the frier when you get them, making them extremely hot. So after it cooled down a considerable amount, I got to work. The candy bar was good, but not what I expected it would be. I didn't feel like I got enough of the snickers, but you know what, it was still pretty good.

   Thankfully the fried snickers was not the food highlight of the state fair, or we would have had a

MMMmmmm…. Bacon AND Donut!

pretty disappointing day. Good thing we didn't stop our fair-food tasting there, because the next thing we ate was legendary. As we continued down the fair food lane, my brother announced that he was getting hungry, and wanted a hot dog. We stopped at the nearest hot dog stand, which happened to be the same one we went to last year, where they had a bacon-wrapped corn dog! This year they had something new; The MAPLE BACON DONUT DOG. The Maple Bacon Donut Dog was a hot dog, wrapped in bacon, stuck through the middle of a glazed donut, and drizzled with maple syrup and bacon bits. I had the first bite, and had to hold myself back from eating the entire thing. This is the fair food you hear about - something so crazy they just can't serve it anywhere else.  It was soooooo good, warm, crispy, sweet and salty, almost like a food one could only dream about. All in all, definitely the best fair food and maybe junk food I've ever had.

Butt Fries? Yes… Butt Fries

   We continued our quest for crazy foods and found BUTT FRIES!  When I saw the sign I was a little nervous, but then we found out they were french fries piled with pulled pork, cheese, scallions and sour cream.  They were very filling and really tasty.  They were kind of like nachos, just with fries and pulled pork.  We had our choice of several bar-b-q sauces for it and tried several.      

You can't go wrong with the classics!

   The last thing I want to mention is a staple at the WV State Fair - Ben and Ellen donuts.  I don't know how long Ben and Ellen have been coming to the fair, but it seems that everyone there eats at least one of their donuts.  We actually saw a list one time of the top things to do in the area and eating one of these donuts was one of the top ranked activities!  At the fair, for seventy-five cents, you can get a warm, delicious, fluffy, cinnamon sugar coated
donut.  Mmmmm…… Donuts. Definitely worth the seventy-five cents.

I think it was a really good fair food day.  We all enjoyed trying new, crazy things as well as having a couple of our traditional favorites.  I can't wait to see what new things they come up with for next year!

La Duree- Paris, France

La Duree!

   One of my favorite foods in France were the French macaroons, and while I was in Paris, I went to one of the most famous macaroon places of all time; La Duree. La Duree is on the Champs Elysees, the most expensive street in Paris. I guess that La Duree had earned a spot on the Champs Elysees, because their macaroons were anything but cheap. 

   La Duree was a VERY popular macaroon shop.  There was a huge line of people waiting to get in.  The line wrapped around the corner of the block!  You should know that it didn't just sell macaroons, it also had small assorted pastries as well as another whole section for actually eating meals. Since we had already eaten lunch, we decided to just get a box of macaroons to go. Choosing which macaroons

to get was going to be the hard part, considering that there were twenty-three different flavors to choose from. We learned that most of them are there all the time, but some change based on the season.  At La Duree, you could buy a single macaroon, or buy a box and choose your flavors. There were boxes of two, four, eight, ten, sixteen, twenty-one, and forty-eight. Instead of spending a few hours trying to pick and choose flavors, my dad told us we could get a box of twenty-one and just pick the two that we didn't want. We decided to not get a mint-thyme and a basil-lemon.

   I've been to a number of other macaroon shops in both the US and in France and I was impressed that all of the macaroons at La Duree were perfect.  Several other places we've visited would have some macaroons that were cracked or just not right, but here you could tell they were serious!

Mmmmm... Macaroons

  Because you are waiting in a huge line to get your macaroons, inside and out, you can really scope out the place. First of all, La Duree is furnished and decorated in a very Victorian style, with hardwood tables and chairs, and floral carpet and green walls with ornate gold decorations. I found it beautiful and very interesting. Anyways, as soon as we received our macaroons, we hurried outside with our treasure. Right outside of La Duree the restaurant had an ice cream and sorbet cart, and my brother was immediately drawn to it. He picked a cup of raspberry sorbet, and because the ice cream/sorbet cart was part of La Duree, they even put a macaroon on top! My brother ate it so fast no one else got to try it, but after finishing the sorbet; with a huge, sticky ring of pink around his face, he commented that the sorbet was pretty darn good. Over the next few days my family and I ate our box of macaroons from La Duree, and I have to say, they were really good, definitely better than I expected for some reason. All of the flavors were bold and evident, except for a couple macaroons that were different kinds of the same thing - those tasted the same. All in all, a cool experience with great macaroons.  The flavors included: Raspberry, Pistachio, Coffee and Chocolate Coconut, with a few of my family's favorites being: Salted Caramel, Peach and

Fancy Macaroons; Fancy Box

Rose Petal!

  The service may be different if you were eating a meal, but with us standing in the line and buying the box of macaroons for take out it definitely felt like we were being rushed along.

  As always, I will be rating the places I go on my Cookie Counter Scale of Cookieness, with one cookie being old, burnt, stale oatmeal raisin cookie nastiness, and ten cookies being perfect, warm, gooey, chocolate chip (my favorite) cookie goodness! My Cookie Counter ratings for La Duree are:

  

  Food: 8 Cookies

  Atmosphere: 7 Cookies

    Service: 6 Cookies

La Goret- Beaune, France

La Goret; The Piglet

France! One of the most interesting small towns I visited on my vacation in France this summer was Beaune (pronounced "Bone"). It is a small town in the Burgundy region and it was truly beautiful.  We were only in Beaune for one night, so we wanted to take advantage of it.  An online site lists 150 restaurants in Beaune and my Dad 

found one that we thought would be fun to go to.  It is currently listed as the top restaurant in the town but we choose it because of the description of the menu.  Like many of the restaurants there it is quite small and it is on a small side street, so you may have missed it.  Its name is "Le Goret", which translates as “the piglet.”  It was pretty funky and a great experience.

The restaurant definitely had the right name because literally everything on the menu was pork and the restaurant was themed around pork. Almost all of the decorative items were pigs or pig related: pig shaped lanterns, pig shaped bowls, pig shaped chalk boards with the menu, etc.  

This is the menu, pig-shaped of course!

When we arrived at the restaurant we quickly realized that NOBODY in the restaurant spoke English except us.  The place was packed and we thought that it was a good sign that it was filled with locals instead of tourists.  We were greeted by the owner, who is also the chef and it turned out also served as our waiter.  He was really friendly.  We used our limited French speaking skills and played a bit of charades with the chef to try and decipher the menu.  After several funny minutes we figured out that there were only three menu items.  We figured out one was a pork chop.  We also knew that sausage was one of the specialties but we had trouble figuring out the third dish, eventually figuring out it was pig cheek in a burgundy wine sauce.  Because we were with another family and my Grandma, we were able to try everything! My brother, my friend and I, as well as my Grandma all had the pork chop.  My Dad and my friend’s Dad had the sausage while my Mom, my friend’s Mom, went with the cheeks! With the language communication problems we really weren’t 100% sure about what all was coming, but when it came out it had definitely been worth the wait.

My Pork chop!

My pork chop was way better than I had imagined it would be. It had very little fat, was very tender and had great flavor. Now, I usually don't like pork chops because of their fattiness and their lack of flavor, but this pork chop was one that I definitely enjoyed. With no fat and a lot of flavor, I am happy to say it was definitely worth my time. It came with a side of fried potatoes, and those were pretty good, too! They were very crunchy on the outside, but fall-apart tender on the inside.  Pretty good, if I do say so myself! Everyone’s dish came with at least

some of the restaurant’s home-made sausage, which was also very good.

The Dad’s had actually thought their meal, which was called the “trilogy” was going to be three different cuts of pork.  Instead it was three types of sausages.  My Dad was a little disappointed that there wasn’t a chop with his, but the portions were so big that everyone was able to eat some of each.  I think the chops were everyone’s favorite.  The restaurant also served a pesto sauce on certain cuts of its sausage.  My family loves pesto, so we all thought was a great idea and gave an extra punch of flavor to the meal.

For dessert we decided to have ice cream at the restaurant, which was the only dessert they had.  I would say that there were about eight or ten different flavors, but since our French skills didn’t really include knowing the names of tons of ice cream flavors we had to make guesses about what they really were. I had the caramel ice cream, my brother had the chocolate, and my friend had the strawberry. When the ice cream came out, it looked amazing! Not only that, but it tasted great! Unlike all the caramel ice cream that has that fakey caramel taste, this

The Sausage "Trio"

actually tasted like caramel, and as a bonus, it had caramel chunks in it! Everyone else's ice cream was good, but in my opinion my ice cream was the best!

At the end of the meal my Dad asked the owner if we could get a picture with him because it had been such a fun, different kind of meal.  The owner said yes and shocked us by immediately grabbing a hat that looked like a big, pink, pig’s head and pulling it over his head.  He seemed really happy to take the picture and it was obvious that he had done it a lot in the past.  When we were trying to get the picture taken in front of the restaurant some local guy kept photobombing us – jumping in EVERY time we took the picture.  That was weird, but kind of funny too.

As always, I will be rating the places I go on my Cookie Counter Scale of Cookieness, with one cookie being old, burnt, stale oatmeal raisin cookie nastiness, and ten cookies being perfect, warm, gooey, chocolate chip (my favorite) cookie goodness! My Cookie Counter ratings for Le Goret are:

   Food: 8 Cookies
   Atmosphere: 8 Cookies

   Service: 8 Cookies

Le Refuge des Fondues- MontMartre, Paris, France

Le Refuge des Fondues!

  While on our three week long vacation in France, we ate at some pretty interesting places. One of them was Le Refuge des Fondues. Le Refuge des Fondues means "The Refuge of Melted". The restaurant is located in the area of Paris known as Montmartre.  We had read about it online and we thought it sounded fun.  It took a little while to find, but once we found it, I knew that this place would be like no other. First of all, the restaurant was no bigger than a hotel room, and only seated about 30 people. There was a long bench along both walls with essentially what was a long table running the entire length of the restaurant in front of it.  Half of the people sit on these benches and if you are going to sit on one of them you had to climb OVER the table.  That was pretty crazy.  We had a party of eight, so we took up quite a chunk of space in the restaurant and four of us had to climb over.  We were there when it opened and it filled up really quickly.

   Probably the strangest thing about Le Refuge des Fondues was also the coolest. Everyone drank out of baby bottles!  Whether you were having water, orange juice, or even WINE (for the adults), it all came in a baby bottle. Watching grown adults and kids alike all drinking out of baby bottles was probably the funniest and strangest thing I have seen in a long time.  I think they do it in case you kick someone's drink while climbing over the table.  The restaurant also has a baby bottle on the

The Crew! (Note the baby bottles!)

front door instead of a door knob! 

  At Le Refuge des Fondues, there are only two fondue options: "cheese and meat".  When we asked what kind of meat the waiter simply answered "meat" which we thought was funny.  Because we were so hungry, we ordered both, and I'm glad we did. When our cheese bowl came out, I was the only kid who really liked the cheese, but all the adults liked it. The cheese was warm, gooey, not very strong or flavorful, but added warmth and more texture to the olives, apples, and bread that were put out for us to eat with the cheese. In all honesty, even after having some cheese, everyone was still starving, and were eagerly waiting to get the meat course. You cook the meat in boiling oil and while the oil and meat were coming out, we met a couple that had just sat down next to us. They were probably in their early twenties. Once we started talking to them, the parents and this couple immediately bonded. Within 15 minutes, the moms were showing each other baby pictures! (okay, that part was kinda weird)  Anyways, the meat course came out, and it was okay, except for two things. One, I found it very difficult to cook anything just right. No matter how long I waited after putting in the meat, the first time it would always still be raw on the inside.  Then if I put the meat back in, even for just a few seconds, it would turn out hard and overcooked. The second thing was that every time you put one of the potatoes in, it would disappear. It always dropped off and we would lose it in the oil, and it was then really difficult to get the potato out. On the very rare occasion that you could get it out, it would either fall back in or be half disintegrated. So in other words, the oil was pretty lame. I mean, burnt meat and disintegrated potatoes aren't all that great. Anyways, this restaurant wasn't really abut the food, it was about the experience and we did laugh a lot. They also let you write your name or graffiti on the walls, which I thought was cool.  Everyone in our group had a fun time that night,and we all agreed it was one of

Me climbing over the table!

the best nights (but not meals) we had on our trip!

   All the staff were nice, and they spoke English, too! I really enjoyed Le Refuge des Fondues, and even though the food wasn't great, the experience more than made up for it. So if you happen to be in Paris at Montmartre, drop in for a night full of fun - and baby bottles!

  As always, I will be rating the places I go on my Cookie Counter Scale of Cookieness, with one cookie being burnt, old, stale oatmeal raisin cookie nastiness, and ten cookies being perfect, warm, gooey chocolate chip (my favorite) cookie goodness. My Cookie Counter ratings for Le Refuge des Fondues are:

Food: 5 Cookies
Atmosphere: 8 Cookies
Service: 7 Cookies

Le Refuge des Fondues Google+:  https://plus.google.com/104769547298971501729/about?gl=us&hl=en

Jim's Drive In, Lewisburg, West Virginia

Jim's Drive In!

In Lewisburg, West Virginia, there are many excellent restaurants. One that I really enjoy that you may not have tried is Jim's Drive In.  Jim's is a fast food joint where you can either sit and eat in your car, or sit at one of the picnic tables that they have outside. Every single summer, I go to Jim's Drive In at least once. I usually go with my family, and some friends of ours. Although the food is so good, I'm happy we only go once a summer, because I probably couldn't handle any more since we typically eat so much!  The deal with Jim's Drive In is that practically everything is fried. They have fried onions, fries, pickles, banana peppers, green
beans and many more.  Generally we are pretty healthy eaters, but some times at Jim's we order everything fried on the menu for the table.  We call that "the fried extravaganza!"  They also have burgers, chicken fingers, corn dogs, and other entrees. My favorite part of Jim's Drive In is the milkshakes. They have about two dozen different flavors of milkshakes, everything from Butterfinger to Oreo. My personal favorite is the Butterfinger. It is a vanilla milkshake with many pieces of Butterfinger mixed in. While we were there recently, they had a few special summer shakes. They had a Mocha, Carmel Coffee, S'mores, and Hawaiian (coconut, banana, and pineapple). This time, I decided to be adventurous and have a S'mores shake.


   On my most recent trip to Jim's Drive In, I ordered a cheeseburger, fried banana peppers and a S'mores milkshake. My brother ordered chicken fingers, mac n' cheese bites (deep fried balls of mac n' cheese), and a

My burger and fried banana peppers!

Fried mushrooms! Yum! 

Oreo milkshake. My dad ordered the signature "Big Jim" Ranch Burger, which has ranch, ham, lettuce, tomato, pickles, cheese, and onion on it with a Mocha milkshake. He says it is one of his favorite burgers from anywhere.  My mom detoured from the usual burger and decided to go with the fried green tomato sandwich. The fried green tomato sandwich had fried green tomato, provolone cheese, bacon, lettuce and mayonnaise on it. She really liked it.  I tried it but I like the burgers more.  We also ordered onion rings, fried mushrooms and fried green beans for the table. Because Jim's is such a great restaurant, it is usually packed at lunch time and the restaurant only has 3 or 4 employees, thus the food took a little while to come out, but the food was worth the wait. My S'mores milkshake, as expected was delicious! It actually tasted like real s'mores! It was a vanilla milkshake with crushed graham cracker blended in, and pieces of chocolate mixed in as well. My cheeseburger was also really good, as it was meaty, juicy, and tender to the point of almost falling apart. I have three favorite fried foods at Jim's: The fried banana peppers, the onion rings, and the fried mushrooms. The fact that I love the fried banana peppers so much has always come as a surprise to me, since I won't even touch a regular banana pepper, but when Jim's fries them, they become a magical, great-tasting food! My second favorite fried food at Jim's are the onion rings. Now, unlike normal onion rings which I find are too often soggy and drenched in grease, the ones at Jim's are crunchy, and have little to no grease on them. Now for my third favorite fired food, I really love the fried mushrooms. They are really hot (as in temperature), and are crisp on the outside, but meaty, chewy, and juicy on the inside. Even though all these fried foods are great by themselves, there is a way to make them even better. The answer? Ranch. Jim's ranch is unlike any ranch I've ever had before. It is thick, creamy, tangy, and smooth, plus it compliments any fried food perfectly, blanking out the little grease the fried foods have with a thick, creamy coat of ranch goodness. For dessert my mom and I split a soft serve vanilla ice cream cone with rainbow sprinkles on top! It was really good! The ice
cream was house-made, so it was flavorful, creamy, smooth, soft, and a very refreshing treat in the middle of the day!

   One of the reason I love Jim's so much is because of the people there; they will bend over backwards just to make you happy. Everyone is so nice, and are happy to help you with any question you might have. And the best part? All of this is in one of the coolest small towns in America!

    As always, I will be rating the places I go on my Cookie Counter Scale of Cookieness, with one cookie being old, stale, burnt oatmeal raisin cookie nastiness, and ten cookies being warm, gooey, chewy, chocolate chip (my favorite) cookie goodness. My Cookie Counter ratings for Jim's drive-in are:

Food: 8 Cookies

     Milkshakes: 9 1/2 Cookies
     Atmosphere: 6 Cookies
     Service: 12 Cookies

Note: The fried mushrooms as shown in the picture contain many more mushrooms than what is shown. They were so good that they were almost all gone before I could take a picture! :)

Jim's Drive-In Google+: https://plus.google.com/110521968412177484113/about?gl=us&hl=en

Bistrotters- Paris, France

Bistrotters!

   Recently, I took a three week long vacation with my family all around France. It was the coolest thing I have ever done, and I had the best food I've ever eaten. On our second day in Paris, my family and I went to a small but highly-respected restaurant called Bistrotters.  My Dad found the restaurant on a website rating restaurants in Paris and out of over 10,000 restaurants it was rated #3, so we had high expectations.  Bistrotters did not disappoint, it was the best food that we ate on the trip and also the best meal I have eaten, ever!  The restaurant itself probably seated no more than 25 people, with most people in one small room at the front of the restaurant. The deal with the menu was that you could do one of two things: a two course meal, or a three course one. For the two course meal, you could pick either a appetizer and an entree, or an entree and a dessert. With the three course meal you got all three courses. For each course you have about 4 or 5 options to choose from, and they all looked delicious. My brother and I each chose to do the two-course dinner, with a entree and a dessert, but our parents and grandmother did the three-course dinner.

A very colorful veggie tart, indeed!

   For an appetizer my mom ordered a vegetable tart, and even though I don't normally like vegetables very much, this dish
made me want more of them. The vegetable tart consisted of a flaky, buttery, crispy puff pastry with mixed vegetables in a sauce on top. The vegetables were in a sweet soy sauce, and they were really good. All the vegetables were tender and soft, just perfect for the dish. It was a great start to an amazing meal! For my entree I went with a pork belly with potatoes, carrots, and onions. The pork belly was a little fatty, but the people at Bistrotters had warned us about that, so it was okay.  They said that you can just cut away the layer of fat at the start, which is what I did. The potatoes were tender and soft, the sauce on the pork belly was salty, thick, and warm. I really loved

My pork belly!

how the pork belly was crispy on the outside, but still tender and juicy on the inside. My meal was great, but someone else's was better. My mom got a fillet and it was amazing! it was tender, juicy, warm, and had a peppercorn sauce to dip it in that was smooth and peppery and went perfectly with the steak. For my dessert, I had a time choosing between a brioche french toast with a salted carmel sauce and the chocolate lava cake with raspberry sorbet, but in the end, I went with the french toast and was happy I did. Brioche is my favorite type of bread for it's butteriness, softness, and it's overall texture and taste. The brioche was cut into strips and fried and had a maple syrup tasting crust on top. There were two thin slices of chocolate which melted atop the french toast and made it even better. The salted caramel sauce wasn't very salty, but that was okay. The french toast was a little dry by itself, so the caramel sauce added not only another dimension of great taste, but some moisture that the french toast needed.

BRIOCHE FRENCH TOAST!

My grandmother got the chocolate lava cake with sorbet, and that was pretty good. The chocolate cake was rich, moist, and sweet, and the "lava" was warm, thick, rich, gooey, and chocolatey. The raspberry sorbet that was on the side was really good. It was cold to the point of refreshing, but not too cold, and the fruit in it was obviously fresh and because of this, it was evident that the sorbet was homemade.

   The atmosphere in Bistrotters was quaint and welcoming, small but special. It looked like just another small restaurant from the outside, but on the inside, it was so much more. It was the best meal I've ever eaten, but I can only hope I eat somewhere even better in the future. Also, the staff (which consisted of two people( the owners) and a chef) were all very nice. The menu was not only in French but also in English, and the staff were happy to answer any questions we had. They spoke both fluent French and English, making it easy to communicate. Overall, this was a great restaurant with the best food I've ever eaten. Everything from the presentation of the food on the plate to the taste to the atmosphere and service was fantastic.

  If you find yourself in Paris, go to Bistrotters.  Make a reservation, though as they turned away a lot people the night we were there. They book 12 days in advance.

   As always, I will be rating the places I go on my Cookie Counter Scale of Cookieness, with one cookie being burnt, old, stale oatmeal raisin cookie nastiness, and ten cookies being the perfect, warm, gooey, chewy chocolate chip (my favorite) cookie. My Cookie Counter ratings for Bistrotters are:

Food: 25 Cookies! (yes - 25 out of 10 - it's THAT good)
Atmosphere: 7 Cookies
Service: 10 Cookies

Bistrotters Website: http://www.bistrotters.com/?lang=en