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