There is a great article in todays Boston Globe, on the "gastro" bistros of Paris. For those of you who wish to access the story, www.boston.com will get you to the Boston Globe's Sunday Travel page. It is titled "Bistro Buzz", by Joe Ray, and is the lead in the travel section. Enjoy!

thanks for the lead... I recently ordered a couple of "bistro" books, and have been harboring some questions. Hopefully, you won't mind if I jump on your bandwagon..?

I would like to know when the spelling is "bistro" and "bistrot".. is there a 'rule'...?
while I'm at it, what is "bastide"..? does it imply Provençale cooking (always)..?

Bistro is commonly spelled without the T. Bastide in Provence is a country house. In the Dordogmne and Aquitaine, they are Fort towns. They wer the first attempt at urban planning and to protest from maurauders. The very first bastide was Cordes. These bastides have huge arcaded market squares.

hi, Travelnut. The spelling variation is interesting as I'm sort of a wordnut, I always am interested in things like that. I've seen both and I don't think there is any "rule". I might be offbase, but it seems I'm seeing "bistrot" more often nowadays in Paris, than bistro, but I see both. I did look up the origin in a French language history database from some French university online, and it cited references to both spellings beginning late 1800s. Numerous speculations as to the origin from various French words (it said the story you will hear about it coming from Russian has not been supported by them). In any case, it said that the "t" ending probably came from the fact that "ot" is a more "French" word ending than just "o". That's true, when I think about it, it is a more comfortable French spelling for me intuitively. Also, with a "t" at the end, it can be turned into an occupation and feminized (bistrote) for a woman who runs a bistrot (or something like that, I read it quickly and that's what I remember).

See, that is interesting.. thank you, and cigalechanta, too..

Christina, I found this:
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-bis1.htm