Escargots in Paris
 

Haven't been to Paris in a while. Could anyone recommend a good escargot experience?

No, but I look forward to hearing the responses. I LOVE escargot!!!

I've orderd them several times at different brasseries...can't remember where..and they were always good. I think it would be hard to go wrong.

This is a restaurant famous for it's escargots. Too bad the photo is dark, you can't appreciate the huge snail that sits above the entrance.

http://tinyurl.com/6f546k

It's impossible to go wrong because every ordinary place buys them frozen with the garlic butter already in the shells (usually from the German wholesaler Metro, but also from Picard and some other places). You just put the snails in the oven for about 10 minutes until the butter starts bubbling in the shells. It is always good, and the customers never know the difference.

I have several packages myself in my freezer for snail emergencies.

I had wonderful escargot at Allard last year.

A great question, Peter2.

Thank you, Cigalechanta, I printed out the restaurant you gave and the page with the snails made my mouth water. They prepare them so many different ways!

Kerouac- are you living in USA, I don't think so but if yes, where did you buy the frozen snails? I have never seen them in US supermarkets. Maybe from a restaurt distributor but not retail. MERCI!

kerouac is a current Parisien.

I've seen snails in the supermarket but not frozen. I have seen them in a kind of "snail kit" I guess. The shells are packaged on top of a can of snails. I have never tried them so have no clue if they are good or not.

Cigale -

I ate at L'Escargot Montorgueil in November. That was the place we chose for our big night out. My boyfriend had never had snails and he's now a fan. That was one of the top meals of my life. Here's a better picture of the snail.

http://tinyurl.com/5lvha4

This photo album will a lot of escargots being eaten. Of course the snails are served in bigger amounts than the Parisians.

http://www.pyreneesmediterraneanliving.com/

They're served with bread and aioli plus lots of good red wine.

Blackduff

kerouac--That is too funny! We took the kids to Paris when they were around ages 7 and 10. They loved the escargot. We were at the store one day and saw the big bag of frozen ones, and the kids were begging us to buy it and take it home. If we could have found a way, we would have. It was quite a large bag too.

BM for October trip!!!!!!!

Along the same lines, I remember when I was living in Lisbon and at certain times of the year little cafes would have their entire front windows covered in the tiny periwinkle snails. You'd order up a batch and they'd give you a toothpick and saucer of garlic butter.

Yum.

Crefloors - I've wondered about those shell/escargot kits here in the US too.

Travelnut, thanks. I recalled in another thread kerouac was not American and the name sounds French.

It is nice to get many people from various counties on this board!

mycatmiko,
great photo, thanks!!!

mimi who loves cats besides her dog, Pastis

http://www.geobeats.com/videoclips/f...scargot-dining

I saw trays of frozen ones that looked just like that at the "Bastille Day on 60th St" street fair in NYC.

Our local Safeway now carries frozen mussels in sauce; perhaps escargots will be up next?

never said Kerouac wasn't American, just that he lives in Paris. (Jack Kerouac was a famous American writer of the "Beat Generation", primarily the 40's and 50's).

I can be anything you want me to be. The magic of the internet!

Kerouac

Very enigmatic!

Saturday is National Escargot Day here in the US.
Those lucky to be in New York,
One if by Land, Two if by Sea
at 17 Barrow St(7th ave.south) is preparing an all-snail menu.
available thursday through Saturday.

Snails have been eating our tropical foliage here in Florida like crazy. Come to Naples and you can have all you want for free. If you take a minimum of three dozen, I'll even throw in a head of garlic and a stick of butter.

Just about any time they are offered as the first course on a menu in Paris, I order them. They always seem to be great (although I'm convinced that if they were rubber erasers, they'd still be just as good in all that butter and garlic).

Right, Patrick. My father used to say that sawdust would taste good in the sauce they put on escargot.

Johnny Carson is purported to have told a waiter, "I'll have an order of escargot. Hold the snails."

My dad used to say the same thing about some food -- that anything would taste good if drowned in butter and garlic (or whipped cream).

I don't even like escargots much, they don't have much flavor, as they are just sort of garden slug refuse as far as I'm concerned. But I think Le Vieux Bistro near Notre Dame does them as good as any, and if I really were seeking that out, I'd go to the restaurant with the snail over the door which is a historic building (and sign) -- L'Escargot Montorgueil, which is at 38 rue Montorgueil. That is their specialty, I guess.

I just finished reading On the Road by Kerouac, coincidentally. The name doesn't sound French to me at all, since they don't even have a k in French much. He claims his ancestors were from Ireland, then Brittany and the name is of Breton derivation.

Names from Brittany are full of C's and K's.

I have seen the Ks alot in Brittany. He did speak a French Canadian dialect. He was born in Lowell, Ma. where they celebrate him every year.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Kerouac

I was in Paris in Sep 06. Had great escargot at Au Bourguignon du Marais at 52 rue Francois Miron in the Marais near Pompidou. The escargot were served out of their shells(easy to eat) in a bright green delicious sauce. This is a very nice little bistro in general, specializing in Burgundy wines at reasonable prices with good service. The night we were there it was very popular with mostly a French crowd.

In 1972 I spent a summer between college years traveling in Europe. My friend and I were on a train in Switzerland. My friend was reading "On the Road" and the guy across from me was reading "Sur la Route".

And so they were.

Something you'll never hear in a restaurant -- "your escargot are so fresh and so good, just bring them to me plain with no garlic and no sauce."

Although I love escargots in the classic way--butter, garlic, parsley--I also can't resist them in Badische schneckensuppe (Baden snail soup), a lovely soup made with snails, shallots, cream, celery, carrots, leek and veal stock. I'm trying to make them for us at home, but I can't get shallots! Both Waitrose and Sainsbury's have been unable to get shallots in for a month.
Fortunately, I will be in Brussels this week-end, I will try and pick some up there.

My other favorite escargot dish can be found at Leon's chain restaurants--mussels topped with escargot and cheese. Yes, there's plenty of butter too. My arteries allow me this dish once a year.

There's a Leon's in Paris (at least one), you might want to sample escargots in this dish as well as the usual way.

BTilke, I love mussels at Leon's, but opening the shells is a bit much for my partner so he always gets the "mussels escargot style" which I think is what you are talking about, but they don't have escargots on them -- they are just served "like" escargot. What's more after he finishes the entire platter of them, they always offer a second one for free -- but he never takes it.

cigalechanta:

<Saturday is National Escargot Day here in the US. Those lucky to be in New York, . . .>

I will be in NYC this Saturday for a play and will look for escargot on menu in restaurant our friends are taking us to!!! THANKS!!!!

NOW, for L'Escargot Montorgueil, I watched the video clip MademoiselleFifi had kindly provided and this elegant restaurant is suited for my 15 year old dh. Lady in beginning of video says there are many places to have escarot. Do you know of other, more casual and less expensive places? I cannot imagine every restaurant offers them. MERCI!

Casual and inexpensive place that serves escargots: Chez Papa. Locations all over Paris.

Are you serious? There's a "National escargot day" here?! Is it annual or just a one-time thing? That all-snails menu sure sounds interesting-- if tomorrow weren't the last evening before my very unprepared trip to London, I'd be very tempted. (Every time I come to this forum trying to search for London info, I get sidetracked reading all the Paris threads instead).

No, NP, they definitely DO have escargots on them. As well as cheese. Maybe it's only served in Brussels.

Well, that's possible. I've never been to a Leon's in Brussels, but at the four or five Leon de Bruxelles branches we've eaten at in Paris (maybe 15 times total) their very popular dish, "Les Moules à “l’Escargot” gratinées", are simply open faced mussels with garlic, butter, parsley, and cheese -- or mussels served "in the style of escargot". It's hard to imagine that such a big chain with Bruxelles in their name wouldn't be doing one of their primary dishes the same in all their restaurants. But I can assure you that anyone would eat these mussels and "think" they were eating escargot. I'm sure the word escargot in the name makes lots of people think they are eating escargot when they aren't. But since I've never eaten them at one of their restaurants in Brussels, I'll have to take your word for it that there and there alone, it is an entirely different dish from what it is in Paris. Why that is, I can't imagine.

Here's their menu with the gratineed escargot style mussels en plaque listed.

Yes, I know the dish you mean, and that is also a tasty temptation, which I plan to resist this week-end. But occasionally once or twice we've had a dish there with the real things included.

FYI, if you get to Brussels, a nice new restaurant to try (watch the short video on their web site). Great food in an excellent non touristy neighborhood. And they do have snails on the menu--occasionally.

http://sites.resto.com/lefruitdefendu/

Léon in Brussels does not have snails on their menu, unless I missed something.

Here is the menu:

http://uk.chezleon.be/images/files/CarteLeon2008.pdf

It is a much bigger menu than the Léon offshoots in France.

French Léon menu here:

http://www.leon-de-bruxelles.fr/bien...n/la_carte.php