First trip to Paris--should I forget finding any menus in English
 

This will be our first time to Paris and from all the post I have read it seems as if we will have a hard time reading the menu--we speak no French. Also do most places only have the pre fix menu? We love to eat but like to decide ourself what we want. We will only be there for 5 days so I guess we can always go to the markets and buy food--we then go back to Italy and I know we will eat there.
Thanks--I worry a little as food is a big part of our trips
Thanks again

One thing to avoid are restaurants that provide menus in different languages: tourist traps. I suggest you review menu terms and get familiar with them. There is even a little menu book with photos available. Also the waiters are willing to translate as best they can if you have questions.

Hi,
Don't you have a pocket dictionary where you could find what sort of meat or vegetable you'll have in your plate?

I don't remember the link but I'm sure someone here will give you a link to a travel dictionary where you could copy a few words and sentences.
good luck et bon appétit :-)

You will not have a hard time reading the menu, really! If you go to more touristy restaurants, the menus will likely be in French and English (and other languages too). Very high-end restaurants also will have menus in English (or in both languages). You should have no problem.

Most places offer at least one prix fixe menu, but almost always there's also a regular menu with a la carte items.

Every restaurant is required to post menus outside, so you can look at the menu, decide if you like the a la carte items (or the prix fixe menus), and go in or not.

But the markets are good as well...

Most Paris restaurants, execept a few of the fancier ones, might not have menus in English. Fear not, however. If your menu ("carte" in French) doesn't have English, be assured your waiter can speak English well enough. Just be kind, say please, and ask if he would please speak to you in English. Waiters will also make suggestions if you ask them.

And don't worry so much about the prix fixe menus. Your choices are still usually pretty broad. There are almost always a number of different prix fixe menus, many at differing fixed prices.

Going to the markets is always fun if you either have a place to prepare meals, or simply want to buy stuff that is ready to eat. Personally, I would suggest you try out a few meals in some of the bistros around town, just for the experience. Good luck.

Once I was eating in a restaurant in Nimes and even with a food dictionary could not figure out what the day's special was. The waiter finally had to get the chef, who with a laugh lifted his leg, pulled up the cuff of his pants, and pointed to his ankle. OH! We couldn't figure out what "dinde" was either, and when the chef said it was "like chicken" we feared it might be frog's legs. Turned out to be turkey.

At another restaurant in Correns a group of my friends was missing the one person who usually helped us translate, and so everyone played it safe with the pasta dish -- except my husband. He looked up at the waitress and made a waving gesture with his hands in what he thought was an approximation of swimming, and sure enough she returned with a fantastic baked fish of the day.

The moral is, translate as best you can but take a chance and don't be scared to point, gesture, and ask. Also, even if you like to choose you might want to give the prix fixe menu a try -- I think often that's the same as the day's special, and the special in France usually really IS special! Plus, you might discover something that's surprisingly good.

Good luck!

I think many restaurants in central Paris have menus in various languages (English is a common one), and these are not necessarily tourist traps. A lot of restaurants do this because they have international clientele. If you know Italian, you shouldn't have that much trouble, I would think, as there are a lot of similarities in various Romance languages. I would also think a travel dictionary would serve the purpose of at least covering basic words so you know if you are ordering meat, poultry or fish. A lot of the words are very similar to English, also (ie, salade).

I've never been in a restaurant that only had a prix fixe menu, but I think there are a couple. It is not the norm.

In short, I would not worry that you will starve.

Thank you for your answers. I have a French food dictionary I bought the first time we went to Nice years ago but could never find a word on the menue that matched the word in the dictionary--now we know where to go in Nice so we have no problem any where on that whole coast. But there is always some place that serves food from Italy. We are trying to expand out travels the last few years.We always go to Italy every May--two years ago first went to Munich--then Back to Italy--last year Prague-then Italy. This year Paris-then------.
When my husband plans the trip to Italy is is not the city or hotel it is what he wants to eat. That is why Paris was making me alittle nervous. Finding our way around is no problem. My husband can put a map in front of him look at it then put it away and when we reach that city he can walk right to any place we want to go.
Thank again.I am trying to learn some things but I find French hard to figure out--it took me time to figure out how to say "Champs"

When I went to restaurants described in a guidebook (even the sort of guidebook that prides itself on staying away from tourist traps), they tended to have English menus. Not positive of what was the chicken and what was the egg in this phenomenon, but a phenomenon it was. Also, through a link on this forum, I printed out a very extensive French food dictionary before I left--it was quite detailed and much more helpful than the average page or two of food terms in the back of a guidebook.

When my three boys determined, after some experimentation, what French dishes they liked, it was impossible for Mme. Robespierre and me to pry them loose and try anything else.

We started calling it their <i>id&eacute;e fixe</i> menu.

I can only speak from personal experience. We were 15 days in Paris in October/November, and we had no trouble whatever with menus. Our French is sketchy, but the waiters/waitresses were most helpful. Just smile and say, &quot;Montrez moi, s'il vous plait.&quot; This only means &quot;please show me.&quot; They instantly knew (1) that we were not French, and (2) had a genuine interest in what they served. Your fears have no basis in fact, based on our experience.

I've found that if I ask for the English menu, I may find terms that are more foreign to me than the French (or Spanish or Italian) would be.
I can't think of an example in French right now, but here's one for Italian: if the menu were translated into British English, Americans might not recognize &quot;courgette&quot; but they would have no trouble with the original -- zucchini.

We use lots of French food terms every day so you may be surprised at how much you recognize.

Anyway, I ask for menus in both the local language and English to get the best idea of what I am ordering.

bon appetit

Don't worry about the menus, bring a good food book with you. I have used a menu translator for many years and rarely have not been able to figure out what was on the menu. There are a few but this is the one I have used:
Eating and Drinking in France: French Menu Reader and Restaurant Guide by Andy Herbach and Michael Dillon . They also have one for Italy.
Have a fun trip!

I'm no foodie. In fact, I'm a very picky eater. But, even if you have nothing more than a rudimentary list of basic French food items, you can get an idea of what's on the menu. My exerience is that it's the sauces and the like which don't immeidately translate, but some of those you'll be familiar with anyway. Rather than have the waiter translate large portions of the menu, you can ask about one or two items that you have some idea what they are (always intresting to find out if your conception as to what they were was right).

&quot;Eating and Drinking in Paris&quot;--inexpensive, handy little book. Lots of restaurant info plus a menu translator.

Don't worry about it. Many restaurants have English menus. I found that in alot of restaurants if they didnt have an English menu, the waiter was usually happy to help. I also disagee with the person above who said that good restaurants don't have English menus.

My wife &amp; I spend 2 months in France most years, and we still find some dishes that are unfamiliar to us (wife speaks French). The best menu translator we've ever found is by Patricia Wells. You can even download it from her web site:

http://www.patriciawells.com/

Stu Dudley

Yes, &quot;Eating and Drinking in Paris&quot; is a super book. I speak quite a lot of French, but I find that menu terms are a specialized vocabulary. If you really care about food you want to know details, more than just &quot;fish&quot; or &quot;asparagus&quot;. This book does it for you in a way that I find really easy to use.

See http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34408526

By the way, when are you going? Think how many English words you would &quot;expect&quot; a French visitor to have learned before going to dinner in a restaurant in your town? You CAN learn 5 to 10 words per day; 150 to 300 a month. Today would be a good day to start.

Best wishes,

Rex

I got a food glossary and first learned words for foods I most definitely did NOT want to eat (eels, entrails, tongue, etc).

Then I learned the basic kinds of meats (poulet, boeuf, veau, etc) and then there are the 'typical' traditional dishes that I know we'd like (bourgignon, coq au vin, escargot, haricots vert, etc).

The best thing is you can stand outside a likely looking restaurant and review the posted menu, identifying in advance 'choice A', 'choice B', etc.

We liberally intermix other cuisines, since we aren't very educated on French cooking, ie. Italian, Chinese, and so on...