Moderate priced food and intereesting shops near Luxembourge gardens
 

We will be in Paris for a week in June. Our hotel is Hotel Chaplain near Luxemboug gardens. This is my first trip to Paris. Looking for good food (not fancy) no more than 20 E or less and interesting shops near the gardens.

ginn,

I used to see the Hotel Chaplain from my kitchen window... oh well, I'll try not to get too nostalgic ;-)

For restaurants, perhaps le Wadja (nice bistrot, 10 rue de la Grande Chaumière) meets your budget constraints.

There's also a pretty good lebanese place called Noura at 121 boulevard Montparnasse right nearby.

Café Vavin on the intersection of rue Vavin and rue Notre-Dame des Champs is good for café-croissant and lunch.

Marmite et Cassolette at 165 boulevard Montparnasse is also supposed to be good and reasonable. I've eaten several times at their somewhat more expensive place called l'O a la Bouche at 124 boulevard Montparnasse.

Le Bistrot du Dôme, on rue Delambre might be in that price range as well and has good seafood.

There are lots of fun kid's shops on the rue Vavin between rue N-D des Champs and the Luxembourg gardens.

For sweets, don't miss Paul Hevin on rue Vavin and Christian Constant on rue d'Assas.

Hope this helps,
Andre

You will be in a wonderful neighborhood!

As Andre said, there's wonderful shops lining Bvd Vavin (also the local laundromat we go to when in Paris). There's lots of Breton restaurants in the area, including a great little Creperie -- Josselin -- on rue du Montparnasse.

There's also a morning to about noon outdoor farmer's market (food, clothing, flea market stuff) along Blvd. Edgar Quinet, across from the Montparnasse Cemetery, but I have forgotten what days that is held.

You'll also be very close to that part of Luxembourg Gardens which ends at Bvd Saint Michel and rue d'Assas where the lovely fountain with the horses is located. That fountain was a prominent feature at the end of the movie, "Gigi".

More on the northern side of the garden, on rue Racine, is a great shop with beautiful scarves and jewelry, different stuff. Not the usual silk printed scarves, but velvet/satin with ribbon and floral trims, really pretty, and unusual jewelry.

This was a few years ago, but I had a wonderful dinner at Bouillon Racine (3 rue Racine), fabulous food, not too pricey, very "French", lots of locals eating there, great style room. I bought several pair of earrings in a shop on that street- maybe the same as mentioned above?