There's aa quote of a French saying in the Book, "At Home in France."

"Good cooking is when things taste likw what they are."

MVor... that might be it. I just went to the paris yellow pages, though, and it looks like it's got too many cars on it. I recall it being pedestrian only, with enough room for a few tables outside at some of the restaurants. So maybe that's not it. I'll keep looking, but if anyone else has any idea of the street I'm referring to, I'd appreciate it.

If you're walking up rue de Seine towards St Suplice and Odeon metro, I think it's off to the right, maybe one of the streets that runs parallel to rue St Sulpice. Of course, now I absolutely need to know the name. The wonders of the internet...
~kat

Actually, mvor, I think it's rue Guisarde... which runs into rue des Canettes. Amazing what you can do with the paris yellow pages website!!!!
~kat

And of course, a quick google search of restaurants on rue Guisarde found the one I'm looking for that I wanted to recommend to the OP.

Bistrot d'Opio, Provencal food. I remember it was delicious food. Does anyone know if it's still good? Scanning the reviews in French it all still lookes good.

Here's their website
http://www.bistrot-opio.com/

kat, glad you found it--I've bookmarked it for future reference. I forgot to mention the Cafe Louis (22 rue des Cannettes) has delicious pizza/past.

BarbaraF, good luck to you and your husband and congratulations on your anniversary.

Maureen

Correction:

The restaurant is Santa Lucia on 22 rue des Cannettes.

Cleary it's time to step away from the computer!

We eat at Fish La Boissonniere on rue de Seine in the 6th for a lighter meal. No cream or dairy sauces but good Mediterranean style food. They are open on Sunday night too. I have the menu around here someplace if you are interested I could scan it and email it to you.

Skatterfly, that looks absolutely terrific. It is on our definite to do list for October! Many thanks. I have just decided we will do all new restaurants this trip except for Florimond for husband's birthday celebration.

Maybe this suggestion is heretical, but it's quite possible to find pleasant, economical (or I imagine expensive) Italian restaurants in Paris. Then you can have meals that are as free of rich sauces as you like.

Re: " the Bastide de L'Odéon - very near to the jardins de luxembourg. The food is provencal style and the atmosphere is lovely. I was with French friends but I noticed that the staff were very friendly and helpful towards the English and American customers."

Interesting to hear that because we had a very bad experience at Odeon two years ago. The food was excellent, but the service was so unpleasant that we'd never want to go back. It was the only place we went in Paris where we felt put down and badly treated because we didn't want to order the most expensive food and wine on the menu. We do speak a little French, too, and really try never to come across as the "ugly Americans." But maybe we were just unlucky to get a bad waiter on a bad day.

Thank you for your well wishes and for all the recommendations. I'll post a list soon. As an aside, I read a few comments by MKingdom in the bulkhead/armrest thread today and breathed a sigh of relief that her comment to me, above, was so mild.

Gretchen: yes to both.

You're right, Gretchen - I thought you were 'cataloguing' the unhealthy ingredients. I love cassoulet!

>...Italian restaurants in Paris. Then you can have meals that are as free of rich sauces as you like. <

Such as Tagliatelle with Ragu Bolognese, Spaghetti Alfredo, Arancini?

Ha, Ira. Perhaps I should say that at an Italian restaurant, one can have dinner with as few or as many rich sauces as one would like. My favorite food in the world might be a Caprese salad, and I always look for those on any trip I happen to be on.

Hi Will,

We had a most excellent Salada Caprese at the Ristorante Della Rose in Paestum (just on the entrance to town). Home grown tomatoes and fresh Buffalo mozzarella.

(There's only two things that money can't buy; and that's true love and home-grown tomaters.)

I sort of feel like Elaine and Gretchen, I think -- I don't remember reading a lot of posts on here about creamy sauces on foods or food drenched in cream and cheese but maybe I just missed them or wasn't paying attention. I rarely eat like that in France, it's just not that common. Butter is never put on vegetables, etc, or on bread, of course -- you're given a pat of butter perhaps on the plate that you can use if you wish. Also, I do eat steak several times when in Paris because I don't it much at home and they do it well there, for a reasonable cost -- and I've never been served a steak with a pat of butter on top in Paris. So, that's not really universal (or even common in my experience, although I'm sure it happened--they do that a lot in the US, I think).

Any sauce you order for a steak can be served on the side in a little gravy-boat type dish (or not at all, if you don't want it). I like Bearnaise sauce or steak au poivre, myself, but do sometimes just as for a "faux filet" which is a very tender steak, and they can cook it without a sauce.

Grilled fish and meats are quite popular on menus in restaurants where I go, there are entire restaurants devoted to this theme, and they have rotisserie in the name, that's an easy way to find them. There's one wellknown "chain" (meaning a few of them) which I think is Rotisserie d'en Face (one on rue Christine). The Rotisserie du Bojolais is one owned by La Tour d'Argent at 19, quai Tournelle.

Scatterfly/mvor:

We had a wonderful meal at le Bistrot d'Opio, Rue Guisarde last year. I had a memorable lamb served on skewers hanging from a little serving platform. It's very tightly packed, but on a cold October night it was festive and delicious! As I recall it was about 70 euro for two, including wine.

And, yes, I believe Rotisserie d'en Face fits with what Barbara is looking for. Both the rabbit and chicken were braised to a crispy brown. I think they were served sans sauce.

Oops. As for my "memorable" lamb dish...I just looked at that on-line menu and the item on skewers is BEEF! LOL! I recognized the description of its being served with various mustards. It was scrumptious.

JeanneB, LOL...thanks for your update. Their menu looks great and I think cozy will work very well for us in November. Maureen

Hi Barbara, You might consider trying Ze Kitchen Gallerie. I was there with my parents in May twice and had excellent, relatively simply prepared fish at both meals, but there were also meats on the menu as well. In general the food has a bit of an Asian flair. I would describe it as definitely more dependent on spices than on sauces if that makes sense. I hope you have a wonderful anniversary!! My parents are actually returning in late October to celebrate my father's birthday and I am unbelievably jealous of their chance to return so soon!

Ah, but "Lisa in DC", you still have the wonderful Bistrot du Coin on Connecticut for a little taste of France:

http://www.bistrotducoin.com/

Gotta go back next week! Mmmmmmm! :D

I have heard good things about it, but I am ashamed to say it is yet one more thing I have failed to take full advantage of in my 12 years here. I am often amazed at how easily I take all that DC has to offer for granted.

mvor: There's another restaurant I want to mention. It's across the street from Bistrot d'Opio. We were never able to get reservations there. From what we could see, it's tiny. This sounds wierd, but we could never figure out where the door was! We stood outside in the rain gazing thru the windows (like little urchins) and it looked and smelled fabulous.

I never wrote down the name, so when I got home I tried to find it on pagesjaune. I think it's probably "Machon d'Henri" at 8 Rue Guisarde. Online research leads me to think it's related to Au Moulin a Vent - Chez Henri in the 5th. If you're over that way you may want to check it out.

In France, the food is not "swimming in sauce" like it can be is in the US. The sauce is just an a small amont that compliements the fish or meat on the plate. Simple is the word of the day .

JeanneB... isn't it amazing you can use the pagesjaune to locate so much info!!! :)

And by the way, my memorable meal was a lamb dish too. Probably the blackboard special.

I'll check out that other restaurant you mentioned across the street when we're there. I just love walking down that street in search of a cute little restaurant to try. While there I'll also be going to Bastide D'Odeon... it's a personal favorite and I just can't get this salade out of my mind I had last time... with artichoke hearts. Amazing. I'm even willing to risk the potentially bad service that one of the posters here mentioend. But we'll be staying in an apartment with a baby (and my parents) so I think we'll be doing a lot of shopping the markets and cooking at home. My mom's willing to babysit for us every night in Paris if we want to... so I'm on the hunt for some good new places, too.


BarbaraF...
After thinking about it again...

Depending on where you guys are staying, another option for you if the restaurants get to be too much rich food or you just want something completely easy and basic for a meal (of course not your anniversary dinenr), is just do a picnic lunch in your room or on one of the bridges. All the public markets (like on rue de Buci) you can get spit roasted chickens, potatoes with the drippings, and all various sorts of salads, sliced meats, cheeses, breads, desserts, fresh ruit, need I say more?

Oh, I can't wait to get there.

~kat

I'm so jealous of you! We were in Paris in the late fall. Among my fondest memories is sitting in an itty-bitty Italian restaurant right across the Seine from Notre Dame. From our window table we looked out on the night-lit cathedral through the golden-yellow leaves of the plane trees. Lots of leaves had already fallen...in the soft glow of the street lamps it looked like the streets were paved with gold. It just doesn't get any better than that.

Unfortunately, "French" restaurants abroad tend to serve a cuisine that ceased to exist just as we lost our African empire! So, yes, my grandparents used to sit for 4 hour lunches every Sunday, and the food, although good, was not on the light side. But things have changed a lot, and, also, thank God, long gone are the days when French waiters were about to send you to Abu Ghraib if you asked for a "changement de garniture". And, without being too cruel, a quick look on the comparative waistlines of French and American people tells volumes about the so called "swimming in cream sauce" French dishes...

Vincent, are you the Vincent B of yore?
If so, welcome back. If not, welcome anyway.

Yeah, I guess that's me... Thanks for your greeting!

JeanneB, thanks for the additional rec. I could just imagine you in the rain, poor things. I just googled it and it appears to be another Henri as you suggested. We're veggie (although my husband eats birds and fish) so am not sure if it would work but I will give it a look--even if it's just to find the door. I can't wait to hear Kat's opinion when she gets back. I hope you get to Paris soon, your description of your meal overlooking Notre Dame is priceless. Maureen

Zagat's PARIS restaurant guide categorizes the restaurants by type (seafood, ethnicity, )location in the back of the book.

Don't know if you've thought of this, but the last time I was in Paris I had to come up with a variety of dining ideas to satisfy a few different palates and a few distinct budgets. I found the eGullet web site absolutely invaluable--their France forum will have your head spinning. In the end, we dined at a few of the places I found through them and they were great.

If you have time, you might do a little lurking on that site.

You will love the Hotel D'Aubusson. And, Sebastian, one of the concierges, is fabulous with recommendations. A couple of blocks away is a great restaurant that sound exactly like what you are looking for - Fish La Boissonnerie
6th arrondissement
69, rue de Seine (Odéon) Paris 014 3543469

topping

I have been trying to remember a recent meal in Paris that was swimming in cream sauce, drenched in butter or stuffed with cheese. I have failed. You have some wonderful recommendations in this thread for restaurants where you can get grilled meat or fish or roasted chicken. Some we have recently tried and liked are (the oft-mentioned)Bastide d'Odeon, Fish - La Boissonnerie, La Mediterranee, Rotisserie d'en Face and Ze Kitchen Gallerie, all in the 6th and La Fontaine de Mars and Clos de Gourmets in the 7th and Le Pamphlet in the 4th. Others have liked Relais de Entrecote (I think that is the name) in the 6th where they serve only steak frites. Paris has wonderful food without rich sauces.

Call your family doctor and say one word: "Lomotil". It is absolutely the best pill and I never travel without it. That way, your husband won't have to worry as much. I'm serious on this one! If you never heard of this, call your doctor.