Restaurant La Place
3 Place Cambronne
75015 Paris, France
Tel: 01 47 34 10 59
Reviewed on Saturday 25 April 2009

La Place is a good bistro to stop by in you are near the Eiffel Tower. It is about a 15-minute walk from it, a lot closer if you are at the end of the Champs de Mars near the Ecole Militaire. The nearest metro station is Cambronne, named after the general famous for his reply at Waterloo battle.
The restaurant is nicely decorated, with sophisticated dark walls and rustic wood tables. It feels like a fashionable pub.
As starters we ordered a millefeuille de tomates & mozzarella (7.90 euros) and a tranche de foie gras (13 euros). They were followed by a magret de canard (17 euros) and a tartare poelé (15 euros). The wine, very good by the way, was a carafe of 50cl Chinon (14 euros). We also had two coffee (6.40 euros).
I was curious about the millefeuille of tomato and mozzarella: a millefeuille (French word for thousand leaves) is a pastry made of several layers of puff pastry filled in an alternated way with sweet cream if it is a dessert, or with spinach etc if it is a starter. Well, no pastry here but alternated tomato and mozzarella. It was served cold, with a salad dressing and nice balsamic vinegar sauce that was lightly sweet. It was good. The foie gras was good too, coming with some chutney.

Millefeuille de tomates et mozzarella

Tranche de foie gras

The magret de canard (duck) was great, served with a gratin dauphinois. The tartare poelé aller retour is a raw minced meat mixed with cornichons/shallots/herbs/spices that had been quickly seared on both sides. It was excellent, with a great spicy taste and not too spicy to mask the taste of the meat. It was served with a salad and good crispy frites.

Magret de canard

Tartare poelé aller retour

Cost and conclusion: it was 73.30 euros service charge included. Not cheap but the food was great, the surrounding cosy. Compared to many tourists trap places near the Eiffel tower, this is a good spot!

Café Marco Polo
121 rue Saint Lazare
75008 Paris
Tel 01 43 87 36 05
Reviewed on Saturday 25 April 2009 lunch time

Les galeries Lafayettes

Café Marco Polo is located right in front of the Saint Lazare train station and a 15 minute walk from the Galeries Lafayette on Boulevard Haussmann. I have been there several times and it was always good
We ordered two pizzas: a pizza royale (14.90 euros) and a pizza soufflée/calzone (13.60 euros). As drink we had a bottle of their red wine of the month (14.90 euros). Not much to say beside everything from the pizza to the wine was good! The pizzas were crispy. The pizza royale could have had more cheese though.

Pizza royale

Pizza soufflée

Cost and conclusion: It was 43.40 euro service charge included. I noticed that lately France is really becoming an expensive country and it is not just because of the currency exchange pound-euro.  Almost 15 euros for a pizza is quite a lot, compared to a steak etc. Well, still a good lunch and I am glad to live in “cheap” London!

Pizzeria l’Arlequin
Route de la Roquette, 06370 Mouans Sartoux, France
Reviewed on Thursday 23 April 2009 lunch time

L’Arlequin is a restaurant I used to go often, like twice a week when I was working for a start-up company in Mougins/Sophia Antipolis since it was just 3 minutes drive from the office. That was 8-9 years ago. Nothing fancy but a decent always updated meal of the day and a good range of pizzas. You can get a menu meal of the day + dessert for something like 11 euros. Pizzas are in the 9-11 euros range. I did not bother to take a photo of the menu since I was on vacation and this site is for reviewing restaurants based in London mostly 😉
It has been a long time since I was last there and I was nicely surprised that the owner still recognised me
It was a nice sunny day so we decided to have lunch on the terrasse, protected by parasols. A waiter saw that Henri the boxer was struggling a little with the heat so he came quickly with a bowl of fresh water. That was very nice of him and I like restaurants in France or Belgium where dogs are welcome.
The pizzas were fine but they were better cooked in the past. Still, the base is very thin and crispy. One special thing here is they have a pizza au foie gras et au foie de volaille (pizza with foie gras and chicken liver)! It is the only place I have seen such a pizza. It is a little heavy so the best is to share it with someone who has another kind of pizza.

Hot goats cheese

Pizza au foie gras et au foie de volaille

Pizza aux aubergines

Henri the boxer watching people eating

Please feed me!

Cost and conclusion: I did not pay for the lunch I recommend l’Arlequin if you have to eat something quickly in the area. If you want a better setting, go to Mougins or to Valbonne.

Japanese restaurant Akasiro
8 Little Newport Street, London WC2H 7JJ

Reviewed on Monday 13 April 2009 evening

The dining experience at the Marquess of Anglesey was so bad that we needed to finish the evening on a better mood so we went to the regular Akasiro This time we went in the basement as all tables were full on the ground level. The restaurant was quite busy, refusing people as it became full even downstairs. The design downstairs changed a lot compared to what it was when the restaurant was called Zipangu. It is much better now.

As it was our second dinner we ate “light” by just ordering two tempura udon and a green tea. The tea was really good and the tempura udon great as usual, and very spicy as we abused of the chilli powder. For more details about the Akasiro, please go to the list of restaurants by alphabetical order since it has been reviewed many times.

Green tea

The hot tempura udon

Tempura udon

Cost and conclusion: for £18.50 the value for money is good, and more important, the food is great!

Marquess of Anglesey restaurant
39 Bow Street, Covent Garden, London WC2E 7AU

Reviewed on Monday 13 April 2009 evening

Covent Garden

Marquess of Anglesey

View from the restaurant

The Marquess of Anglesey is well located in Covent Garden next to the Royal Opera House and also next to Market Quarter store where you can get wonderful French food like foie gras… The restaurant is located just above the pub. It is nicely designed, and there is some welcome space between tables.

We ordered a roast loin of pork served with roast potatoes, vegetables, and apple sauce (£11.95) and a 8oz exmoor beef burger served in a soft bun with homemade red onion relish and chips with cheese/bacon (£10.25). There are other interesting meals like a free range Devonshire chicken breast roasted with slow cooked red pepper, onions and tomatoes (£11.50), a 28 days aged 8oz exmoor rump steak with portobello mushroom, grilled tomato and chips and pepper corn or béarnaise sauce (£14.95), a goat’s cheese and tomato tart with green salad and pesto dressing (£8.25), a Scottish salmon pan seared on warm potato and chive salad with basil and pine nut dressing (£10.95) or the more regular Fresh fish in Young’s beer batter with chips and mushy peas (£10.50) and Specialty british sausage and mash served with red onion gravy (£9.25).

The roast loin of pork was crap. The slices of pork were wafer thin and tasteless. The vegetables were pre-cooked and quite likely out of a can. The burger was bad… You would think for over £10 you would get a decent burger but no, it was overcooked (see the close up photo below) and for some reason extremely salty! Just as well we had ordered a bottle of an Argentinian red wine which was good (£19). The cheese on the burger was absolutely tasteless and the so-called soft bun was hard and dry. A cheeseburger at McDonalds is better. I was very disappointed by this place to the point we decided to eat again that evening at Akasiro for ending the day on a better mood before my trip to France.

Alta Vista Premium Malbec 2007

 

Roast loin of pork

8oz exmoor beef burger

Absolutely nasty!

Cost and conclusion: too bad the food isn’t great, unlike its location. The bill was a little over £46 (without the service) which is pretty expensive for what we had. The Ship Tavern in Holborn is a lot better pub to eat in. Actually there is no comparaison. The service was fine at least.