Late January

We’re in Kingston, house-hunting, and I’ve found a tapas bar near where we’re looking. So we head down an unattractive road and find the Pottery Bar, well off the beaten track. Not somewhere people just happen upon. And as it’s a mid-week lunch, we’re not surprised to find that, apart from a business meeting going on, we are the only ones in there.

 The drinks list doesn’t include any Spanish wines, so we order the house white Trebbiano at £21.  The menu isn’t especially tapas either. We order steak salad off the specials board (bizarrely itemised as lamb shank on the bill) plus garlic prawns, and chorizo, chick peas and goats cheese, plus some bread with oil and balsamic to keep us going.

 Despite there being no-one else in the food – including the bread – takes an age to arrive.  When it comes the bread is lovely, slightly warm, crusty and a good sized portion, though rather they rather skimped on the oil and vinegar.   The prawns had a hit of chilli along with the garlic, and the chorizo/cheese combination worked well. The salad is a very large portion, with tender steak and nicely dressed leaves.

 The service is friendly, and we chat a bit – the waiter describes one of their dishes as “weird”. We have two more glasses of wine. The bill (with just 10% service) comes to £78. Nice enough place, but probably only if you are in the area - not worth the detour.

 With S&S we return to our favourite, Chez Bruce at Wandsworth Common. As usual, we meet in the nearby pub, The Hope, for a drink first.  Unusually, the pub is packed, with lots of family groups and kids – we don’t normally come on a Sunday. The pub menu looks quite good itself.

 Chez Bruce is busy too, but well-organised. We have a nice table in the window.  Friendly and efficient service as always, with their lovely parmesan biscuits and excellent bread to start.   The other three all have crispy, deep-fried poached egg to start – lovely. I have the trout ceviche, very fresh and clean

 For mains, two (including B of course) have duck breast with foie gras. S has roast cod with mushrooms. After asking about how it’s done, I decide to be adventurous and order the pig’s trotter, despite being a little alarmed at twice being told that the skin will be gelatinous!  It’s stuffed with chicken mousse and chopped sweetbreads – and really tasty. Luckily I start at the right end and don’t come to the tiny bones until the end.

 Desserts are ice cream (including salted caramel), pear, and yoghurt parfait that comes with something akin to polystyrene.

 We have three bottles of Chilean Viognier for £105, some water and a coffee.  The “3 course weekend lunch” is £48.50 – considerably more than what we usually pay mid-week.  But it remains undeniably good.  So the total comes to £340 for the four of us.

 Still house-hunting, but this time in Surbiton, we return to Hart’s Boatyard, our favourite pub by the river.  We get a nice table overlooking the river.  I fail to find our usual Rothschild Viognier on the wine list, so order a Gavi.  But when the waitress comes she has the Viognier – wrong, but right!   B has the steak salad – a regular choice – and I have the pork belly.  This is quite fatty, but it comes with a crispy bacon slice and some rather good pork cheeks. A second bottle of wine takes the bill to £76.

 Then for my birthday, we book a table for lunch at The French Table, also in Surbiton. We’d been once before and had a lovely 5-course set lunch.  We get as far as Clapham Junction to find all the trains from Waterloo cancelled.  We hang around for a bit, as the information board suggests there might soon be a train, but it gets later and later, so eventually we decide to go to Victoria, and I ring to cancel.  Apparently they’d had a lot of cancellations because of the trains – such a shame.

 At Victoria we decide to go the new(ish) branch of Sticks ‘n’ Sushi in the Nova complex. On arrival it doesn’t look very prepossessing, but we are shown upstairs where it is busier, buzzier and more attractive.  The tables are close together though, so we have to fight to hear each other over the job interview next door. We order the Chenin Blanc (£28) and some edamame beans while we work what to have.  We decide to order in two phases – sushi then sticks. So we begin with beef tataki, which comes with a good spicy dip,  crab croquettes that are hot and gooey, and  scallops kataifi topped with roe.  These are closely followed by duck in rice paper (with the same dip) and spicy tuna maki roll with ginger and wasabi.  All very tasty.  Then we order a second bottle and the sticks: scallop and bacon, spicy chicken, and lamb. Again all good - though the second bottle takes a while to arrive.   Good friendly service – the waiter chats to us a bit as we are the last ones in there at 3pm.  Total, including 12.5% service, is £135 – perhaps a bit much for what it was, but then it is my birthday.

Busy couple of weeks

It’s been a busy couple of weeks, with trips to several new places and some old favourites re-visited.  

IMPERIAL CHINA

G&S are down staying with us, so after the compulsory trip to our favourite local Vietnamese, Cat Ba Island, the next day we decide to go to Dishoom  in Upper St Martin’s Lane.   We’d tried to get in before but not been able to face the queue, so we think around 4pm on a Sunday afternoon should be OK.   I go ahead to grab a spot in the queue. As I approach it doesn’t look too bad, but when I ask the chap how long the wait will be, he says an hour! And 30 minutes before we even get inside to wait at the bar!! I don’t think so.

 So we decide on Chinatown for dim sum. Our previous favourite, Harbour City, has been taken over by New Loon Fung, but they too are full, with a half-hour wait. So we go round to Lisle street and into Imperial China.  This is an attractive place, tucked away in a courtyard, approached by a little bridge over a stream, by a waterfall and a pond full of huge koi carp. Chinese lanterns complete the look.

 The dim sum is a fairly standard selection of dumplings and rolls. But they are fresh, spicy and hot.  Service is friendly (for Chinatown!) and efficient. With three bottles of wine it comes to £180 for four.

 

CHEZ BRUCE

Next day the four of us went to Chez Bruce, probably our “go-to” favourite. The set lunch is £32 for 3 courses, which is very good value, though B was not impressed with a £6 supplement for the venison that both she and S had as main. The parmesan crisps were excellent as usual, and the service still very friendly and unstuffy, but we had a surprisingly long wait for our starters. My selection was duck tagliettelle (wonderful!) followed by  sea bream, and then their super vanilla créme brûlée . Wines at £26 for Viognier, £28 for Syrah (both Chilean). Total £287. Afterwards reflected on the fact that normally Michelin-starred places give you an amuse bouche, but apart from the parmesan crisps, there was nothing at Chez Bruce.  Still, it remains up there for us.

 

HOUSE OF Hô

B has booked us, with T&K,  into House of Hô after the Tesco wine tasting at Olympia. It’s only at the last minute we realise that it is not the place in Old Compton St we had been to before (which has now closed), but in Percy Street, Fitzrovia, on the site of Bam Bou, which we used to like.

There is an attractively priced set brunch menu available on a Saturday, but instead we decide to choose from the a la carte.  The menu is predominantly starters, sushi and sashimi, with just a few mains, so we treat it basically as dim sum.  The waiter explains that some of the dishes come with just three pieces, and offers us the chance to make them up to four to share.  I wonder if this is a sly trick to make more money, but to be fair when the bill comes the extra piece is charged pro rata. We have some edamame beans in chilli while we decide what to order.

First up come the skewered spicy prawns, and the chicken dumplings. The prawns have a good flavour, though are not that spicy, and the dumplings good but nothing special. Next come the duck spring roll (very good), and “imperial roll” (large) and some crab and prawn croquettes (excellent).  Then the Vietnamese scotch egg (interesting), duck and watermelon salad (quite large and tasty),  and spare ribs (falling off the bone) arrive.  We discuss whether we are full and decide we can manage some more. We order another duck spring roll and some prawn dumplings (good but more standard) for three of us, while K has a dessert – Asian banana crumble, which she says is wonderful.

Service has been good and attentive, and the place gradually filled up towards 4pm, giving it some atmosphere – the décor is not as dramatic as Bam Bou used to be.  Three bottles of Chilean SB at £28 each takes the bill up to just over £200 – given the quality of what we had, and how full we feel that seems pretty good.

 

THE CLOVE CLUB

M&G are generously taking us out for lunch, on behalf of M’s late mother, at the Michelin-starred Clove Club in Shoreditch – not an Indian as many people assumed.  We have a drink first in a quirky Shepherd Neame pub – the Prince Arthur – with a very chatty barman, who insists we look at the upstairs bar before we leave. There is a real fire, candles, and a strange mix of Regency cartoons and Gonzo prints on the walls.

Then on to the restaurant at Shoreditch Town Hall. It has a bar at the front but we get shown in to the main room at the back.  There is a huge brigade of staff, outnumbering the diners by two to one.  The chef featured recently as “young chef of the year” in the Observer food review – and looks about 14.

We opt for the five-course tasting menu at £65 (rather than the nine-course one!), with the complementary wine pairing at £50. But we start with some kir, champagne and a Bourbon cocktail.  We did though decide against the extra scallops course at £18.

The meal starts with a selection of “snacks” - iced beetroot with crème fraiche, crab tartlet (lovely), haggis balls (in a sweetish brioche-like bun, not as peppery as you might expect) and fried chicken in pine needles (“an up-market KFC” – much nicer).

The first course of the meal proper was tartare of hake which came with an Alsace Pinot from a magnum. The hake is an interesting idea but doesn’t taste of a great deal.  Next up is a soup course – three of us have opted out of the oysters.  Again, not that special.

The cod with beetroot and  fermented cabbage was more of a success - firm, tasty fish and some intriguing accompaniments.  I also liked the “main course” venison loin and venison sausage, though B was less impressed. 

We then opted for one portion of the extra cheese selection, which came with a Sauterne and a fino sherry.

Dessert courses were a delicate layered cream and ice cream pot,  and a rather sturdy tarte tatin – more of an English apple tart really, but good all the same.

Service was friendly and with such a big staff very efficient. The sommelier was chatty and knowledgeable.  Of the other customers, two were Silicon roundabout hipsters eating alone, four slightly older business types (still with beards), and a pair of elderly gentlemen.

As I said M&G were very generously treating us, so I don’t know the exact cost, but it must have been seriously expensive.  It had been a great experience, but at those prices I doubt we will rush back.

 

MARKET BRASSERIE

Meeting up with ex-BT colleagues, S and L, we decide to go to Shepherd Market for lunch.  Interesting French colonial African pictures on the walls.  Buzzy little place, with a strange porcelain head on one table – “watching over us” said the waiter.

L has the orecchiette with tomato and broccoli, and S the Atlantic cod (which looked like a small portion).  I go for the duck breast with Lyonnaise potatoes off the specials board – very good.  As S is off to a meeting we just have the one bottle of Chilean SB at £21.  Just under £30 a head in total including service. Not a “wow” place but pretty sound and handy to know of if you’re in the area (though of course there is plenty of choice around there).

 

DRAKE AND MORGAN, KING’S CROSS

K has stayed over with us after the party yesterday, so we go with her to King’s Cross to see her off back home. Pancras Square, round the back of the station, now has quite a range of eateries, but we settle on Drake and Morgan.

It turns out to be a huge place, done out in industrial chic, with exposed pipework.  It is pretty busy as we fetch up about 1.30pm on Sunday, but we have booked so that’s OK. We are shown to our table, miles away down the far end of the restaurant, overlooked by a huge picture of a grumpy cow.

Despite the waitress being attentive, our drinks take a while to arrive – Chenin Blanc (£18) and ginger smoothie for K.  For starters (which do arrive quickly) we have crispy squid (quite spicy) and ham croquettes (nice crispy exterior, but rather gooey insides). 

I had seen a Thai green coconut curry (with either chicken or prawns) on the website menu, but they’re not there on the day – maybe because it’s a Sunday, with roasts.  K orders the Waygu burger, but is told they’ve sold out, so she settles for a cheeseburger instead – very dense and filling. B has gone for a starter Cobb salad with chicken as main – specifically making it clear that she didn’t want a larger one. When it comes it is huge, but to be fair they only charge us for a small one - it would be far too much as a starter. I have the tuna with ginger and soy sauce, plus some chips – very good and pink, but a bit cold.

K has an espresso martini to follow, while we have a couple more glasses of wine.  £135 for three of us (2 bottles of wine) seems good value.

Easter eats - country pub lunch, Islington bistro and regular pub haunt

It’s Good Friday and we’re a bit at a loose end, so we decide to catch the train and head to the White Hart in Chipstead.  It’s a 10 minute train journey to the station from Purley, but another 20 minute walk uphill to the pub – so you feel you’ve earned your lunch.

I reviewed this place two Easters ago, when I railed against unruly kids. This time the two kids there are very well- behaved, the little puppy being more of a handful – but even that is pretty good, just lively.

We had booked, and although it was quite busy it probably wasn’t entirely necessary. We have a table in the bar area – which we prefer – as the restaurant was already pretty full.  We start by ordering a bottle of Rare Vineyards Marsanne Vigonier (£19), and settle down to choose our food. 

There’s a pretty fair selection of pub staples with some more interesting dishes, like venison rump – but as we’d seen a deer near the path on the way up from the station, that option seemed a bit indelicate!  We decide to have the cheese stuffed peppers as an appetiser – they are somewhat spicy and come in a vinegar which detracts from the wine.
For starter, B has the scallops, which come with a thin sliver of crackling and sesame seeds. The scallops are very lightly cooked, so are very rich.  My duck spring roll comes with a gooey plum and a salad enlivened by star anise.  It’s good, though perhaps not quite as meaty as the one at Ping Pong the other day.

B has the sea bass fillet main course, with a tomato and rocket salad on the side. The fish is good, with nice crispy skin. The fish is supplemented by beetroot which colours everything around it, and a rather nice crisp fennel salad.  The rocket in the salad is wilted, and the dressing very vinegary – well I think so, B quite likes it. 

I choose the salt beef hash of the “light bites” section, so decide to supplement it with chips. In fact, the hash has loads of potatoes in it already, and I end up with a carbs surfeit.  Tasty enough though.

Service has been fine – no problems, nothing stand out. We’ve had a second bottle of wine, and as there is time to kill before the train back, opt for a couple of glasses of Nieto Malbec too.  That brings us up to £107 – with optional service to add. 

On Saturday we have tickets for a comedy night at the Union Chapel, Islington, doors opening at 6.30pm. So we need somewhere for a late lunch/early dinner in Upper Street.  I’ve done some research but not decided on anywhere specific, so when we emerge from the tube, we walk down to see what’s what.  

We head on down initially towards Ottolenghi. They don’t take bookings until the evening session, so we know we will be lucky to get in. And indeed there is a big queue, which we’re not interested in joining.  Just a few doors along is a French bistro – La Petite Auberge – whose menu looks interesting and reasonable, so we plump for that.

There’s a lovely warm atmosphere inside, and lots of classic French style – wooden beams, art deco travel posters for Cannes and Nice, Piaf on the soundtrack. It’s just this side of clichéd. The place is something of a rabbit warren, with several tables on the ground floor, more on a mezzanine level, some lower down – used for staff meals mainly- and a separate section for their speciality crepes.

It’s pretty busy, but we’re offered a nice table (for four – “all for yourselves”) fairly close to the front.  There’s a table of Arsenal supporters celebrating a win over Liverpool – but in a restrained Islington sort of way.  There’s also a birthday party group upstairs – the slowest and dullest rendition of “Happy Birthday” I’ve ever heard!

The charming chunky French waiter (down girls!) takes our order – a bottle of Viognier from Pays D’Oc (£21.50), and sparkling water initially.  The menu is a startling range of all the classic bistro dishes you can recall – even down to the frog’s legs. There’s a special lunch menu at £8.95 for 2 courses, £10.95 for 3 (but with an extra £1 at weekends), which has plenty of dishes worth trying.

But we go a la carte.  B has the salade de volailles – chicken livers and bacon; the salad is secondary and the sauce delicious, a definite success.  My “crevettes a l’ail” are in fact king prawns with more of a chilli hit than a garlic one, but again very good.
Which is all the more confusing because B’s main course “gambas” are virtually identical, just more of them served with rice.  Still very good though.  My main course is the most expensive on the menu: filet mignon – char-grilled beef medallion on grilled smoked pork belly in a brandy and shallot sauce, served with potato gratin – all of £16.95!  Served medium rare as ordered, this is a lovely classic dish.

As crepes seem to be their speciality – and most other tables have been ordering them – we go for a crepe suzettes to share.  Good large crepe, excellent orange, lovely vanilla pod ice cream – but it could have done with some flamed brandy, making the crepe a little crispier.

Service throughout has been good. The second bottle of wine has taken the total up to £103 – with just a 10% service charge (where else does that these days?).   I know there are loads of restaurants in Islington but you’d be hard pushed to find better value for money than this.

Easter Monday is sunny, so we head off to Epsom Downs, and after a short walk, back to a regular haunt, the Derby Arms.  It’s normally a reliable place, but the last time we were there they had an off day, so we’re not sure what to expect this time. We had booked, but surprisingly it was fairly quiet, much less than a usual Sunday.

We order the Rothschild Viognier (£22) from one waitress, then after a little pause a second one brings us a Cabernet Sauvignon.  Sent away, she returns a little later with a Shiraz Viognier – getting closer!  Third time lucky we get our wine – by which time the starters had arrived.  She has to go back a final time to get the ice bucket too.

After this dodgy start, things began to improve. B has the crab and crayfish pot, served in an attractive little kilner jar accompanied by two crisp pieces of lightly toasted soda bread. It’s perhaps a little too cold to begin with, but the flavours do come through and it is very enjoyable. My starter of black pudding cake with poach egg and hollandaise is also good – there’s enough black pudding in amongst the potato, and the hollandaise is good and sharp; the egg wasn’t runny unfortunately as having it soak into the potato cake would have been excellent.

For main course I order the roasted sea trout, but the waitress’s little pad device tells her straight away that there’s none left. So good intentions defeated I fall back on beef and ale pie and chips!  It comes in a metal pie dish with puff pastry topping, which really should have been crispier. Inside it’s full of air, and at first I struggle to find any beef.  But as I press on I do find several tasty chunks – it’s just that the dish was larger than it needed to be.   The chips are OK – no more than that – more like fries; and the accompanying carrots al dente.

B chose the pork belly with scallops, because their usual special scallops starter came with an unattractive sounding parsnip puree.  The pork belly is a large, tender piece of meat with good crackling and accompanied by a lake of sauce. The scallops are juicy, but rather dominated by the sauce. I know scallops and pork is a popular combination, but usually the ratio of ingredients is the other way around – this doesn’t quite work as well.

The restaurant end of the pub has a nice atmosphere, with photos of horses on the Downs for sale. There are a lot of people out enjoying the sun in the garden, but this means the back door is open and we get a very chilly draught through most of the meal.  A second bottle of Viognier takes our bill to £89, with service left open. Despite my quibbles I thought that was reasonable for a filling and enjoyable meal.

And here's March - a busy month

Davy’s winebars were running their annual tasting at the Vintners Hall at Southwark Bridge – so that had to be done!  Emerging around 2pm, we decide to walk back towards Borough Market for some lunch, and fall into an old favourite Black and Blue for some sustaining meaty protein.  We’ve been here several times, and the organisation has expanded into a small chain of six restaurants including the lovely wine bar Archduke at Waterloo.

This time of day the place is not too busy, so we get served pretty quickly. A bottle of ES Vino Malbec from Argentina (£28) seems the right thing to top up our earlier intake.

B has chargrilled garlic king prawns to start – lovely, great garlic hit. I go for the chicken satay, which was also good. But then disaster. We’ve ordered the Cote de Boeuf for 2 (600g) medium rare – when it comes it is inedible – all sinew.  We struggle with it for a while (accepting that we might not be in the most sensitive critical state!) but have to give in. The waiter, seeing we’ve left most of it, asks if there was a problem and we explain – and to their credit, without any fuss, they simply remove the price from the bill (given that this was £36, that’s no small deal).

So, an unsuccessful experience, well handled - £51 for wine and starters.
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Later in the month, we have a Sunday clear so wander up to the South Croydon strip of restaurants – the “Restaurant Quarter” as the council likes to call it – to try a fairly new brasserie with the unusual name of YUMN (Arabic for “welcome” apparently).  As it’s a Sunday they are only doing their set Brunch menu, which is not normally our thing.  But it sounds quite interesting so we decide to give it a go.

It’s quite a big place, but the front section is given over to the buffet. Despite quite a few people being in, there’s not a great deal of atmosphere – and a very weary old “easy listening” soundtrack.

There’s a first course of soup – this time it’s cream of cauliflower. B decides to pass, but I go for it. It does what it says on the tin – it’s creamy and cauliflower; nice bread too.

Next up is the “market table”. Now this is pretty impressive. Loads of seafood, from dressed crab, prawns several ways, smoked salmon, poached salmon, mussels, potted shrimp, potted mackerel – take what you want. Also duck rillettes, chicken liver pate, salads and breads.  This is practically a meal in itself.

There’s about half a dozen options for main course, including of course Sunday roast with all the trimmings. B chooses the burger, while I go for the steak frites.  The burger is fine, but nothing special – nice chips. The steak however is an impressive piece of sirloin, cooked medium rare as requested, a significant dish in its own right.

With a bottle and a couple of glasses of a very acceptable Merlot (£17 a bottle), the bill comes to a very reasonable £98 (before service).  We’ll certainly go again, maybe to try the normal menu – but as a family Sunday brunch it’s a winner.
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We’re meeting S for dinner, and the chosen venue is Spitalfields.  We’ve arranged to meet in Bedales first – a sister bar to the one in Borough Market.  We are early so we manage to bag a table near the back, which is lucky as the place fills up quickly – one girl just having one cup of coffee and using the wi-fi is eventually asked to leave.  Nice spot, though not as much character as its sister in Borough Market.

For dinner we are booked into Blixen (crap website!), which B has read a good review about by John Walsh in the Independent.   It’s very busy and buzzy – a good atmosphere. Our table is perhaps rather too close to the kitchen, with the noise from that – the beautiful people are out front.

We order a bottle of house white – Cortese from Italy (£19) and some padron peppers and then decide on food.  S has ox tongue salad to start, the tongue being compressed into very rich croquettes.  B has a squid and chorizo stew, which was very stew-like, with beans – an interestingly and warm different take on the common combination of ingredients. My beef carpaccio is very thin, but an ample portion – very acceptable.

Main courses are Monkfish tail with cauliflower and mussel broth for S (nicely cooked); sea bream  with white beans and  broccoli  for B – a good crispy fillet; and (surprise!) pork belly for me – good and rich, with a crispy mash.  S has a dessert – the bill says it was “cremeux”- but frankly I’ve no recollection! – and we each have a glass of sauternes.

Good service by bright young things.  The total was £140 including service.  Spitalfields has a lot of new restaurants these days, but this is definitely worth a try.

It’s March 31^st, a famous day for excessive stress.  I’m struggling to finish a report we’ve promised for today, haggling with colleagues over two words here and some formatting there.  We finally reach a compromise and I can send it off and breathe again.   B on the other hand is off to the O2 to an Elvis exhibition!

So we agree to rendezvous at Waterloo at Cabin, the Corney and Barrow winebar on the upper level – much recommended, if a tad pricey. I’m in the doghouse for ignoring what B wants to do, so I Ieave the choice of restaurant to her.  And after many times criticising it for being too expensive for what it is, she goes for Ping Pong, a branch of the dim sum chain on the Southbank.

When we arrive it’s busy – a 20 minute wait. There’s a bar upstairs so we decide to wait it out with a £20 bottle of Chilean SB –with fancy technology to alert you when your table is free, and staff to back it up. In fact, it’s much less than 20 minutes when they call us down to a shared table – two pleasant young ladies and a rather earnest trio (2M, 1F – relationship uncertain).

We order a fairly standard combination of dishes: edamame beans, 4 fried dishes (Vietnamese rice paper rolls, beef and chilli parcels, soft shell crab and an odd Shanghai chicken dish), and 4 steamed ones (crab and prawn – brilliant, scallop and shitake, chicken and garlic and a very weird spinach beef fillet dumpling).  

After that we still have room so we get a second chicken and garlic, a duck spring roll and a beef gyoza dumpling.

Service has been fine – though we were bit miffed that the two ladies who ordered after us got some of their food first, and the edamame beans took a while to arrive. It’s a buzzy and fun place, and we’re really enjoying ourselves until I realise that we are probably at least 20 years older than anyone else in there!   We have two more glasses of wine.......

Total £96 including service – fine for the Southbank, far more than you’d pay for similar in Chinatown.

A few places in Paris

We struck lucky with several good places on a two night stay in Paris:

La Coupe D’Or in Rue St Honoré for lunch: we enjoyed sitting in the sun watching the world go by, while eating a salade perigourdine (duck breast, gizzard, foie gras and mounds of salad) and quiche Lorraine (very eggy with lots of crisp lettuce . Service was fine contrary to many TripAdvisor reviews.

Aux Vieux Paris D’Arcole, Rue Chanoinesse for dinner: an amazing place a stone’s throw from Notre Dame.  Very welcoming host and family, charming old-style dining room. We had the 5-course set menu at €39 – a courgette fritter, foie gras, scallops and duck followed by a tart of some kind. Other tables were in raptures over the chocolate pudding and crème brulée.

Chez Francis, Place d’Alma for lunch (twice): we’d been to this place several times before.  A classic brasserie in a super location overlooking the Eiffel Tower, stunning décor inside and plenty of terrace tables for full meals or snacks.  B had steak tartare (vg but pre-mixed) and I had tuna tatami (also raw), with chips and spinach (which even I thought was super).  Second visit was just a club sandwich - which was huge.

                    

Flottes in Rue Cambon near Concorde/Tuileries for dinner:  another classic brasserie in a good location. Interesting décor in the rear dining room (try to avoid the corridor).  B had the grilled prawns and I had suckling pig.  Very good.

Capucine, in Boulevard des Capucines (Madeleine/Opera).  Another old haunt. More Art Nouveau décor.  Seafood tagliatelle for B and escalope of veal for me. Slightly less exciting perhaps but pretty reliable.