I am brimming with new regular blog post features and my latest addition is Paris Under 20 Eats, where every other month someone seeks out a great meal for under 20 euros. Enjoy and don’t let your tummy rumble too much before you get to the restaurant.
Living in Paris now for six weeks, I had my first real meal here last weekend.
Oh yes, I eat. I have become an expert on the art of the cheap meal. But until last weekend, I had not yet ventured into a real restaurant. The reality of living in Paris as a broke American twenty-something is that your weekly food budget often equals your age. So while those “bargain” €15 menus scrawled on chalkboards across the city are enticing, I hadn’t yet mustered up the will to forgo my 55 cent demi-baguette for a sit-down meal.
I recruited a similarly frugal friend and proposed a challenge – to eat the most authentic and fulfilling meal possible for under €20. We decided that lunch would be our best bet and started scouring the web for restaurants. We settled on Le Petit Vatel, a tiny family-owned bistro in the Quartier Latin that came highly recommended by the young wine connoisseurs at O Chateau.
The restaurant seats around 25 people and does not take reservations, so we arrived promptly at noon to avoid the crowds. We selected a two-person table by the window and got to work deciphering the menu, which was hand-written in French on the wall. For €13, we could get an appetizer and a main course or a main course and a dessert. We went with the appetizer-main combo and decided to split a €9 demi-carafe of white wine.
The food was hearty and simple, a mélange of French staples and foreign specialties. My sobreasada appetizer, a soft chorizo-style sausage spread onto toasted baguette, was flavorful and spicy, and paired perfectly with the dry white we were served. My partner’s pumpkin soup was smooth and sweet and tasted best soaked in pieces of the soft white table bread.
The restaurant was starting to fill up. The owner, a sprightly blond, deftly maneuvered her way around the crowded dining area, taking orders, making small talk with the regulars and delivering steaming plates in record time.
Our main dishes arrived separately. First came my diots de savoie, a sausage specialty from the department of Haute-Savoir, served with crozets au gratin. The sausage links were succulent and sweet, especially when smothered with the homemade mustard, but the crozets could have used a little more salt. My companion ordered the tagine au agneau, a savory Moroccan stew of lamb and spices. The meat was slow-cooked and tender, and it melted off the bone onto your tongue like butter.
Stomachs content, we capped off our meal with complimentary coffee. Our bill came to €17.50 each, and since we had decided to forgo the dessert option, we headed across the street to legendary patisserie Gérard Mulot and split a magnificent tart with pear mousse and almonds. We ate on the street, under an Indian summer sun. Sometimes, when you’re in your 20s and on a budget, nothing beats street food.
Le Petit Vatel
5 rue Lobineau 75006
01 43 54 28 49
Metro: Mabillon or Odeon
Open Tuesday to Saturday for lunch from noon to 2:30 and dinner from 7-10:30
Closed Sunday and Monday
Price range: 13 euro per person for two courses and coffee
Jessica Marati is an American freelance writer based in Paris. She loves old movies, new ideas, vintage scarves, modern art and French pastries. To read more about her adventures, culinary and otherwise, please see her blog at http://inwanderlust.wordpress.com.
I am pleased as punch to announce the launch of Eye Prefer Paris Tours, which are 3-hour walking tours I will personally be leading. The Eye Prefer Paris Tour includes many of the places I have written about such as small museums & galleries, restaurants, cafes & food markets, secret addresses, fashion & home boutiques, parks, and much more.
I look forward to meeting you on my tours and it will be my pleasure and delight to show you my insiders Paris.
Check it out at www.eyepreferparistours.com
Petit Vatel has been a reliable student restaurant since the Second World War. Glad to know it's still going strong under its new (since 1996) owners!
Posted by: John W. | October 20, 2008 at 03:20 PM