Is there a real French restaurant in NY?
A place that serves all or most of the following:
pigs' feet, calf's head, head cheese, blood pudding, tripe, kidneys, sweetbreads, liver, cold jellied meats, chitterling sausages, wild hare, sea snails, rouget, grainy & strong tasting fish soup, etc., and
which does not serve:
(1) Mussels (which are a Belgian dish; not French), (2) sidewalk cafe short-order dishes like onion soup or Croque Monsieur, nor (3) green salad, hamburgers, salmon, pork or lamb shank, all of which are American dishes.
-
Wilfrid
May 27, 2010 05:11 PM
As others have observed, mussels are eaten throughout France, and I might add that jarret de porc is a French bistro classic. To start learning about French food in New York, I'd recommend Le Cercle Rouge, which has a French chef and a menu section devoted to offal; more expensive, L'Absinthe, which has one of the longest serving French chefs in the city, and makes an astonishing tete de veau appetizer.
If you turn down any French restaurant which offers a hamburger or salmon, then you will go hungry. You would in Paris too.
By the way, wild hare is rarely seen as it has to be imported for legal reasons; andouillettes too are nowhere to be found.
-----
Cercle Rouge
241 W. Broadway, New York, NY 10013 -
erica
May 27, 2010 10:20 AM
Lamb shank is an American dish? The best lamb shank I've ever had was at Les Allobroges in Paris.
How many "real French" restaurants serve all of those dishes today? Even in Paris, how many places serve Lievre?
What is "grainy" fish soup?
Mussels are a Belgian dish? You mean that the mouclade I ate in La Rochelle, which was the best mussel dish I've ever had, was Belgian?
-----
Royale
157 Ave C, New York, NY 10009 -
agree w/rrems. Chez Napoleon has been around forever & when my sister
(who fondly remembers mama's kidneys wanted the same) I found them here.
I suspect it doesn't get as much hype since it is hardly trendy or posh. .. sure
saves on the airfare though!!-----
Chez Napoleon
365 W 50th St, New York, NY 10019 -
-
Without getting into the question of what is French and what isn't, if it's organ meats you are looking for, try Chez Napoleon. The calves' branis are particularly good.
-----
Chez Napoleon
365 W 50th St, New York, NY 10019›2 Replies -
-
I eat a lot of mussels over the Italian border in France, which is about as far from Belgium as you can get in France.
And I think of green salads as French -- if by green you mean something other than iceberg lettuce.
And Christian Constant serves salmon at his restaurants in Paris, and most europeans eat both pork and lamb shank, and did so long before America was known to them.
›2 Replies -
I don't know where this very odd list springs from, but some of the best green salads I've eaten have been at restaurants in the French countryside. A lot of the dishes you mention as desirable are regional, and many would never appear on the menu of a 3-star restaurant in Paris. La Grenouille would be recognized as a "French restaurant" by a Frenchman.
-----
La Grenouille
3 East 52nd Street, New York, NY 10022 -
-
goodhealthgourmet
May 25, 2010 04:06 PM
La Grenouille might be a good place to start.
-----
La Grenouille
3 East 52nd Street, New York, NY 10022
