Skip to main content

Chez Dumonet, Paris


Finally!!!!
After seeing countless travel shows filmed at Chez Dumonet, lusting over the restaurant for many years, always assuming that it was just impossible to get into, I fulfilled my wish.  It was quite easy, I picked up the phone and made a reservation.  Silly me, I should have done it a long time ago.

It was worth the wait.


 If I would imagine a quintessential Parisian bistro, this would be it.  It's just perfect.  The tile on the floor, the seasoned furniture, the lace in the windows, the yellowish tint to the lighting, the heavy silverware; it was all so wonderfully old fashioned. 
 



Our reservation was for 7:30, by 8 pm the restaurant started to fill up.  


The menu is not very extensive, but it covers exactly what one would expect in a Parisian bistro.


 We were served this delicious ham along with our bread basket and butter.  By the way, the bread is to die for.  It's the type of bread which just begs for you to order something with a lot of dreamy sauce to mop it up with.  A deliciously moist, warm bread with just the perfect crunch to its crust.  The bread could accompany my last meal on the planted and I would be happy.  (I once read an article where a famous Parisian chef said that his last meal on earth would be McDonald's since he would not want to go knowing that he is leaving something good behind.  I found that very funny). 


Terrine de Campagne maison.   The pate was delicious and it came with a jar of pickles, as customary.




 Saumon fume par Jean Christian. 


 Foie gras de canard frais maison.  I can't resist a foie gras while in Paris.  Funny, I don't really eat it in New York, but there is something about sitting in a great bistro in Paris that just calls for a slice of it with a nice toast. 


Our cousins ordered the Cotes de Boeuf for two.  This was actually very entertaining, everyone around us looked with mouths gaping when the waiter brought out the beef.  IT WAS HUGE!!!  So much for the dainty French portions!  This was half of a cow, and it could feed 4 hungry men back from working the fields. 


It was delicious but too much, they ended up eating some and taking most home. 

 
As we enjoyed our food, we watched the waiter prepare steak tartar for another table.  He skillfully mixed an egg yolk, onions, capers, Dijon mustard, cornichons, Worcestershire sauce, with the beautifully red ground beef. It looked great, but I am just not adventurous enough.

  
Confit de canard, a delicious duck confit, is more my speed. The duck was perfect as were the potatoes which were cooked in duck fat.  Let's face it, everything is better when cooked in duck fat:)



My Boeuf Bourguignon aux tagliatelles.


Spectacular, juicy, tender beef in a thick sauce, and fresh buttery pasta.  Here is where that yummy bread came in handy.

 
 Getting dessert was sheer gluttony since we were already stuffed.  I have heard that the absolute must is the Grand Marnier Souffle.  This grand dame of desserts, which needs to be ordered at the beginning of the meal, came out in a pretty porcelain dish.  The top of the souffle was decadently browned and crusty and a small glass of Grand Marnier accompanied the dessert. 


 
I clumsily poured the Grand Marnier into the souffle, one can choose to just drink it.


 While I can totally appreciate a great souffle, and this one was excellent, my heart was stolen by the second dessert. 

This stunning, and a bit on the larger side, mille-feuille was to be the end of me. 
The sheets of puff pastry had caramelized sugar on them, you could feel that stick to your teeth goodness.  The sweet filling was silky and creamy.  This was a perfect dessert, one that I will think of when reminiscing about Paris. 




Chez Dumonet
117 rue du Cherche Midi
Open Monday - Friday for lunch and dinner

Joanna


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bordier Butter - The Best Butter in France

France is in the midst of a butter shortage!  Due to a decrease in milk production and a substantial demand for French pastries all over the world (mainly China and the Middle East), the price of butter has increased by 60% in one year.  The French are stocking up and thus creating shortages.  French newspapers are publishing articles titled "A guide to cooking without butter".  So, with hopes that the shortages are temporary, here is my ode to the best butter in the world.  I'm not kidding.  The. Best. Butter. In. The. World. Mr. Bordier, a grandson and a son of cheese mongers, became a butter artisan in 1985.  He acquired a creamery originally founded in 1927.  The supreme taste of the Bordier butter was first recognized by a chef from the Plaza Athenee while vacationing in Brittany, a beautiful region in northwestern France. Bordier is the lone butter master to still use the old method of kneading the butter according to the 19th century t...
3 comments
Read more

Food in Lucerne, Switzerland

After a hearty walk around the Old Town we decided that a small lunch would give us some nourishment and an opportunity to rest. We were not looking for a huge feast but something small to tied us over till dinner. As we walked by a restaurant with a few tables set up on a small square, I noticed a great looking Caesar salad and that was it.  We sat down, and enjoyed a surprisingly good lunch.  The place was called Cafeteria Emilio, it was clean, fast and delicious.  I liked that they had plenty of magazines to peruse.  Although they were all in German, I still had fun looking through them.  My husband got a curry chicken sandwich and I got a chicken Caesar salad, it was very fresh and tasty. A few days prior to our arrival in Lucerne I made dinner reservations at Marlin, a lovely fish restaurant at the Palace Luzern, our hotel. It was a beautiful evening and it couldn't have been spent any better than at the lakeside terrace. ...
4 comments
Read more

Grandma's Kitchen, Hangzhou

In need of some traditional cooking, we made our way to Grandma's Home/Grandma's Kitchen. We were prepared for a long wait since this is a very popular restaurant, but got lucky and only waited for 15 minutes.  It was after 8pm, maybe that was the reason.  There is a computer at the entrance where one can register for a table.  We just gave our name to the girl inside the lobby, she in turn handed us a paper with our number on it.  As we waited outside, we kept our eyes glued to the screen in the lobby showing the ticket numbers.  When our number came up, the lobby girl gave us the number of our table and we took the elevator to the 8th floor. The numbers are on the edge of each table. I really liked the design of the restaurant.  It was creative in the use of old jars with words scribbled on them, chalk like drawings on the walls and bamboo beams creating a roof above us.    The menu was in Chinese but we...
1 comment
Read more