Hey guys! This week we’re going to be talking about French food! And to start off with, we’re going to cover French restaurants. First, we’ll cover French etiquette since this is huge in France! Then I’ll talk about my experience at a French-inspired restaurant here in San Diego. Sorry, for anyone who thought I might talk about the French restaurants I went to in France. I was fifteen at the time, and it was ten years ago so my memory isn’t the greatest.
I’ve mentioned this multiple times but I’ll say it again, the French care about etiquette! They don’t eat a lot of snacks so every meal is a family-style sit down meal. According to French culture, it’s not okay to:
- Order just an appetizer
- Split a meal with someone else (that’s an insult to the chef who proportioned it for one person)
- Ask for a substitution/replacement (unless you have a food allergy, the chef will feel insulted)
- Ask for something that’s not on the table (if there’s no butter/salt/pepper/etc. then it’s because the dish, in the eyes of the chef, is so tasty that it doesn’t need it… you want to tell the chef otherwise?)
- Don’t expect bread to be served as an appetizer (often bread is served to absorb sauces served with your meal)
- Don’t ask the waiter to run separate tabs (French waiters aren’t like American waiters, from the U.S., they don’t have the saying “the customer is always right” and lean more towards the customer is always wrong)
- Don’t leave a tip (the tip is always included in the bill so if you leave more money, you just look like a snob)
- Don’t ask for leftovers (the French look down on “doggie bags”)
- Don’t place hands or elbows on the table
- Don’t Instagram your food
Things to do:
- Feel free to ask for tap water in a carafe (they’ll try to push bottle on you but don’t feel obliged to drink bottled water)
- Have wine with your meal (but don’t feel obliged to)
- To order coffee whenever you want (the French drink it with breakfast, lunch and dinner)
- Use your utensils more than your hands (there’s very few finger food)
- Dress up a bit (in general the French dress up more than us here in the U.S. – especially us here in CA)
- Pay attention to the time you eat (most French people believe lunch should be between 12-2pm and dinner is 8-10pm)
- If you’re a non-French speaker in France: don’t assume your waiter speaks English/Spanish/etc. (always ask)
- Accept the aperitif (pre-dinner drink) even if you want it to be non-alcoholic
- Feel free to make reservations (recommended for small or fancy establishments)
First of all, my husband and I are pescatarians so anything that we buy/eat are going to be vegetarian (or fish). However, if there is anything that I convert from a meat dish to a vegetarian dish, I’ll include both recipes. We went to this place in Mission Valley called Mimi’s Café which is a really cute French-inspired restaurant.
For lunch, I had coffee and split a shrimp pasta dish with my husband. It was AMAZING! And then we each had our own bowl of tomato basil soup. Once again, so good!!! And we got a basket of bread for the table (DELICIOUS!). I loved everything about that meal!
But then we had the birthday crêpe cake… and it was just wrong. Everything about it was wrong. It tasted like sugary toothpaste on sponge cake. And probably was more American (U.S.) than French but the dish we ordered wasn’t available so they brought us that instead. DO GO HERE, but for dessert, stick to the muffins. I didn’t have one cause this month’s is pineapple and I’m allergic to pineapple but they smelled good.
We loved Mimi’s so much that we went back for breakfast! This time my husband had the coffee while I sipped on a mimosa. Yummmmmmmm! And we both had the egg, spinach and cheese crêpes with potatoes. Two thumbs up!
Here are some recipes close to what we ate:
French bread: http://steamykitchen.com/75-baking-the-perfect-loaf-of-french-bread.html
Tomato basil soup: http://mimiscafeathome.blogspot.com/2013/03/tomato-basil-soup.html
Shrimp Pasta (for this recipe: replace the last three ingredients with fresh basil, broccoli and tomatoes): http://damndelicious.net/2015/03/13/garlic-butter-shrimp-pasta/
Birthday crêpe cake (for those of you who think you can do better): http://www.sixsistersstuff.com/2017/01/birthday-crepe-cake.html
Egg, Spinach and cheese crêpes: http://mimiscafeathome.blogspot.com/2016/02/crepes-florentine.html
Mango mimosa: http://www.countryliving.com/food-drinks/recipes/a3640/mango-mimosa-recipe-clv0511/
Bon appétit!
P.S. This might be weird but I’m really impressed whenever a restaurant has a decent bathroom, and the bathrooms at Mimi’s Café are really cool!
I used to be able to find good info from your blog articles.
I’ve been exploring for a little bit for any high quality articles or weblog posts in this kind of house .
Exploring in Yahoo I eventually stumbled upon this web site.
Studying this info So i’m glad to convey that I have an incredibly excellent uncanny
feeling I found out exactly what I needed. I so
much no doubt will make sure to do not overlook this website and give it a look
regularly.
I’m not sure why but this website is loading very
slow for me. Is anyone else having this problem or is it a
issue on my end? I’ll check back later on and see if the problem still
exists.
This is very attention-grabbing, You are a very professional blogger.
I’ve joined your feed and look ahead to looking for more of your magnificent post.
Additionally, I have shared your site in my social networks
My spouse and I stumbled over here coming from a different website and thought I might as well check things out.
I like what I see so now i’m following you. Look forward to finding
out about your web page yet again.
I really liked your article post. Great.
Definitely imagine that that you said. Your favourite reason seemed to be on the
web the easiest factor to take into account of. I say to
you, I definitely get irked whilst other folks consider worries that they plainly don’t understand about.
You controlled to hit the nail upon the highest as well as outlined out the whole thing with no need side-effects ,
people can take a signal. Will probably be again to get more.
Thank you
Good day! I just would like to give you a huge thumbs up for the excellent
info you have got here on this post. I will be coming back to
your blog for more soon.
Great, thanks for sharing this post.Thanks Again. Cool.
It’s awesome in support of me to have a site,
which is useful for my experience. thanks admin
great issues altogether, you simply won a new reader. What might you suggest in regards to
your post that you just made a few days ago?
Any positive?
I don’t know whether it’s just me or if everybody else encountering problems with
your blog. It seems like some of the text within your content are
running off the screen. Can somebody else please comment and let me know if this is happening to them as well?
This may be a issue with my web browser because I’ve had this happen previously.
Cheers
Good write-up. I certainly appreciate this website.
Thanks!
I appreciate you sharing this article. Awesome.
Today, I went to the beachfront with my kids. I found a sea shell and gave it to my 4 year
old daughter and said “You can hear the ocean if you put this to your ear.” She
placed the shell to her ear and screamed. There was a hermit crab inside and it
pinched her ear. She never wants to go back! LoL I know this is completely off topic but I had to tell
someone!
Hi there, just wanted to tell you, I liked this
article. It was inspiring. Keep on posting!
Hi there! This blog post couldn’t be written any better! Reading through this article reminds me of my previous roommate! He always kept preaching about this. I’ll send this information to him. Fairly certain he will have a good read. Thanks for sharing!
I know this website offers quality depending articles or reviews and extra material, is there any
other site which gives these kinds of stuff in quality?
Do you have a spam problem on this site; I also am a blogger,
and I was wondering your situation; we have created some nice procedures and we are looking to swap methods with other folks, please shoot me an e-mail if interested.
Hello, its nice article regarding media print, we all be
familiar with media is a impressive source of facts.
Hi there! This is my first visit to your blog!
We are a group of volunteers and starting a new project in a community
in the same niche. Your blog provided us valuable information to
work on. You have done a extraordinary job!
What a stuff of un-ambiguity and preserveness of precious know-how concerning unpredicted emotions.
If some one desires expert view concerning blogging after that i propose him/her to go to see this blog, Keep up the pleasant job.
If you would like to increase your familiarity simply keep visiting this website and be updated with the newest news posted here.
I all the time emailed this weblog post page to
all my friends, as if like to read it after that my links will too.
It’s fantastic that you are getting thoughts from this article as well
as from our argument made at this place.
Hello there! I simply wish to give you a big thumbs up
for your excellent info you have got here on this post. I am
coming back to your site for more soon.
An impressive share! I have just forwarded this onto a friend who was conducting a little homework on this.
And he in fact bought me lunch simply because I
discovered it for him… lol. So allow me to reword this….
Thanks for the meal!! But yeah, thanks for
spending time to talk about this subject here on your blog.
I truly love your website.. Pleasant colors & theme. Did you develop
this web site yourself? Please reply back as I’m planning to create my own personal
website and would love to know where you got this from or exactly what
the theme is named. Cheers!
It’s difficult to find well-informed people in this
particular topic, however, you sound like you know what you’re talking about!
Thanks
Wonderful article! This is the type of information that are supposed to be shared around the net.
Shame on the search engines for no longer positioning this post
upper! Come on over and visit my site . Thanks =)
I’m gone to tell my little brother, that he should also pay a visit this webpage on regular basis to get updated from hottest news.
What i don’t realize is actually how you’re not really much more
well-preferred than you might be right now. You are so intelligent.
You already know therefore significantly in the case of this matter, made me in my
opinion believe it from so many varied angles. Its like women and men are not interested until it’s one thing to accomplish
with Woman gaga! Your personal stuffs great.
All the time deal with it up!
A fascinating discussion is definitely worth comment.
I think that you should write more about this topic, it may not
be a taboo matter but generally folks don’t speak about these subjects.
To the next! Many thanks!!
Howdy! This post couldn’t be written any better! Reading through this post reminds me of my previous room mate!
He always kept talking about this. I will forward this page to him.
Pretty sure he will have a good read. Thanks for sharing!
Hi, I log on to your new stuff regularly. Your story-telling style is witty, keep
it up!
Thanks-a-mundo for the article. Want more.
Today, I went to the beach with my kids. I found a sea shell and gave it to my 4 year old daughter and said “You can hear the ocean if you put this to your ear.” She put the shell to her ear and screamed.
There was a hermit crab inside and it pinched her
ear. She never wants to go back! LoL I know this is totally off topic but I had to tell someone!
Pretty! This has been an incredibly wonderful article.
Many thanks for providing this info.
Very soon this web site will be famous amid all blog visitors, due to it’s nice articles
Im grateful for the blog article.Thanks Again. Want more.
Hi, constantly i used to check website posts here early in the break of
day, as i enjoy to find out more and more.
If some one wishes expert view on the topic
of blogging after that i suggest him/her to go to see this website, Keep up the nice job.
Hello, I want to subscribe for this weblog to get newest updates, thus where can i do it please
help.
What’s up everyone, it’s my first pay a visit
at this web page, and paragraph is really fruitful in support of me, keep up posting these articles or reviews.
you are in reality a good webmaster. The web site loading speed is amazing.
It seems that you are doing any distinctive trick. Moreover, The contents
are masterwork. you have performed a great job in this subject!
What’s up everyone, it’s my first go to see at this
site, and paragraph is truly fruitful designed for me, keep up posting these articles or reviews.
I think the admin of this web page is genuinely working hard in favor of his web site, since here every material is quality based material.
My spouse and I stumbled over here by a different web page and thought I might as well check things out.
I like what I see so now i am following you. Look forward
to looking at your web page yet again.
Hello would you mind stating which blog platform you’re working
with? I’m looking to start my own blog in the near future
but I’m having a tough time choosing between BlogEngine/Wordpress/B2evolution and Drupal.
The reason I ask is because your design seems different then most blogs and I’m looking for something unique.
P.S Apologies for being off-topic but I had to ask!