Paris on a budget: the cuisine

I wrote a post here a couple of weeks ago about traveling to Paris whilst on a budget. Well, while some things surprised me as being cheaper than I expected (such as accommodation), when it comes to F&B it was the other way around.

In the city of love, there isn't much love when it comes to tourists and restaurants. For the ones that do not know the French cuisine and usually enjoy wondering around the city bumping into nice restaurants to spontaneously sit down and have a meal, or simply a coffee, Paris can be kind of nightmare. Especially when you are on a budget!

Usually, I am the kind of person I mentioned above, I like to walk around and not really plan every step of a holiday and that is what made me realize how hard this can be in Paris. For instance, I went with my sister to see the Eiffel Tower and I was starving. I already assumed restaurants near there would be overpriced because of all the tourists, however, after looking at the 3 restaurants that were in the streets and finding the option that had what seemed to be good vegetarian options (even though they were basically pasta, pizza and sandwiches - so not very French), we decide to go in. Immediately the lady asks us if you want to have a meal or only drink something. When we said we needed to eat she was like 'ok' and walked with us inside.

Once inside, the tables were so crumpled together to fit more people in, that it felt like I was almost sitting on the lap of the lady on the next table. They gave us a menu and some of the options from the outside were not available because 'they were too busy' and 1 water would cost like 5 euros. So we decided to leave and keep looking...

I really wanted to find some real French food (that I could afford) which should be hard as I was in France, right? Well, most of what I found were baguettes, mall food and restaurants that were kind of tourist traps, those places that are designed to try to get as many tourists inside with the promise of good traditional food and then kind of scam them. And this was my experience at place number 2...

Near the Notre Dame Cathedral, there are plenty of cafes, bars and restaurants... it is a very nice busy area to spend the afternoon, so with plenty of choice, we thought we could not get wrong this time! A friend of mine, from France, had told me the name of a few dishes I should try so we went to check out the menus and this is how it went: generic pictures of food on the menu, people at the restaurant doors' calling you to come in and trying to start conversations with you to get your attention and persuade you to try their restaurant, promises of traditional French food at a reasonable price and of course, better than the 'next door place'. What didn't look good at first, didn't feel good either.

We finally decided to sit in one of the restaurants that looked alright and ordered one of their menus. We sat on a table right in the end of the place, with was next to the stairs to go to the toillet; it smelled like an old place and the food was ok but nothing special. And of course the beverage scam: they put lower prices on food to catch your eye and don't put the prices of drinks on the menu outside. Then when you are seated, they give you a menu that includes drinks as well and the prices are insane... A bottle of water for 6/7 euros, a soda for 5.5 euros, and things like that. This works mainly because after the man outside offered you a nice deal, you don't want to leave the place after seeing these prices, it makes you feel uncomfortable, so you just order from there.

After a few bad experiences, my sister and I, unfortunately just ate in kind of fast food places (like street greek food from those 'to go' windows, which I love, but didn't expect to be eating there) or going to the restaurants at malls, because although they might not be the most cultural/traditional restaurants, they surely have affordable prices, a diversity of food and are very clean and upfront with you! You don't get kinda scammed on those.

For instance, we went to a place called 'fresh burritos' when we couldn't decide a place where to have dinner. It was at one of the malls, so we didn't expect much. However, it tasted great, the portion size was perfect and fit our small budget very well.

I guess the lesson I learned after this was that even if you want to be carefree while on holiday, you might want to write down the names of a few restaurants/ cafes before going to make sure you will have options near sights you might visit so you don't end up falling for the touristic traps. Really do your research, especially if you are on a budget, because you will know exactly which ones you can afford.

Also, if it doesn't feel right (like offering a 3-course menu for 15 euro when other places charge 15 euro for 1 plate of pasta only), it probably isn't right. So you might opt to eat a tasteful simple pizza at the mall, rather than eat a 'traditional' tasteless dish somewhere else just because the place looks 'traditional' from the outside.