This month I was craving for all sort of Asian food to balance all the French cuisine. It was really really good, I love this type of food. Here are the details:
On the Christmas break I went to get some Vietnamese Pho with Maureen, next to Place de l’Italy. This soup is delicious, cheap, make you full without the bad “MSG” effect.
Maureen took the house special which is mixed meat. She didn't expect to be any tripe so all these moved to my bowl.
I took the raw beef soup, which is thin slices of raw beef placed in the soup, being cooked from the heat of the broth.
One of the Christmas vacation days I went back to Darai, the Korean restaurant next to my place which always have a queue of people. It’s practically the best deal in town. The 10 euro menu gets you a starter (soup or salad and fried dumplings), kimchi selection on the table, main course which I got the spicy pork and calamar with vegetables, and a dessert. There’s options for 12 and 14 euro menus and also a la cart. This main dish is just fantastic.
I really wanted to go to the famous “Happy Nouilles” Chinese restaurant after reading they are pulling their own noodles on the spot. When we finally went there and I was so excited to try it out.
The menu, a soup for 6-7 euro
The place looks like any other Chinese fast food
But these girls behind the counter are amazing - one pulling the noodles by order, the other cooks it.
Outside, in the cold, watching the action from the window
The spicy minced pork soup
Shane took the pork dumplings
It was a big bowl! And so good. The spicy pork was the best
Next Vietnamese classic we went to eat is the Banh Mi, a sandwich with meat inside a baguette bread. The very best place to eat it is found here:
The one with the black door, a true "Hole-in-the-wall". 4 customers max can fit inside, standing up.
The menu. Just after some other people came inside we discovered there's an off-the-menu option to take the same meat with rice and not as a sandwich.
The sandwich additions. There's chicken, pork (caramelized) or beef (spicy with basil) options.
I took the beef.
That was so tasty.
Making the pork sandwich for shane
A lot of coriander
Then carrots
Shane is thrilled with the outcome. The caramelized pork sandwich was very good also, so different.
Tried the "basilic seads" drink with it even though just special people like it. I'm one of them.
The sandwich was really nice but not that fulfilling. This is why we went for a Chinese Bao across the street.
Steamed bun filled with a pork meat ball
Very good value for 60 cents!
Last week I wanted to have a Take-Away from my favorite menu in Darai fit to the rainy weather, but when I finally came out of bed and went there, they already closed the kitchen. I was so in the mood for a good Korean so I went across the street to “Happy deli“, they were still doing TA. I took the 10 euro menu of spicy squid and rice to compare with Darai.
For starter: seafood pancake which was very good but had nearly no seafood. For this box of kinchi I had to add 1 euro
The dish was wrapped in this cool paper container, the rice in the bottom, the dish on top and some veggies and a weird egg thing on the side
It was nice, but not perfect. The squid was too chewy and there were not enough vegetables. Also didn't get any dessert and had to pay more for the kimchi.
This week I met up with Thomas who’s gonna be a future Ferrandi student. We went to his favorite Thai restaurant: Thabthim Siam. The waiter was kinda rude and unpleasant which shadowed our impression of the place. We took two lunch menus for 15 euro each.
Steamed dumplings, was pretty good
Fish soup. I liked how the vegetables were cut into these funny shapes but the soup itself was too sweet, didn't taste like fish.
Me and our main courses
Beef in red curry: the curry was good but the beef was tough
Garlic chicken, tasty but too salty
The dessert wasn’t included in the menu and when we came out the door we noticed the meal had included a glass of wine which was never suggested to us sadly.
And today I woke up late, didn’t feel like doing anything so I went to get the TA from Darai to compare it to the Happy Deli TA from last week. There was a queue of people waiting outside like always, and I made my order and was promised to get it in 15 minutes. It was cold waiting outside but it was worth it! This is what I got in the bag, for only 10 euro:
For starter: fried fish with a dipping sauce. Pretty good and not too oily
With a fresh salad which was not bad
Very generous main course and rice, everything wrapped separately. The squid and pork was cooked somehow different, it was so tender and delicious, with many vegetables. Maybe needed a tiny bit of salt.
The kinchi and the pickled turnips that came as part of the meal in generous amount
And dessert which is some sort of fried yeast bun
Filled with gooey cinnamon and sugar
No Doubt, Darai totally won this battle and for sure deserves the queue of people waiting outside every single day. By the way, it was so much food that I’m about to eat all the rest tomorrow as well. Ha!
I never manage to read a whole post before getting so hungry that I need to run down to the kitchen to eat…
Does anyone else experience this same problem, or is it only me???
I always take something to eat while reading the posts! Nachman – learn to plan ahead!!
You are not the only one 🙂
I’m dieing to come to Paris & eat at all your favorite places… I should come without Eli, so I can enjoy.. 🙂
so, did I understand correctly that you had to pay 1 euro more for the kimchi at happy deli? i’m not sure because you “only” mentioned it twice!
hats off to Darai, the only restaurant to get a great review from Mashav – except for Frenchie of course…
לי לקח 3 פעמים לקרוא את הפוסט הזה !!!! איזה כיף….המבחר של האפשרויות השונות בהחלט גורם לי לקנא. נכון שיש לנו מבחר לא רע בתל אביב אבל בכלל אי אפשר להשוות. איזה כיף זה עיר באמת גדולה…!
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