umm, de quoi parlez-vous?

Last night was adventure. I had no idea that French people could have such American tendencies.

The last few days, I've been with my parents -- mostly we've been hanging around pubs and cafes doing what we Robinsons do best. Which is drink, obviously (napping comes in second).

Papa Robinson with a lovely Hoegaarden. Yum.

As we were searching around the Compans Cafarelli area for somewhere to eat dinner after a few drinks at a local brasserie (brewery), we stumbled upon this restaurant called "L'Entrecôte." It was jammed packed inside (which my dad always takes as a good sign) but when I looked at the carte (menu) outside, it was mostly just drinks and apératifs. Nevermind, though! There are tons of people here, it must be good.

We headed inside and an exasperated woman in her mid-fourties in an oversized yellow polo, pencil skirt and kitten heels looked up at us, smiled, and told us to go upstairs to find a table. Which we did. Where another exasperated middle-aged woman in the same outfit led us to our table without any menus. Meanwhile, throughout the restaurant, there were screaming children, the screech of tables and chairs scraping along the floor and noise bouncing off the obnoxious yellow and green plaid wallpaper -- already quite unusual for a french restaurant.

The server came up to our table and said something along the lines of "how would you like it prepared?" To which all three of us looked at each other blankly. "Oh! L'Entrecôte! It's a fixed menu and they're serving steak! Trois mediums," my dad exclaimed. Steak? Hm, haven't had that since I was in France a year and a half ago, but sure. Pourquoi pas? As we sat, we noticed a line forming outside and quite a substantial one at that. I felt like we were at some weird French-American TGIFridays.

Anyways, as we sat, our server brought us mini-salads with raw walnuts on top. And the first thing I noticed was a big nappy bug sitting on top of mine. Yes, somewhat off-putting... But these things happen in restaurants, so I let it slide and just ate around it. Meanwhile, the big table next to us filled with the aforementioned screaming children were starting to get restless. One of the girls was dancing in circles behind my dad's chair and kept bumping into him. Then the mother decided to pick up one of the kids and stand right beside our table. I was having a serious "Sears moment" which, if you don't know what that is... I'm really not sure what to tell you besides saying it's the feeling I get whenever I go into a Sears (read: it's not a positive feeling).

Then she brought our meals. Which was a pile of overly greased steak-frites and a few pieces each of steak in a mustard sauce. I looked around us and everyone was eating the same thing. The fries were not very impressive -- at all. The steak was alright too, but I'm not really the best judge given the whole pseudo-vegetarian thing. By this time, the line outside was already around the corner. Mind you, this is 9:30 pm on a Monday night and there were all these happy french people chomping away at their steak-frites and children screaming and wine being drunk. Am I in the mo-effing twilight zone or something? What is this place?! I'm thinking that the prices must be really good in order for it to be this crowded.

So we finished our meals and the bill came: €60 for three meals plus a small bottle of wine. So, I walked out completely not understanding the appeal of this place... Loud people, crammed little tables, people woofing down food and leaving after 25 minutes, mediocre food quality... I thought this was supposed to be France! Luckily, we headed to a little café near the Capitole afterwards and got a nice little ice cream which was amazing. I felt much better after that.

So, the experience at L'Entrecôte was sorta disappointing. But I know that the french can't be french all the time and even though they won't readily admit it, I know there are certain aspects of American culture that they just eat up. Literally.