When in Paris, it is obligatory to visit a good bar à vin. This is one of my favourite restaurants of this type. It is held very simple with a couple of dishes and a considerable selection of Bordeaux wines.
This is one of the places which is quite simple but has very good and very friendly service. If you speak French there and they see that you are foreigners they will automatically speak English with you in order to make your stay more pleasant. We had a glass of champagne and a Lillet as an aperitif.
In this wine bar you can have a couple of main dishes but you can also just have small cold dishes. This time we chose the second wine of Château Pichon-Longueville-Comtesse de Lalande, the Reserve de Comtesse.
This wine was a great wine with good value for money. They also decanted the wine in an interesting carafe which looked like a huge wine glass.
I asked the waiter whether the carafe was Gérard Depardieu's glass. He did get the joke after about a minute... I greatly appreciate Gérard Depardieu, so do not misunderstand me. As a main course I ordered the cooked lamb with vegetable stew.
The lamb was tender. The vegetable stew was the best you can get out of vegetables. You could tell that it had been cooked and reduced in a tedious way. One of the best dishes in this restaurant is definitely the steak tartare, so we had to order it.
The steak tartares in France vary. You can see that this steak tartare has a signature marination. I think that it was a bit too creamy but tastes vary as we all know. One of the highlights in L'Ecluse are the cold cuts and the wonderful cheese platter.
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| L'Ecluse |
This is one of the places which is quite simple but has very good and very friendly service. If you speak French there and they see that you are foreigners they will automatically speak English with you in order to make your stay more pleasant. We had a glass of champagne and a Lillet as an aperitif.
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| Instructions on how to properly taste wine |
In this wine bar you can have a couple of main dishes but you can also just have small cold dishes. This time we chose the second wine of Château Pichon-Longueville-Comtesse de Lalande, the Reserve de Comtesse.
 |
| Reserve de la Comtesse |
This wine was a great wine with good value for money. They also decanted the wine in an interesting carafe which looked like a huge wine glass.
 |
| Wine carafe |
I asked the waiter whether the carafe was Gérard Depardieu's glass. He did get the joke after about a minute... I greatly appreciate Gérard Depardieu, so do not misunderstand me. As a main course I ordered the cooked lamb with vegetable stew.
 |
| Cooked lamb and vegetable stew |
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| Steak tartare with salad |
The steak tartares in France vary. You can see that this steak tartare has a signature marination. I think that it was a bit too creamy but tastes vary as we all know. One of the highlights in L'Ecluse are the cold cuts and the wonderful cheese platter.
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| Cheese platter |
When serving the cheese platter, the waiter tells you what to try with the cheese. You make a round starting with some of the soft cheeses ending up with the bleu. The combination of tastes is very interesting indeed and something which is definitely the best in French cheese culture. This is one of my favourite small restaurants in Paris. It is definitely worth a visit, each time you come to Paris. It is a wonderful experience and good value for money.
