"Restaurant is my temple"

My pedar is visiting for a couple of days and he's really big on eating (great, the gene comes from both sides.  really great, parents).  I feel like for the most part, a huge chunk of our time has been spent in various restaurants.  I mean, as long as he's paying, I'll eat...

We've had a few really interesting experiences with food in the last two days.  Here are some I'd like to share: 

1. Yesterday when he arrived, we went and dropped his stuff off at Amoo Joon Abol's place (I'll dedicate a blog entry on AJA later in the week once I've spent more time with him), which is right off of Rue de Beaux-Arts in the swanky Saint German-de-Pres.  We decided to catch a quick lunch in the neighborhood before we went off to explore.  The place we chose was your normal, everyday brasserie.  We didn't think it was anything too special.  It had the conventional Parisian menu with salads, sandwiches, poulet frites...you know.  Right when we sat down, the waiter came and asked for our drink orders; my dad ordered a beer.  

What size, the waiter asked.

Big.  

Big is very big, monsieur.  

Big.  

Um, I don't think I've ever seen a beer that size.  21.20 euro.  That's like $30.00.

My dad justified the cost by saying, "it's OK.  Restaurant is my temple." 

I was like, um, this restaurant specifically, or....

No, restaurants are his temples apparently.  You know, I'm not too sure what it means yet, but I'm just going to go for it...

2. I thought we weren't going to eat dinner.  I'm not going to lie, I was pretty surprised when my dad woke up at 9:30 and asked if I was ready to go find a restaurant.   I really wasn't that hungry, but my dad was enthralled by the fact that I live in Chinatown and wanted to go check it out.  We walked around a bit and we decided to venture into a Vietnamese/Chinese/Korean restaurant that seemed pretty packed.  We chose the right place.  1. the food was amazing.  2. everyone eating there knew the owner by first name (Robert) and he knew who they were. 3. At the end of the night, for the first time since I've been here, someone spoke to me in French and I understood EVERYTHING they were saying AND I responded perfectly.  Afterwards I was like, ooh snap, look at me!  It was great.  

3. Tonight we were around the Champs Elysees area and we were just walking around looking for a place to eat dinner when we ran across a little cafe (for the life of me I can't remember it's name), a steakhouse, with a loooooooooooooooooooooooooongggggggggggg line outside of it.  Dad and I stopped, laughed, then kept walking.  We were like, "psshhh, who waits this long for a freaking steakhouse??"

Yeah, apparently we do.  

50 minutes later and we finally had a little table in the corner (ironically, we were seated right next to these three Iranian women.  It was cute because they incorporated French into their Farsi dialogues, just like we do.  They would be like, "badesh residam oonjah, et la fille a dit..." 

It was like Finglisi all over again.  Not gonna lie, I spent at least 1o minutes sitting there thinking about what the word would be if French and Farsi were joined together.  Although, the French say Persan, so technically if French and Persan were meshed...Farancavi, Persan.  Persancavi?)  

Even though we had no idea what we were in store for, the wait was totally worth it.  It was a steak frites place.  It only served steak frite.  Ready? 

You sit down.  The waitress comes over and asks how you want your meat done.

Medium, you say.

What do you want to drink?

House wine.  Which I didnt like at first, I thought it was too dry, but it went really well with the main course.  

First course, salad and bread.  The salad had a really great dressing, olive oil, lemon juice, mustard, salt, pepper.  Light, but delicious.  And walnuts, it had crushed walnuts on top.  

Then the main course, the steak is perfectly tender with this sauce.  This sauce.  I never even figured out what kind of a sauce it was.  Apparently the restaurant is famous for it.  It was like "sabzi" drowned in butter and just sooo great.  And the frites!  Joy to the frites!  I could spend the entire day eating the frites and the sauce.  

So after you finish your first dish, out come the steak and the frites again for a second serving.  

Then, you have to get dessert, because the place is also famous for dessert. 

They have everything, from fruit dishes to café glacé, to creme brulée.  

And to top off the amazingness of dinner, dad paid.  

restaurant is my temple, baba joon.