What do you call "real" food ? I mean if Wiener Schnitzel is what you are looking for, well, no you won't find any "real" food in brasseries.

You need to ask if they have a card. ("Vous avez une carte ?") It means you want to eat something and not just drink. And, then, well it will depend on the place. Usually they have standard stuff like steack-frites, omelette with salad ... It very much depends on the place and where it is located.
In Paris, when I take the night train to Berlin I always eat a light "dinner" at the Terminus Nord, just in front of the train station. It is a very fancy looking place where they know that people who come have a train to take. They also have the best "tartare" in Paris (I hope you know what a tartare is) which they serve with a green salad and french fries. I take a glass of wine and some water and I am happy. I think the price is 15, - EUR but it is the wine which makes it more expensive. In Biarritz one month ago, I stopped at a small place which was overlooking the ocean, I ordered some foie gras and a glass of Jurançon so that I could enjoy the sun set in peace. I have to mention this place in Biarritz because it was so small that you would never have believed they serve food and certainly not of this quality.

I don't know if it was "cheap", but it was something anybody with a decent salary can afford otherwise all of these places would go bankrupt if they did not have a regular clientele.

__________________
______________________Own only what you can always carry with you: know languages, know countries, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag.”___________________Alexander Solzhenitsyn

No, not really, allthough it would be ideal of course
Its allready incredible hard if not impossible to get a real Wiener Schnitzel (that one would be acceptable to eat) in Germany, I do not suppose I would ever find such thing in France.

With solid food I mean food you could also find in a good household where one of the partners (we life in modern times arent we) really cooks traditional french food for the main meal of the day. Solid food means that the restaurant or brasserie or any other potential place would at least have some of these meals on their card.

And I am not sure, is there no tradition of a "Menü" in France or do they have such things too? I mean something like a "speciality of the day" which makes it possible for people who come often to the place to eat every day something different like at home, which is as it is the main of offer of the place also the best freshest and reasonable prized meal. The Menü here in Austria is always written on a board in front of the entrance of the Wirtshaus.
Thanks in case I return to Franc anytime soon I will remember to ask for the card.

Tartare, is that somewhat comparable to a Faschiertes Laibchen? Not really is it? More like the stuff they put into a Hamburger? 15€ is a proud price, but as its in a large gare I and you dared to drink good whine i think it is explainable

Foie gras? Thats forbidden in Austria at least to produce. With a good reason in my opinion. Anyway how does it taste? Is it served with a baguette or something else?

__________________
When the Nazis came for the communists I remained silent, I was no communist.
When the Nazis came for the Unionists I remained silent, I was no Unionist.
When the Nazis came for the Social Democrats I remained silent, I was no Social Democrat.
When the Nazis came for the Jews I remained silent, I was no Jew.
When the Nazis came for me, there was no one left who could protest.

The first meal I ate in Paris was at the Terminus Nord (back in 1989), and the last meal I ate in Paris (a couple years ago) was there as well. It's a happy place.

__________________
When they come a wull staun ma groon
Staun ma groon al nae be afraid
Thoughts awe hame tak awa ma fear
Sweat an bluid hide ma veil awe tears

You will find "escalopes viennoises" in France ... But I am sure it is not up to its Viennese cousin.
Reg. the German version version, not sure : never tried any !!!

Yes, it's the "plat du jour". In restaurants, they also have the daily specialities ("specialités du jour") written on a board or they will recite them to you when they bring you the menue, but obviously here too, as a tourist, you are at disadvantage.

I didn't really want to describe on this board what a "tartare" is because this is not the kind of things Americans - or Brits and Northern Europeans for that matter - would eat. OK : it is a special kind of beaf meat which you eat raw, mixed with an egg and some spices - small oignons etc. You either get it all prepared or you can mix it yourself.
You also have the "tartare poellé", which is trown for one minute on both sides in a pan. It's even better but it's hard to make so you can not find it everywhere.

If you had tasted it, you would create a special association to change the law in Austria. It melts under the tongue and gets even better with the right toasts and the right wine (a sweet, but not too sweet, white wine).

__________________
______________________Own only what you can always carry with you: know languages, know countries, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag.”___________________Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Yes, it's a nice place, with a long tradition.
You probably were arriving from some place and were taking a train when you left --- To Roissy ?

__________________
______________________Own only what you can always carry with you: know languages, know countries, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag.”___________________Alexander Solzhenitsyn

I really don't think it has to do with the amount of food that americans eat that makes us overweight, it is our eating habits. In many parts of Europe the main meal is eaten in the early afternoon rather than in the evening like in the U.S. That gives them a chance to burn off the calories from that large meal where in the U.S. that food is still in our stomach when we go to sleep.

Of course the abundance of oreos and cheetos don't help.

The first time we'd just arrived from Amsterdam. It was a backpacking trip a buddy of mine and I took when we graduated from high school. It was the first restaurant I saw, so I insisted we go.

The last time we were catching a VERY early flight out of CDG, so we were staying in a hotel near the airport. I wanted to take my girl out to dinner, so we caught a train back in to the city, which dropped us at Gare du Nord.

__________________
When they come a wull staun ma groon
Staun ma groon al nae be afraid
Thoughts awe hame tak awa ma fear
Sweat an bluid hide ma veil awe tears

I am sorry that I offended you. But get over it as this is a ridiculous conversation anyways.

I was not implying that lower income people in Europe are like starving people in Africa, I was saying they do not have the easy 24 hour access to cheaply priced fast food, ice cream, beer, junk food and everything else unhealthy that Americans do.

I am really not bragging since it is a rather embarrassing disclosure. No need to one-up me here.

__________________
One day, I will sneak across the border into Canada and be an illegal alien. It will be fun.

You're actually not disagreeing with me.

Taste is relevant.

Of course you think provencial French food is very tasteful, just like African-Americans think soul food is so good and just like southern people think southern food is the best.

Everyone thinks their mom or grandmother is the best cook.

And the French may be thinner people, but you can not tell me that traditional French Food is not fattening. It's one of the richest and heaviest cuisines around. I love French cuisine. Everyone holds it in high regard but everyone knows it is bad for your diet.

And you agreed with me that it is not cheap to eat in Paris.

And you are agreeing with me because I said that Americans just have more exposure and easier access to larger portions of fattening food, which is why they tend to be fatter.

Europe is following America and getting fatter.

We are one BIG happy family!

__________________
One day, I will sneak across the border into Canada and be an illegal alien. It will be fun.

What I disagreed with is that this has to do with the income situation. People eat at home and not in restaurants, so if the fact that the restaurants in Paris are expensive is not the reason why the people there are thiner ...

Regarding French food as being fattening, I can only shrug my shoulders : all food is fattening. And unfortunately, if you take the fat out, you take most of the taste out as well since fat is a binding element.

In principle, if you eat "fattening" food in reasonable portions, you will not get fat. It is just a question of proportion. And if the food is varied, taken regularly, you should not feel the urge to eat more and more and not crave for these things you are missing ...

Yes, but the key is that this food is taken all day long with no respect of an eating schedule.
You have too much fast food (i.e cheap food available at any time) in the US, this is the problem.

And Europe is getting fatter because this fast food is spreading, carried by a world of big corporations. It's unfortunately one of the "bad" things the Americans have exported abroad.

Yet, it doesn't need to be Mc Donald or stuff. Recently, in Berlin they have installed small vending machines in the subway, you can buy chocolate bars, potatoe chips, this kind of stuff. This cheap food always-availabe-at-any-time is the thing that make people fat, not "fattening" but regular meals.
So, yes, I agree, we are a big family.

__________________
______________________Own only what you can always carry with you: know languages, know countries, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag.”___________________Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Sucre, it is always a pleasure to hear your perspective! By the way, I agree with you. I believe that most people are overweight by choice. They don't exercise and they overeat. I try to eat 5 or 6 times per day. all smalller meals and I never worry about fat or calories. I also exercise, but not too much! and I love to have a few glasses of wine in the evening. I am not fat, but not thin. I think the key is moderation. who needs to eat more than one doughnut anyway??? Au Revior!

__________________
I think at this point there needs to be a focus on an immediate increase in spending and I think this is a time when deficit fear has to take a second seat . . . I believe later on there should be tax increases. Speaking personally, I think there are a lot of very rich people out there whom we can tax at a point down the road and recover some of the money."
-- Barney Frank, October 20, 2008

Sorry if I response on this again.

But its really me honest impressions that you have a wrong picture of Europe on this. I was never talking about starving like in Africa.

Fact is that even the poorest Austrians (and that applies to all our European comrads too) have enough money to eat till they explode. Obesity is also in Austria more often to find among poor and less uneducated people than the other way round. Like supposedly in the US too.

Dont believe its harder to get cheaply to fast food, ice cream beer and junkfood etc here simply because our shops are not open 24 hours a day. Believe me, no one here eats a single slice of anything less because he can not shop in the middle of the night cheaply. No one.


Dont get me wrong, I do not attack you on this (nor do you offend me ). I just want to show you that you have been fooled by a wrong picture of Europe concernig this detail.

(PS: Ok if you might ever see a picture of me, you would perhaps come again to the conclusion that there must be a famine in Europe, but believe, I eat far more than I look like )

__________________
When the Nazis came for the communists I remained silent, I was no communist.
When the Nazis came for the Unionists I remained silent, I was no Unionist.
When the Nazis came for the Social Democrats I remained silent, I was no Social Democrat.
When the Nazis came for the Jews I remained silent, I was no Jew.
When the Nazis came for me, there was no one left who could protest.

I have to protest on this the upmost!
You are hurtening my national pride on this severely. The fattest, heaviest but still most delicious cuisine with the largest share of meat (especially pork) is still the Viennese cuisine!

If you dont believe me just try it yourself. I have testimonies of a handfull Americans allready who confirmed this. And they are allready used to the American standard!

__________________
When the Nazis came for the communists I remained silent, I was no communist.
When the Nazis came for the Unionists I remained silent, I was no Unionist.
When the Nazis came for the Social Democrats I remained silent, I was no Social Democrat.
When the Nazis came for the Jews I remained silent, I was no Jew.
When the Nazis came for me, there was no one left who could protest.