Not too much to hope that we would find some decent dining options in Paris? Well, while a lot of places are closed, there are some options. We chose la Grande Cascade ... housed in Napoleon III's hunting lodge (you didn't know that there was a Napoleon the 2nd, not to mind the 3rd, did ya .... but there was ).
Anyway, not to digress, but there is a very very nice restaurant, in an old hunting lodge, in the Bois De Boulogne (large park in western side of Paris where Rupert Everett used to do heroin with tranvestites, and yet he still managed to get up for work in the morning due to his strong naval upbringing ---
here ).
Sumptuous surroundings and sensational food .... service was a little lackluster, but they did provide a velveted loofah upon which Nikki could place her handbag. The height of class, that.
The cast of characters that ate here on any one evening was enough to fill a Hunter S Thompson novella.
They have a (surprisingly for Paris) reasonably price menu, the "menu du marche", served lunch and dinner, for 86Euro, which includes 3 courses, plus 2 glasses of wine, water of choice, and lots of little extras such as amuse buches and ameuse geules ...
When you order the menu, you will have to deal with the inevitable sommelier and his "oh ... you are choosing the formula" ... and he manages to modify formula into a word of at least 7 or 8 syllables ... the formula being 2 glasses chosen from several different house wines (none too shabby I might add). All this from a man who probably could not afford to eat there himself normally ... but I guess he was just trying to push his product .... we are all pushers of one sort or another ...
