Two nights, two dinners out in Lyon (one not bad)

Last week Thursday and Friday was spent eating out. A rare occasion, since I normally don't like to eat out knowing the cost of what food costs. But Thursday was a get-together of classmates and, as in Japan, it's important to show that you're there. And to enjoy the time there. Friday was just the end of a long day (no, long week!) and it seemed just reasonable to eat where I did.

On Thursday, our class celebrated Chinese New Year at a Chinese restaurant here in Lyon not far from Place Bellecour. The decor was charming with old wooden furnishings and a host who must have been here for at least two generations of diners. (Apparently Catherine Denueve, Daniel Auteil and former Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto have dined here.)

Nevertheless, the food was passable for some, and utterly bizarre for other dishes. The dish on the left here was like a spring roll made with leeks and shrimp wrapped in chicken skin and filled with chicken meat, sort of like a French terrine. Quite tasty.

But the main dish! Peking duck was fine, but what was this dish served in a pineapple boat (sorry no picture here). Apparently restaurants here in Lyon serve that dish, called "poulet au ananas" or pineaple chicken, which is an ersatz version of sweet-and-sour chicken made with bland chicken breast, onions and vegetables, and of course pineapple. Even with hot rice and fried rice it was hard to feel satisfied.

Dessert was a fried banana and a fried apple but please let's not go there ...

Friday night was at a restaurant I had been meaning to go sometime, L'Entrecote, which (I'm not joking) has one item on its menu: steak and fries. The steak is sliced into thin pieces and covered with a marvelous butter-based sauce, something like the garlic-parsley butter that they use when making escargots Burgundy style, and that's served together with a heaping mountain of thinly-cut French fries (which are excellent with French mustard -- that's the way I choose to eat them, bear with me!)

For 16 EUR you get the steak and fries and a side salad. My Russian colleauge and I shared a bottle of decent Bordeaux red wine, 11 EUR (still a premium compared to what you pay for it at Carrefour, but when you eat out, not bad at all), and so were able to eat out for about 20 EUR, not so bad here in France.

The interior of this place is decorated in Scottish Tartan (?) fabrics, and the service is peculiar: it's like a fine dining restaurant using fast-food conventions. Waitresses take your order efficiently (besides desserts, you can only order one set menu), drop off your plates within several minutes and stop by to replenish your order of fries or bring you water as needed ... with none of the sour looks that wait staff give in other restaurants.

The odd thing about this restaurant chain is that there are only five shops in the entire chain, and none are in Paris. The one in Bordeaux evidently has lines out the door. For a steakhouse in France! Unbelievable!
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LINK:
http://www.entrecote.fr/

And the menu (with the single set menu), here:

http://www.entrecote.fr/menu.htm