How to Decipher a French Menu

By eHow Parties & Entertaining Editor

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When confronted with a menu in a restaurant in France, many people have no idea where to start. The following will help you avoid ordering chocolate mousse as an appetizer or goat cheese salad for dessert.

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Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

French Cookbook
French Dictionaries
French Phrase Books

Step1

Expect to see a lunch menu from about noon to 3:00 p.m., and a dinner menu from about 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. Many restaurants close between lunch and dinner.

Step2

Find out if the restaurant features a "plat du jour," or daily special. This typically includes meat, vegetables and perhaps potatoes, all for one low price.

Step3

Understand that the word "menu" doesn't mean the same thing in French as it does in English. It's a fixed-price meal of three or four courses, and usually the most inexpensive way to order a full meal.

Step4

Start with an "entrée" if you prefer to order a full meal from the menu. Again, this doesn't mean the same thing as it does in English; it means "appetizer" in French.

Step5

Follow the "entrée" with one of the "plats principaux," or main dishes.

Step6

Eat your veggies by ordering from the "légumes."

Step7

Reward yourself with dessert. Finally, this one means the same thing in French as it does in English.

Step8

Realize that "fromage," or cheese, comes between the main course and dessert in an elaborate dinner.

Step9

Before paying, check to see if the menu says "service compris," or service included. If it does, you needn't add a tip, though it's common to round up when paying.

Tips & Warnings

Small cafés or snack bars typically serve fewer courses. Here it's common to simply order a sandwich such as a "croque monsieur" (toasted ham and cheese).
If you order water, the waiter will usually bring bottled water. Ask for "une carafe d'eau" if you just want tap water.

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Comments

Anonymous said

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on 12/27/2007 - Bread is free
- Tap water is free (and safe )
- Most of the time, une carafe de vin 25cl of wine are include in the menu.
- Never go to a restaurant crowded by tourist.
- Don't order oysters if you're lost in the mountains
- If you want fresh and tasty food order the best sellers of the restaurant, the elk fillet with cranberries sauce is frozen food.
- Frogs legs are excellent (not in Paris) but frozen from China, frog legs taste like poultry (but better).
- The cheapest place to dine, with classical French food, in Paris is le bouillon chartier 7 rue du faubourg Montmartre.
- Good value restaurants in France are restaurants for trucks drivers. ("routier" say "rootee aa")
- You can order French fries with most of meals (fries are Belgian, in France just say "frites" ("freeettt" fries)
- Snails taste just like snails. Most French people don't like snails.
- Most of French people (all the girls) don't like frog legs.
- In most of small restaurant, in the menu your choice is cheese or dessert (fromage ou dessert).
- You won't find Camembert in the cheese dish or well creamy.
- Desserts are the weak point of too many restaurants.
- Coffee, when finishing, is common.
- Don't expect to enter at 12:15 and get out at 12:35.
- Even if it's not on the menu they have a kid menu, but my 3 year old daughter is eating the adult menu in dad or mom plate (including red wine),
and she never wants to eat the same things at home.
- Restaurants are not the place to discover French wine, if you have French friend, ask them advice for buying wine or go with your friends to a wine shop.

-poultry => "volaille"
- chicken => "poulet"
- beef => "boeuf "
- soup => "soupe"
- coffee => "cafe "
- salmon => "saumon"

- Oysters and mussels are interesting; close to the sea (close to Mediterranean sea try a town called Bouzigues).
- You can always find somebody speaking english, the waitress or any young people, but speak slowly.
- Tipping is not a town in china. Even in France, tip 1 to 8 % of the bill, but only if the waiter was smiling and if you took 3 hours deciphering the menu and asking questions in bad French with a waiter answering you in Spanish.
- You can ask for somebody in the street if he knows a good restaurant, or go in a coffee (caf or bar are the same) and ask for a good restaurant.
- The guide Michelin is not something good, you will find cheaper and as good by asking other people (guide Michelin is good if you like to drive 70 km to find a 3 stars restaurants.)
-when you invite somebody, you pay the bill.
- In some restaurant the menu for women does not indicate prices, they are on the men's menu.
- If you wait more than 20 minutes after your first order, you can leave the restaurant. If the waiter asks you why, sit down and your dishes will come suddenly.

Anonymous said

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on 11/22/2005 Look at the menu first. Often the combination of courses is considerably cheaper than if you selected the various dishes individually - in some cases it is cheaper to have a three course menu than a two course meal (you can, of course, order the menu and simply not eat the extra course if you don't want it).

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