Bistros (or do I want a Café?)

We've already got around 20 Bistros on our Google Map of Paris and we aren't going to be in Paris 20 days. Nor are we going to double or triple up on days like Jane and Michael Stern do on their road trips. Maybe this Guardian article from 2008 will help us select just a few: Top 10 Paris bistrots on a budget. I like the budget part of the title. I thought that bistrots were homey little neighborhood restaurants but at some point it appears that bistros became meccas of gourmet food. John Brunton of the Guardian gives the following pointers: "Lunchtime is the best time to find bargain set menus. Prices will inevitably be more expensive in the evening, but most of these bistrots offer a €25-30 (£20-24) set menu for dinner, which is still excellent value considering the quality of the cuisine."

The first one they list, L'Ebauchoir, has a fancy website in flash but fortunately they also have a blog on blogspot that has the menu. They still have the prix fixe menus: 2 course for lunch is 12€, 3-course is 13.50€. Dinner is 22.50€ for 2-courses and 25€ for 3. They have photos of their dishes and they look quite delicious. It is located in the Quartier d'Aligre and the characters in the frescos on their walls also appear on their website.

Maybe what I'm really looking for is a café, not a bistrot. Le Pause Café, located near the Bastille, appears on the Guardian's Ten top Paris pavement cafes, and it says that "Ever since it featured in the cult Parisien movie, Chacun Cherche son Chat (Everyone's Looking for their Cat), the Pause Cafe has attracted a fashionable Bobo (Bourgeois Bohemian) crowd." (Neither the library nor NetFlix has the movie which is supposed to tour the quartier looking for the cat.) The Foody Froggy says Le Pause Café is her favorite in that quartier. The “plats du jour” are written each day on the blackboard and they have steak frites -- how could you go wrong? When we go to the Marché d'Aligre perhaps we can stop by and check it out.