Geneva Restaurant Review: Palais du Saigon (Ferney)

This has very quickly become a favorite. An office mate introduced me and the BF to this place, oh, two weeks ago? Since we've been there twice for dinner and once for lunch.

The biggest reason why? It's cheap (for here). And still quite tasty.

First Impression: Nice looking, if quite typical, Vietnamese/Chinese restaurant. Not very big, but big enough. From the outside it's quite easy to miss. We drove by it several times before being introduced to it by someone else! They are always busy, which is a sign of it's popularity. Nice: they have their own parking lot, you don't have to look for a spot on the street. The only downside is that from where we live you have to take the car, not the bus.

Food: More than reasonably tasty. I think we've tried almost every single soup, and I like them all. They have pho, but it's not as good as in the states. Certainly hits the spot when you have a craving, though. Beef, chicken, scallops, pork and tofu dishes have all been delicious. I really loved the scallops. Portions on the main dishes are big enough to share with one other person if you get a side of rice/noodles and each get an appetizer/soup first.

Drink: Haven't tried the wine list. I always stick with H2O when it comes to Asian food. BF has had beer, Tsing Tao. He liked it.

Price: For this area, it is very, very reasonable. We're talking 20 euros a person for dinner, 10 euros a person with the lunch special! (I know my fellow Americans are probably fainting at that "cheap" dinner price, but here it is, especially for what you get.)

Interesting: They also seem to do a bustling to-go business. Will have to try that out!

Consensus: Love it! I really do like to go every week. We get to eat out without feeling guilty for blowing a ton of money.

Geneva Restaurant Review: Auberge de Satigny

Went here with my advisor and office people a few nights ago.

First Impression: Looks nice. Big dining room, can seat a lot of people. Not so much a "date" place though, come with friends. There were quite a few groups of people here and some kids running around. View of the dining room is a soccer field.

Food: Of course, la chasse is on right now. They had a menu for 43 francs or so; squash soup with foie gras for entrée, roasted wild boar with traditional chasse sides, and some kind of egg custard I believe, for dessert. I decided to take this same soup that was on the menu (12 francs), the medallion of deer with sides (34 francs) and my boyfriend and I split a sundae for dessert (9 francs). My boyfriend got salade melée and the deer, others at the table took a terrine of hare and the deer.

The food was not bad. I really enjoyed my soup, I was told the terrine was wonderful and the salad was nice as well. The deer was disappointing. It was a bit tough and the cut was too thick. It is much nicer at Le Chaumaz, where they grill it in front of you, and then take it to the kitchen and slice it into bite-size pieces before putting it on the plate. Their sauce and sides are also better. Here the sauce was a tasty pepper sauce. There were some cranberries, brussels sprouts, candied chestnuts, red cabbage and spaetzle for sides. Dessert was very good; a bowl of vanilla ice cream with chocolate and caramel sauces, meringues crumbled on top, and whipped cream. Oh, wine was nice too.

Honestly, I think it was a bit pricey, simply because the main part of the meal was not up to standards. If I had only taken the soup and dessert (or the terrine and dessert) I probably would've been extremely satisfied.

Interesting: They had a large selection of strange game: kangaroo, ostrich, springbuck, etc. But what I thought was weird is that most of the meat, including deer and lamb, was from New Zealand. I know we have both of those things in Switzerland! I also think it's strange they have so many kinds of meat, when I can tell from the way mine was done, this is not a meat place.

They also have a pizzeria here, you can get pizza in the restaurant or take it to go. From what I saw in the dining room, the pizza seemed to be a popular choice.

Consensus: I really did enjoy my soup and dessert, but I don't think I'll probably be back. The soup was one of the best I've had in a restaurant, but I've already tried it now, you know? Maybe we'll end up back someday though, because it is very close to CERN.

Geneva Restaurant Review: Kwai Foods

This is an Asian restaurant near the main train station. I'm not exactly sure which kind of Asian food it specializes in. From the menu I think it's a Thai-Chinese Fusion thing.

Verdict: I may give it one more shot, but in general I'm not inclined to go back. Nothing special, and there are a lot of other places in town.

What was eaten: Tom yom koong (hot and sour thai soup with shrimp), tom kha gai (sweet/sour coconut milk thai soup with chciken), duck in red curry sauce, beef in panang curry.

The tom kha was tasty, the tom yom wasn't as good. A little bit of soy sauce made it better. The beef in the panang was really nice, but the curry itself was absolutely nothing special. I didn't like the duck, as for me duck is only good with a crispy skin. The red curry and panang curry sauce tasted identical. The best part of the meal for me was the lightly pickled cabbage salad that is served with the main dishes.

Price: Just under 50 CHF, not including beverages. About as cheap as you can do it in this town, but I like certain kebab places, like L'Etoile de Beyrouth, better for that price.

The one reason I may go back? The table next to us got a really good looking plate of fried noodles with chicken just as we were leaving. I may have to try that.

If you live in this area, you may be familiar with Mike Wong. This place is a similar quality, and price. If you want to sit and eat, the atmosphere is nicer here, but if you want to go I think Mike's has a larger menu, maybe.

Geneva Restaurant Review: Cafe de Paris

Cafe de Paris is a Geneva institution, absolutely famous for it's sauce, which many people love. We decided to go there last night, because after being here a long time we hadn't actually tried it yet.

Service: Not great, even by Geneva standards. Not bad either, but definitely nothing remarkable.

Wine: We had a Gamay de Geneve. I don't know any more about it as it was served in a pichet, not in a bottle, but I'm sorry I didn't ask to see the bottle because it was a very nice wine! For 50 cL we paid 16.50 CHF, which I thought was a pretty good price considering how much I enjoyed it.

Dinner: This began with a green salad. The greens were nice, not limp and lifeless like in some places (although I encounter yummy salad greens more often here than in American restaurants, anyway). The dressing was not like the typical French-restaurant-dressing, which is kind of creamy in consistency and very mustardy tasting. This was much more like an oil and vinegar kind of dressing. I liked it. The bread they brought us was normal, rolls that were crisp on the outside, soft inside. They were served at room temperature. Next came the entrecote. We had both ordered it cooked saignant (rare) as we do at all restaurants. When it came it was instead quite bleu. It was served on a heated trivet, sitting on top of the famous sauce, and we were given plates of frites. Before trying the meat, I first dipped a little bread in the sauce, really excited to try it. Hm, I thought. It tasted strange. Right away, I remembered the first bite I took of the brownies that I made a year ago, inadvertently with butter that had gone rancid. Yes, that's right, I thought that the renowned sauce tasted like it was made with rancid butter. That can't be right, I thought. It must be some weirdness, I'll try it with the meat and the fries instead and then it will taste like it's supposed to. I tried it with the (very undercooked, and just a little tough) meat and the fries. Still tasted rancid to me.

It wasn't just me. I asked my BF how he liked it, and his response was, "It's ... interesting." We both agreed we didn't like it. I am hoping that that isn't how it's supposed to taste. He said that he didn't think it tasted like the butter had gone bad, that it was probably just some strange ingredient we didn't like, but I don't think he's every tasted butter like that before. I certainly hadn't until the brownie incident.

Additionally, the sauce was VERY salty, and had a little bit of a fishy taste, but not in a pleasant way. I consider "a pleasant way" to be as in the subtle taste of anchovies in a nice Caesar salad dressing.

The fries were quite standard. They give you more if you still have meat left but have finished your first portion.

The whole salad + fries + steak combo is 41 francs. I would say it's about 200 grams of meat per person.

We declined to take dessert. They were pricey. 10 francs for a coupe of fresh raspberries. Ice cream more expensive than you can get at Movenpick two blocks away. The people next to us got creme brulee and it looked pretty normal, nothing special.

Overall impression: Very disappointing! I will not go back. The salad and the wine were quite enjoyable, but the steak and sauce, just bad. I can understand they undercook it because it "cooks" some more on the hot trivet, but then you just end up with raw on top and well-done on bottom. If you want steak frites in the Geneva area, much, MUCH better to visit Cafe de l'Aviation in Vernier. Their sauce is spectacular (if also a little salty). It's served on a plate, and so it stays at just the "doneness" it's supposed to. There they give you endless refills on frites AND sauce. And the price is the same or cheaper. They also have excellent wine!

Celery and Apple Salad

We had this tonight with boiled potatoes and baked trout. (I'm trying to eat less meat, but it's mostly for health reasons, and fish are pretty good for you.) It's an attempt of mine to make a salad similar to one from the CERN cafeteria. The food there can be highly questionable, but some of it is surprisingly tasty.

Celery and Apple Salad

Ingredients:

Dressing:
2 T nice mayonnaise
2 t nice mustard (I used a mild Dijon)
1 T apple cider vinegar
Squeeze of lemon juice
1 small bunch mint, chopped
1 T dried parsley

1 small apple, cored, quartered and sliced thinly
1/4 c cashew halves & wholes, crumbled
2 ribs of celery, chopped
4-5 cups lettuce, chopped
Salt and Pepper to taste

Method:

In a salad bowl, mix the ingredients for dressing together well. Add the celery, apples and cashews. Mix well, season with salt and pepper. Add lettuce, and toss before serving.

Serving Suggestion and Notes: It had nice, understated flavors. Really springtime-like. I think the kind of mayo you use is important, and mustard too. We get insanely wonderful ones here, nothing like the mayo I remember in the States. Actually, I never ate mayo when I lived in the States, because I didn't like it. This recipe makes enough for about 5 side salad portions, or 3 large meal-type portions.

Becoming Too Carnivorous

We've been eating a LOT of meat lately, I noticed. I guess it's because it's winter time and there isn't much variety of produce around, but I've decided I should take that as a challenge and try to get back into a more or less vegetarian lifestyle.

I like being semi-vegetarian for health and ethical reasons. Ethically, I don't believe that a meat based or meat-heavy diet is sustainable, and I don't believe that animals can be treated with dignity in a society that practices factory farming. From a health perspective, I just feel better when I don't eat a lot of meat.

I also want to start cooking more Indian food, and learn how to cook things that my grandmother used to. My mom cooked several Indian dishes regularly when I was growing up, but the major source of the variety in the Indian food we ate was my grandmother. She's gone now, but I hope I can rediscover some of the things she used to make.

Last night we went to an Indian restaurant right next to CERN. It was awful. My boyfriend thought it was "ok," but I was only willing to call it "edible" and even that was just because I was hungry. It was also grossly overpriced. I knew I could make better at home, so I'm going to start trying.

There's a Russian restaurant we've heard about in Geneva that's also extremely overpriced, but they have a cheaper lunch time buffet. We're going to try that out, and I'm really curious if my boyfriend will think it's bad, and if I'll think it's good.

Tonight I let him bring kebabs from the local Turkish restaurant. By "let" I mean I let him bring one for me, too, he's of course free to eat whatever he wants. Now I feel awful; too stuffed and guilty. We were at CERN working late, and I was lazy at the thought of cooking, and unhappy at the idea of eating the cafeteria's food. I think I'll post about the CERN cafeteria later, I'm sure that some people may be curious to know how the physicists at arguably the world's most famous lab eat.

I'm finding it really difficult to eat healthily; I don't know if it's the season. I feel like I should have found some sort of healthy-eating-routine by now, like I was able to find the last time I moved. But it's been almost a year, and I still haven't found a groove that works.