There's this little restaurant I'd love to tell you about. Definitely the most unique place I've been to eat, ever! On Saturday we had a 21st birthday celebrate and the night started out at Refuge des Fondus. To get a feel for this place imagine a hole in the wall restaurant that is actually quite popular, you can write on the walls, and it only seats about forty people.
We mapped out our route on we need to take and set off at 7:15 pm. Excited as we were to have a reason to celebrate we put on our fanciest dresses only realize that is not how people usually ride the metro, its more of a jeans/pants/street clothes dress code. It probably didn't help our case with the French people that we got off one stop before the red light area. Needless to say we attracted lots of stares and angry looks. We weren't about to pay for a cab so we held our heads high and continued on our way. The place was easy to find but already packed! No room for six girls. Set on our goal we waited outside only to be joined by a crowd of other people with their sights set on eating lots of cheese fondue.
An hour later a large enough group cleared out that we could get in the restaurant. Our time had come there was just one little obstacle to -literally- surmount. Half of us had to climb over the table to get to the seats that were against the wall. Moments later I was on a chair and yes, over the table with the help of a waiter. This place was already an adventure!
First course was appetizers and an apertif, a little cocktail that was delicious. Fast forward a bit and we are all dipping bread in cheese fondue and cooking meat in hot oil, family style, while drinking wine out of baby bottles. There was something about avoiding taxes if alcohol is not served in a glass.
Notice the baby bottles and bowl of raw meat - it looks like red sauce!
It was a cozy atmosphere because it was one long table and we met the Australians next to us. When they staff found out we were celebrating the entire restaurant sang a boisterous round of Happy Birthday which, was the most English I've heard outside our group since coming here. We thought everything was just about as good as it could get when they asked us what we wanted for dessert! I got chocolate ice cream and it came with a white filling and rolled in cocoa. It looked like a little Hostess snowball but a chocolate ice cream version.
Yum!
