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Dining Out and About: Chinese in Paris
By Ann | November 25, 2008
It’s no secret that most Chinese food in the City of Light, well, sucks.
Why? We’re not sure. Lack of interest among Parisians? Fear of spice? Influx of immigrants from areas of China not generally known for their cuisine (like Wenzhou)? Who knows?
But after some months of investigation, we are thrilled to report that we have discovered not one, but two Chinese restaurants worthy of the Cooking the Books stamp of approval.
First, Délices de Shandong (photo top and above), whose owners hail from Shandong Province’s city of Qingdao, aka Tsingtao, the home of China’s famous beer. They serve northern Chinese fare: lots of winter vegetables like cabbage or potatoes stir-fried with garlic and vinegar, big balls of steamed bread called mantou, savory pan-fried noodles, a cold dish of celery and boiled peanuts.
But the main draw here are the boiled dumplings (jiaozi), filled with pork and cabbage, or Chinese chives (jiu cai) and egg. They arrive hot, steamy and succulent, ready to be dipped into dark vinegar. At 8€ for 20 dumplings, they’re also quite a bargain.
UPDATE (May 31, 2010): I’ve eaten twice at Délices de Shandong in the past six months and can no longer recommend it in good conscience. The quality of the meat in the pork dumplings has deteroriated. And I kept tasting something faintly fishy in the vegetarian dumplings. Finally, I asked — it’s xia pi, those teeny-tiny dried shrimp, which, I think, are used in Qingdao cuisine. One of my least favorite flavors! Blech!
Restaurant number two, Likafo, offers food from China’s opposite end — Guangdong, aka Canton, in the south. (Side note: Thanks to my comrades at Chowhound for this restaurant tip!) The shrimp wonton soup (soupe de raviolis aux crevettes, 7.50€, photo above) comes crowded with 10 huge wontons, each stuffed with tender chopped shrimp and seasoned with a judicious burst of pepper.
This dish (photo above) may be the zenith of our Parisian Chinese food experiences to date: chow fun rice noodles with beef and black bean sauce (pâtes de riz sautées de boeuf et grains de soja, 8€). Tender, flat rice noodles coated with a copious sauce — salty, slightly spicy with a haunting smoky, seasoned wok flavor.
The weakest link: mapo doufu (tofus sautés au porc haché épices, 9€). And I should have known better to order a Sichuanese dish in a Cantonese restaurant.
Délices de Shandong
88 Boulevard de l’Hôpital, 13ème
Tel: 01 45 87 23 37
Closed: Wednesdays
Likafo
39 Avenue de Choisy, 13ème
Tel: 01 45 84 20 59
Topics: Dining Out and About |
5 Responses to “Dining Out and About: Chinese in Paris”
Comments
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November 25th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
These pictures made my mouth water! And this on top of very bad Chinese food I just had in DC! Can you mail some over?
November 25th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
8 Euros sounds like a lot for dumplings. 8 Kuai is more like it!!!
December 2nd, 2008 at 11:35 am
While the search for mapo doufu continues, the wonton soup here truly satisfied — this will be a winter mainstay for me and CtB. Plus there appeared to be all kinds of tempting dim sum for us to try! Long live Cantonese food!
December 8th, 2008 at 2:26 am
haha, lovely, congrats on the discovery of the TWO Chinese restaurants, Ann!
April 18th, 2010 at 2:27 pm
We’ve wondered about this too, and thought that economics could also be a factor. Perhaps the Chinese immigrant community in Paris doesn’t have sufficient disposable income to support a truly vibrant restaurant scene.