Do Nots

What we do not do at The Bistrot!

We do not spell "Bistrot" without a "t".

In French the correct way to spell it is with a "t" as it is originally a word from Russian (vistrot--meaning quick) adopted during the Russian occupation of Paris at the end of the Napoleonic wars. When pronounced in French, the "t" is silent, while in English it would be pronounced, hence its deletion by Anglophonic cultures.

We do not serve wine, beer, or alcohol.

We are a BYOB and encourage you to bring your own. For this we charge a corkage fee. The first bottle we charge $5 and then two or more are just a total of $10. This covers our cost of glassware and its washing.

We do not serve butter with bread, or oil with herbs.

Real French bistrots, not touristy ones, never serve butter with bread, or herbed up olive oil. Of course, exceptions can be found in northern France or in Paris or on the Riviera (and of course the tourist haunts of Italy). So, don not be offended if we refuse to serve it to you, if as a customer, you demand to have it.

We do not serve cheese as an appetizer.

This American habit developed after Prohibition with cheese served at wine tastings so imbibers would not become so drunk with nothing in their stomachs.

We do not cook meat well done that should be rare or medium rare.

We will not ruin a steak or chop that should only be cooked to rare or medium rare because a guest either does not like to see blood or meat that hints it was alive or because many mothers of the world cooked everything to death (to be on the safe side and damn gastronomy). We will not destroy a dish to please. We allow each person to do that at home at their leisure.

We do not flip our tables.

Your table is your table for the duration of the service. Hence a more desirable table might not be available all night.

We do not like our provencal napkins put in a dirty plate.

If catch you doing this, we will serve you afterwards with a paper napkin, which you can then gleefully crumple in your finished plate.

We do not make our ratatouille with excess tomatoes.

Anglo-American ratatouille is notorious for using lots of tomatoes in its making. We just use a hint of tomato, which is the real southern French recipe. It may be served cold, warm (the first way I had it), or baked with cheese (takes 15 minutes, though).

We do not use garlic in our snails in shells.

Burgundian snails use just parsley and butter to cook snails in their shells. The Italianate cuisine of the international hotel schools put garlic in them, which dominates a flavor that should be more subtle.

We do not have or use a microwave.

The beeping you might hear comes from the timers ringing of our convection or small electric ovens.

We do not use adjectives for adverbs.

If asked how we are, we use an adverb but never say "good."

The Metro Bistrot