Thanks, maybe I’ll stick with this one.
It’s been my favorite restaurant for many years. They keep good computer records. Each visit (with lengthy gaps in between) they greet me by name. Great food, amazing mojitos, and yes Charles, those seafood towers are still there.
Dis donc ! C’est the L’il Pea ! So glad to see you on HungOn. I shall practice bending over, getting ready to be spanked often again.
And a reincarnation will do just fine. Does the screen-name mean you are writing a book on Chilean wines ?
You seem to have disappeared from Food&Sens. If there are any scandalous details, please share. 
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Re blue footed chicken. It’s a very expensive bird. The last time I bought it (for my grandmother to cook… and my choice was criticized because the skin wasn’t thick enough) it was 30€ retail. The other day I saw it on sale for 50€. Ouch.
So a restaurant price of around 120€ is not outrageous. But I have never seen it on the ever-changing menu of L’Ami Jean.
It’s perhaps a good illustration of how in France a chicken is not a chicken is not a chicken… unlike many other parts of the world.
“Loathing” ?! A bit of an exaggeration, no ? I think the problem on Chowhound was when someone had very Tripadvisor-type places on their to-do list, and I and others would suggest “less touristy” and better restos as alternatives. It was a food site, after all. Sometimes these suggestions ruffled feathers and were interpreted as anti-tourist sentiments or as an assault on the poster’s tastes and preferences. As I said on Chowhound, please try to resist the tendency to personalize absolutely everything.
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I equate “tourist trap” with “piège à touristes” which l’Ami Jean certainly is not. Even attrape-touristes doesn’t apply because it is almost always used as a pejorative as well.
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Hi Parn! Glad to find you here as well, and no need to bend over and risk hurting your back, I promise!
I thought of carménère as a Bordeaux grape variety, although it is true it is quite successful in Chile.
As for Food&Sens, there are hugely scandalous details indeed, but I won’t share them publicly (sorry!).
I certainly agree with the spirit behind this statement. However, I actually make it a point to make recommendations that reflect the OP’s projected want and need. Sometimes a better tourist-popular restaurant is exactly what the person is looking for without admitting it. You have to read between the lines of requests.
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That video is L’ami Louis not L’ami Jean. Louis has a horrendous reputation.
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The USD 120 price was for a single dish though. Looking at the video, I think the lady who ordered it got a large piece of breast with the tiny drum-let only. So, quarter chicken for USD 120 is pretty steep by North American standard.
Oh! You are RIGHT!! MY BAD!! SORRY!
$120/ 110€ is the price for a whole chicken at over-rated l’Ami Louis. Quarters, etc are not available. The video only showed the carved portions. Not sure why a table for two would order a whole chicken. But doggy bags are available.
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Also, how a tourist or traveller thinks of themselves or their quests can be different from the way they and their quests come across to a local or repeat/frequent visitor.
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Not personalising. It’s more the notion of “tourist” and the way it serves as a pejorative that I find fascinating.
Some travellers grant themselves a higher status than ‘tourists’ when their travelling aims to a certain quest, like digging out fossils, exploring Romanesque churches in a given subregion or discovering the best restaurants. I think it all starts from there and it’s all in the eye of the beholder. I can be a tourist in my own country if I decide to trek up the Vallée des Merveilles (which I’d love to do) or rent a vacation house in Oléron (not bad either). Even if I decide to visit the Sainte-Chapelle or climb up the Eiffel Tower (which very few Parisians ever do). Thus you can hear people sitting at Chez l’Ami Jean, for instance, claiming that they wouldn’t be caught dead in a touristy place (okay Parn, Chez l’Ami Jean is not a tourist trap, you’re right, but it sure is touristy. On a scale of seriously suffering tourist-dependent restaurants in the early stages of covid, it was probably at the top.) Sometimes I also hear the same type of people indignantly reporting that ‘they sat us near the pass, with the tourists!’ and I just want to answer them: well, that’s exactly what you are! This doesn’t mean that I condone that sort of practice, however I would like to stress that the geographical hierarchy of restaurant dining rooms is far more important to foreigners, especially from the US, than it is to natives.
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Carmenere: “…Tourist trap means: a place that attracts tourists and ends up being full of them. That applies to good, average or bad restaurants. That’s my definition, other people may have a different one”.
Well, I have to disagree with you there. If your definition is correct, why would it be a “trap”? The addition of that word is meant to be a warning and, at home in NYC, I’d never refer someone to a place that’s considered a “tourist trap”. And, over several trips to Paris, I have always heeded advice to not go to some places (like L’Ami Louis) that specialize in trapping tourists.
However, “touristy” (ie; full of tourists) is okay. As pilgrim said upthread, sometimes folks might want to be amongst folks like themselves or around others who are experiencing something different from their norm. Like a shared novel experience when the big bowl of rice pudding comes out of Chef Jego’s kitchen.
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I think of Balthazar in NYC as a type of tourist trap with good food. Also Katz’s. Locals go there, but they’re also the Can’t Miss restaurants that tourists flock to.
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Speaking of lemmings, the mindless ritual of queuing up for “the best falafel” in Paris at l’As du Fallafel in the Marais mystifies me. I haven’t been to every falafel joint in Paris but enough to know that there are a dozen other falafel places that are as good or better. I even prefer Mi-Va-Mi (almost no queue, falafel better suited to my tastes, usually much more personable service) just across the street from L’As du Fallafel or to avoid the Fishermen’s Wharf-like scene on rue des Rosiers altogether. Paris has lots of other very good places for falafel.
Often, people (I’m avoiding the word “tourist”) who have never had falafel any where else proclaim L’As du Fallafel as the best falafel in Paris. Crazy.
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Cachet is the secret ingredient. The food really can taste better to some when eating/drinking the distinguished label. And, having to wait on lines (or fight thru reservation scarcity) serve to prove the worth. Of course, I’m being overly sarcastic (how unusual) but, if you were ever on the CH boards in NYC/Outer Boroughs years ago, you would’ve found almost your exact comment, but about pizza. Or bagels. And, maybe even falafel.
By the way, I miss Jo Goldenberg’s.
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A problem in discussing lemmings and tourist traps is that visitors come in a normal curve distribution, from those who have studied the culture and language for years to those who merely hop a plane with a passport. Any culture presents a minefield of different expectations on the part of both visitor and host. And some of us come with weeks and months to adapt while others may only have 48 hours exposure. For the latter, it is inconceivable that they would re-invent the wheel in choosing sites and restaurants. Go to the Louvre and see the big 3, and stand in line at l’As. Plus, when you return home your friends will be familiar with your experiences, as opposed to telling them about an obscure exhibit and unknown restaurant.
Much lemming behavior is simply about saving time. Perhaps more important, not everyone is comfortable doing research and forming one’s own judgment. Standing in a lemming line is, for some, another form of vetting.
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