the Restaurant Sansot attached
to it, which is quite good.
The Restaurant de Paris, situated on the lovely Promenade des Allees de
Tourny, is a first-class establishment with very moderate prices, where
a capital _dejeuner_ can be obtained for 2 francs 50 centimes, or a
dinner for 3 francs. The proprietor, Mons. Debreuil, was _chef_ at some
of the best cafes in Paris, and he has a _clientele_ of many well-known
epicures in Bordeaux.
All these restaurants have saloons for private parties in case you
require them.
The principal _specialite_ of Bordeaux, besides claret, is lampreys,
which, when cooked _a la Bordelaise_, are about as rich and luscious a
dish as a most ardent candidate for a bilious attack can desire. If you
are there in the autumn, don't forget to order _Cepes a la Bordelaise_.
To the above of my worthy _confrere_, I would only add that the Chapon
Fin is a winter garden, somewhat resembling the Champeaux Restaurant in
Paris; there are rockeries and ferns, and a great tree-trunk runs up to
the roof, the foliage and branches being no doubt outside. A speciality
is the _Potage Chapon Fin_, a vegetable soup which is excellent. The
restaurant of the Bayonne is in a great conservatory. Judging from the
few meals I have eaten at each, I should class the Chapon Fin and the
Bayonne as being equal in cookery. The first floor of the Cafe de
Bordeaux is now decorated with mirrors and white walls, after the
manner of the _chic_ Parisian restaurants, but the Englishman who wishes
to drink whisky and soda there--an unholy taste in a wine country--and
who demands a special brand and Schweppe's soda, should ask how much he
is going to be charged for it before he commits himself.
Arcachon
Of cooking at Arcachon there is nothing in particular to be said. The
place has a celebrity for its oyster-beds, and a great number of the
oysters we eat in England have been transplanted from the bay at
Arcachon to the beds in British waters.
Biarritz
The average of cookery in the hotels at Biarritz is very good, for the
competition is very keen, and as money is spent by the handful in this
town on the bay where the Atlantic rolls in its breakers, any hotel
which did not provide two excellent _table-d'hote_ meals would very soon
be out of the running. In the basement of the building in which is the
big Casino, "Mons. Boulant's Casino," as the natives call it, is a
restaurant where a _table-d'hote_ lunch and dinner are
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