Life for a vegetarian in France can sometimes be rough. Luckily, there's more to Parisian cuisine than meaty, fatty traditional French staples. For example, Paris boasts a large population of Lebanese residents, and hence, some deliciously authentic Lebanese cuisine!
We had asked our CUPA methodology (who is Lebanese) where he gets his fix, and recommended Au Taverne du Nil on the Île-St-Louis (home of Notre Dame cathedral, too!). Despite the somewhat confusing name (the Nile is not, nor has it ever been in Lebanon), the restaurant delivered on its promise to be the "Best Lebanese Dining in Paris" (or so proclaimed many positive reviews on various Yelp-like sites).
I had never had Lebanese food before (or at least not explicitly titled as such), but I found the menu to be very Mediterranean: many items would just have easily been found on a menu at a Greek or Israeli restaurant. But hey, no complaints here!
Instead of troubling ourselves over the many, many appealing options on the menu, we asked our server to bring us what he thought was best. The assortment of entrées (remember, this is France, where "entrée" refers to the first course - not the main course!) all happened to be vegetarian, so I really got to enjoy myself!
Pictured here (clockwise from front left) : tabouleh, moussaka, hummus, baba ganoush,and stuffed grape leaves.
Not pictured: warm fava beans [they arrived a bit later]
After scarfing down this spread, it took all my willpower to resist digging into my vegetarian plate, which arrived well in advance of the meaty platter the table's omnivores had ordered.
Green beans, another eggplant-y thing, more baba ganoush, more hummus, a spinakopita-type thing, another savory cheese pastry, and a falafel ball sitting on tahini in the middle!
As we finished eating, a belly-dancer jumped out and eventually coaxed two of our group to get up and dance with her. Not me - I was too full of delicious food to even consider ruining it by attempting to gyrate in any way!
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