One of the most fabulous things to do in Paris is eat. Equal in pleasure to drinking wine by the Seine, glimpses of Notre Dame, views of Paris from the Sacre Coeur and picnics in the grass beside the Eiffel Tower, eating a good meal tucked away in a fabulous Parisian eatery is, in itself, worth the trip.
Some of my best memories of eating are set in Paris. There’s a little restaurant tucked away in the Marais, le 3eme, called Camille. It’s on rue des Francs Bourgeois and serves traditional French food – fabulous escargot (snails) with garlic and basil. There’s Cafe Renard, in jardin des Tulleries, which serves a deliciously melted onion soup gratinee.
But nothing beats Le Cambodge, a restaurant in the 10eme Gard du Nord district. On a tiny three-day trip to Paris, I had the great pleasure of dining there with two close friends. With lines around the block almost nightly, this great Cambodian eatery seats at 7 pm, and if you don’t get a table then, it’s likely you’re out of luck for dinner that night unless someone gets off their table by 9 pm.
We got to the restaurant at 6:30 pm and waited patiently – with a crowd of around 20 others – for those clients who might be generous enough not to spend the entire night snacking on the fabulous pork spring rolls or tasting dishes of ginger fish, hoping they would leave by 8:30 pm, allowing a second group to be seated at 9 pm.
The restaurant is run by a Cambodian-French family and has been in operation for ten years. A number of celebrities have dined there and the restaurant has become rather popular – while still retaining its initial "no reservations" policy and only adding more delicious Cambodian dishes to its already plentiful menu.
