Asian - Paris

This is classic. Not so long ago we visited our wonderful city of Paris (we lived here for a short period) and were asking our concierge at the Artus Hotel about this place cuz we couldn't remember the name of it!! No lie, "We're looking for the name of that cool Asian restaurant across from the George V Hotel". Uhhhh, maybe Asian?! Damn, fools we are.  We used to go here all the time when we lived here. It's got to be at least a decade old which says a bunch for a restaurant's life in Paris.

In the 'first impressions count' category, super hotties (both women and men, ladies and gents...or gents and ladies...whatever) greet you at the front door and escort you downstairs to the spacious, dark, attractive restaurant area. Odd, they have a "smoking" area and "non smoking" area with no partition. Hmmm. How does that work, again? BTW, we hear the Frenchies are picketing in the streets as we speak against a No-smoking ban that's supposed to take affect Jan 1. Hey, if it can happen in London it can happen anywhere!

This place has a super great layout. You walk through this uber cool bar area with an Asian jungle-like feel with palm trees and cool hidden nooks to hang. You need to walk through the bar to get downstairs to the restaurant, brilliant design. A bit cheesola? You can buy t-shirts at the bar...oh well. No, we didn't buy any. And I take offense to the question!

Everytime we've been there, the food comes out in record time...this time before the drinks which was weird...did they use some bizarre ESP to know what we wanted? Almost too fast, but we're not gonna whine. Very good spring rolls and some really amazing miso black cod. So tender you could eat it with a spoon. Seriously can't remember what else we had, but we licked the plate clean. Side note: They also serve up some great looking sushi, but it wasn't a sushi nite for 'ol J&J.

After din din go upstairs and people watch at the bar, and sip a $20 drink (I mean, SIP). One thing, it won't get going until at least midnight. Oh and if it's the one man show, he does some great Neil Diamond covers, yikes. That guy is definitely getting some cougar action!

Bottom line, the food has always been a solid 7 1/2, and along with the atmosphere, great service and hot employees, pushes it to an 8 1/2!

Asian
30 Avenue George V
75008 Paris
01 56 89 11 00