Bains des Paquis

I also thought a word might be in order about the food at Bains des Paquis, since we've both eaten lunch and dinner there at this point. For those who don't know, Bains des Paquis is a long pier stretching out into the lake (it costs 2CHF to enter during the day) on which are a couple of rocky beaches, a Turkish bath, a ping pong table, some diving platforms, and a small restaurant (supposedly, we're told, manned by recovering drug addicts). It's an absolutely wonderful place to go people watching and toe dabbling. It closes around 9:30PM, we also learned last night, when the watchman kicked us out from where we were sitting watching the light reflect off the Jet d'Eau.

But the food. They have a limited set of options -- there's always a plat du jour, both for lunch and dinner. And there are also a set of salads and cold plates (e.g. meats). For lunch, we had one of the salads, which was pretty good. A mix of vegetables under a tzatsiki dressing of some sort. My only complaint was that since we didn't have a tray (or because the person behind the counter didn't like my look) we didn't get bread (and everyone else did). Those of you who know me will know how ireful that would make me!

For dinner the other night, we tried the plat du jour. And it too was pretty good. It was lamb "hache" -- meaning ground -- and on a stick. But the lamb, which was a little mealy, was the least interesting or tasty part of the plate. There was also a Jura-sized mountain of couscous, which was good, and a cold eggplant salad, which was better. And perhaps best, there were two tranches of good, crusty bread, which I had made sure to request.

I'll update further once we've had occasion to sample other plats du jour, but for now, let me just say that you come for the views and to be on the water, but the food doesn't drive you away.