Paris

In the words of Nester, stay safe.

What kind of stuff are you looking for? French food, any food ?

If you want some beer you can try one of the 2 bars 'place de clichy', the Carolus and the one next to it, they have an extensive choice and are usualy open all night. You've got an irish pub very close the corcoran or something when headed toward barbes.

If you want to eat for cheap you've got the Paris Istanbul kebab, it's a good one.

Not too far rue Damremont you have a good Italian restaurant 'pulcinella' or a couscous 'la gazelle'.

All those are at a walking distance from Montmartre which offer a very nice view on the city, just don't eat there it's only tourists scam.

If you feel like eating chinese just head South near the galeries de la fayette and look for those restaurants full of chinese tourists, they actualy serve decent chinese food( rue de Budapest or rue de Provence)

6 rue Blondel you'll find a cheap and usualy good african restaurant (these are a bit random) but it's worth a try if you don't know african food

For a Burger i'd advise to wait to be back in the US but if you have an urge you can try Tata Burger near the hôtel de ville

If you want to eat french food, it's trickier as it is usualy expansive.
You can try Flam's, which is an all you can eat 'pizza' from Alsace (flamekuche)
The restaurants Vin & Marées are good if you like seafood (Boulevard Murat or another one) (about 30€ each)

'La taverne de maître kanter' has a decent sauerkraut, could be ok for a cold day

Almost all the french food restaurant serving meals for less than 25€ are microwaving industrial meals, so avoid them if you don't know where you are going.

If you want to eat some real nice french food it's not too hard but expect at least 50€ for a meal with wine. There are plenty of them. I liked the W of the hôtel Warwick for example.

grabbing a baguette at a bakery is heaven, they put crack in it or something they are all fantastic. and yeah, the street gyros and stuff are amazing
the roof of Gallery Lafayette is an amazing "secret" hangout spot, great place to get views of Paris for free. Its a big french dept store, like Saks 5th Ave

my wife did a ton of research for our 15th anniversary trip there a few years ago, while I still hate the goddamn french and paris in general she picked up a lot of cool places from this I think (at least this was in the email she sent me and told me to look at)
The Ultimate Parisian Guide To Paris

i enjoyed nice and that one cathedral thats out in the fucking ocean, that was pretty awesome

You can find some interesting beer in Clichy's Tavern and the Carolus that I mentionned, bottled beer from every country, and some draught beer that are diffcult to find elsewhere, especialy belgium beer, like Maredsous draught ; Chimay draught, you can find a lot of good belgium bottled beer as well (Rochefort, Orval, Westmalle, etc.. only the Westvleteren is not avaible) and it's at a walking distance from the 8th arr.
Can't help you with the wine bars, as I'd much rather buy the bottles myself... for the price of a glass

As for dressing up, except the W that I mentionned, all the others you can go in flip-flops and short just fine. There aren't that many places where you need to dress up.

I'll add a couple of good asian food restaurant :
"Chez Sanki" , 38 avenue Edouard-Vaillant 92100 Boulogne-Billancourt (metro L9, porte de Saint Cloud) it's a real japanese restaurant in which you'll find real japanese customers, the food is great but it's worth going there rather than going in a random sushi restaurant that will likely be held by chinese serving crappy stuff. (~30€ a meal)

"Thai Yim 1" 74 Rue caillaux, real Thai chef, tiny restaurant but decent thai food

"Pho 13" 135 Avenue ce Choisy (don't go at pho 14 in the corner) it's a decent vietnamese restaurant, with an ok pho (saigon-like) and the rest of the food is quite decent as well.


As for Lyon, I don't like it very much, it's like Paris but much smaller. And it's annoyingly hot with little air in summer , so I'd avoid it at this time of the year anyway. It's better in winter with the snow if you're sightseeing !

You're not lucky it's insanely hot for the end of august, it's like 15°C over the usual :/ I just came back yesterday from Vietnam/Korea, and Paris feels actually hotter... something's wrong.

Did you find satisfiying beer at the Clichy's Tavern ?

Go to cozys cadet and look for picasso was here on the beam.

Cad said:

Going to Paris in May to do the usual tourist stuff, advisable to stay near the Louvre? Assuming most of the touristy stuff I'll do is near there.

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Depending on your budget, if you don't mind 300USD per night you can probably find a good one near the Louvre. I like the "Terrass Hotel" (Terrass'' Hotel by MH - Paris - TripAdvisor) it's near Montmartre which is a nice area to spend the evening (Montmartre, Rue des Martyrs, the Moulin Rouge, place de Clichy) and you're at a walking distance from the opera, the Louvre is a bit far, about 30 mn walk but there's the bus 95 just down the hotel which goes there in 10 minutes.

go to the Crazy Horse

Cad said:

Going to Paris in May to do the usual tourist stuff, advisable to stay near the Louvre? Assuming most of the touristy stuff I'll do is near there.

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The Westminster is nice and reasonable

There is a fun pub with decent burgers right outside of the hotel but you can walk to tons of restaurants or Uber it to other districts.

If you feel like upgrading, you can go down the street, I think the ritz is open again and even if you don't stay there you can have some drinks at the bar (which is famous; re:expatriates)

Side note Charles de Gaulle sucks ass

Good choice, if you don't mind the bill !