When I saw the headline, I just had to read-on… only to find that in UK… they obviously have difficulty differentiating between a Restaurant and a Fast-Food Eatery.
Tuesday, had us eating at a local resto… Menu of the Day: soup, crudités (raw vegetables+hardboiled egg), braised ox-tongue and green beans, cheese, fresh fruit salad… not overdoing the calories there… just delicious, good food. 
This is my idea of a restaurant…it serves locally sourced food wherever possible, uses fresh produce, the menu is changed every day. The food is excellent and so is the reputation!
If ever you travel to, or through this area then a visit will leave you exclaiming with pleasure, not only at the wonderful food and friendly service but also at the astonishg price of only 13.50 for a 4 course meal at lunchtime with wine included!
It depends on the occasion.
Our local restaurant has four choices for each course at midi. It has two rooms, one for the workmen and another for others.
We all eat the same food, the portions are generous and it is excellent value for money.
If you are going to do manual work afterwards I would think it is fine, but maybe choose carefully if you are retired.
Fine dining restaurants give such small portions that you never feel too full afterwards, even if you have gone through six courses.
I wonder if the UK are classing Fast-Food places/Pubs etc, where you can eat sitting-down… as Restaurants… ooops 
If I go to a restaurant I don’t count the calories. I’m a small eater anyway and can barely manage two courses. Obviously the wine with a French meal would push up the calories but I think French portions tend to be more sensible.
I doubt if many restaurant meals are 600 calories or less.
In the US most restaurant menus now put the calorie totals for each item, one place we went to last week had a dessert with 2710 calories!
Served warm with vanilla ice cream, hot fudge sauce.
2710 cal
Have they got around to actually showing the price on menus or is it still a vague figure that will be inflated when tax and the non optional tip is added?
Prices are on the menus before sales tax so you have to think about that and then tips are additional 15/18% on top. Eating out in the US can be expensive but if you eat at lunchtime, before 6pm or have one of the daily ‘specials’ then it’s good value. We went to one bar/restaurant at 5.30 and had their daily special of 6 mini bbq chicken baps (sliders), sweet potato fries, coleslaw and rice and beans all washed down with a pint of local craft beer, total cost including tip was $19(17E).
When my nephew got married in L.A. we visited the Cheesecake Factory, as well as adding 18% on the bill it was suggested we could add more for particularly good service. Seriously, they would have to feed me and play my favourite music for any extra.
The US really does need to wake up when it comes to tipping - pay the waiting staff a fair wage and scrap expectations of tips.
More importantly however don’t bring the generous tipping culture to France - it is not needed and if US people start it will be the thin end of the wedge.
A tale of two Thursdays, last week in Soho four of us had lunch at Andrew Edmunds a well known london eating house, total cost for three course and wine plus service charge came to £260, yes it was very good but very very noisy , today just got back from our local eatery five course menu jour plus wine for two of us cost €38.
How nice it is to be back HOME.
Thanks, Stella, very informative. I do find that Restuarants in France do have healthier menus!
I imagine that the cost of running a restaurant in central Lobdon could just be a tad higher than rural France.
Thta’s true, but if that’s the case, why are restaurants in rural England so expensive? Or not so rural England?
Most rural restaurants in UK have more staff than in France.
Business rates in UK are very high.
Michael did say that it was the menu de jour, which always attracts a lot of custom because of the subsidised workmen who make up the majority of the clientele.
Jane… I’ve noticed a Menu du Jour in restaurants all over France… so I guess, you mean the MdJ is aimed at office/shop staff in town… and workmen in the countryside… but that will be so in UK surely… ???
A few years ago my son’s girlfriend had an 18th birthday meal with her father and some family friends in the OXO building by the Thames. During the course of the evening at least two bottles of wine with price tags of over £700 each were bought. My son was horrified. Those prices had nothing to do with rents or actual value, it was just clever marketing, they knew that they attracted the type of customer who are out to impress. Those who know the price of everything and the cost of nothing?
That son has always has a sense of reality. When he was training to be an architect he asked if we could go to Barcelona so that he could visit Gaudi’s buildings. I drove down with him and his brother and camped near the coast. We took a coach trip into the city centre and had an intense, hot day of sightseeing. I could tell that my younger son who is not so interested in art and architecture was flagging and when we were looking through a window high up in the Sagrada Familia I noticed a Barcelona FC fan shop and decided to head there for some light relief. Having cheered up my younger son I asked the other one if he would like to get a Barcelona shirt. He said no, they were not worth the money.
He will be in football heaven this season. He has always been interested in Borussia Dortmund since, when he was a toddler, he was given an outgrown shirt by some neighbours. As time went on he became more of a Borussia Mönchengladbach supported and even now travels there occasionally to watch them play. At this moment Dortmund are nine points clear at the top of the Bundesliga and MG a comfortable second.
Do I get today’s prize for going off topic?
I’m booked in to eat in one of my favourite restaurants next week where I know that I will enjoy multiple courses of food that is way beyond anything that I could produce at home. I will enjoy it while making the most of the log fire to one side and the views of the chateau across the lawn on the other side. I certainly won’t be asking how many calories have been consumed.
Off-original-topic but in-step with David… I recently asked our daughter if she still had the Miami Dolphins sweatshirt we had bought for her when she was about 10.
It had cost a small fortune (as far as we were concerned)…but she had set her heart on it and had even offered to pay us back in instalments… if Santa did manage to get it down the chimney…
anyway… the answer is Yes… she still has it… and still wears it… it was oversized back then, so still fits her… and NO… her 10 year old son is not allowed to wear it… she treasures it still… 
I still have my first Tottenham Hotspur shirt, although I did buy it when I was 29! 
There were about 30 workers in for the menu jour and we were the only retired ones on that day.