The herald and mail. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1873-188?, 1876-01-21
FOREIGN RESTAURANTS In NEW
YORK.
French Dinners and Those Who Eat Them
-AbsInthe Drinking and MaearOnf
Days.

French Dinners and Those Who Eat Them
-AbsInthe Drinking and MaearOni
Days
Within a period extending back not
further than 1865, says the. Daily
Graphic, there has been 4 remarkable in
crease of what are known as French res
taurants in the city of New York. Pre-
vious to that time there were not more
than a half dozen in this city, and these
were about evenly divided into very
high-priced and very low-priced places.
A well-infOrmed caterer recently esti-
mated the number of these restaurants
at the present time at'about ] 900. This
is, perhaps, an exaggeration, yet if all
the restaurants which serve dinners in
courses and in the French style are in
cluded, the number would not fall far
below the estimate. French restaurants
were first naturalized in this country in
New Orleans and San Francisco, whence
wonderful stories had long been brought
of the cbeapness and excellence OF
French table d'hote fare. In this city
they began to flourish in the neighbOr
hood traversed by Prince, Greene and
Wooster streets, which is still the dis
tinctive home of the French colony in
New York. That it is possible to get
a "full dinner" in these times of high
prices
FOR TWELVE CENTS
no one would be inclined to believe
without very positive assfverations.
Yet such is the fact. At restaurants
on Wooster street, Houston strset and
Prince street such places may be found.
The dinner consists of soup, beef, vege-
tables. coffee. and bread. The food is
poor in quality, but surprisingly well
cooked. Twenty-Five cents secures half
bottle of red wine and also desert, con-
sisting of cheese and an apple pie. At
the other end of the scale are restaurants
whose charges for dinners vary from rs
TO 50. Their tables are provided with
choice table wines and all the luxuries
of the season. Between these there is
an uninterrupted grade of prices.
About three-quarters of the guests are
Frenchmen, many of them being accom-
panied by their wives. The seats are not
all occupied until about o'clock, and
by that time there is buzz of cOnYersa-
ton that is peculiarly noticeable in con-
trast with the unsOcial and excessive re-
spectability of American and English
restaurants. A singular company is as
sembled. Here are seen Frenchmen
from every part of France-from Alsace
and Lorraine to the Bay of Biscay. There
are men with strangely shaped heads,
who have shed blood for the Commune
in the streets of Paris, and are now, per-
haps, engaged in some department of the
artificial flower trade in New York.
There will be seen a man with the figure
and carriage of field marshal, wearing
a fiery rosebud in the frayed button-hole
of his neatly brushed coat. His neigh
Dor, the fat, but not stout, little gentle
man, is known as perhaps the finest
chess-player in the French colony in
New York He wheezes as he leans for
ward and picks three Jumps of sugar
from the bowl with his chubby fingers.
Then he carefully piles them Ike
COTTON BALES IN TIE HOLLOW OF HIS
SPOON,
which is poised across the top of his cup
of black coffee Then he pours over the
sugar a tiny glass of cOgnac, which costs
him ten cents extra. The liquor fills the
suoon and runs over into the coffee. The
sugar is now touched with a lighted
match. and the brandy burns with
blue flame which runs all over the spoon
and leaps down to the liquor which is
floating on the top of the coffee. This is
the closing scene of that dramatic enter
tainment which constitutes every true
Frenchman's dinner. While the brandy
Is burning he takes out little book of
paperand paws with his finger and
thumb in his left vest pocket for pinch
of tobacco. The cigarette is made with
A skin which is natural inheritance,
and which is made perfect by the practice
of wears. 1t is lighted in the blue flame,
and then the burning sugar and brandy
are unceremOp:Ously tipped into the
coffee. which is now ready 10 be slowly
slipped as the cigarette is smoked. Dur
ing all this time he has been talking yo-
ciferously with the field-marshal already
described. At another table sits little
lady, whose features have nothing OF the
rudeness of her German sisters, and little
of the American beauty Of outline, but
who chatters to her husband and two
gentlemen friends, who occupy the little
table with her, in a way that is Vlslbly
interesting to them all. When she isn't
talking she is listening with wide-oPen
ewes, various delicate
sBRUGs OF HER PRETTY NANTLED sHoUL-
DERs,
and movements of her head that appear
to be equally interesting. As the various
courses come ON she is helped first and
to the best portions, a chivalrous polite
ness that she accepts as plainly her due:
vet always with some slight but graceful
acknowledgment. In the room are sure
TO be one or two remarkable-lOoking gen.
tlemen of swarthy complexion, black
hair and whiskers, and melancholy or
sinister expressions, who reminded one
unpleasantfy of the villains who are
found plotting diabolical crimes over
huge black bottles and tin tankards when
the curtain rises for the second act in
melodrama. Watch one of these after
he has pushed aside his coffee. A tum-
bier of thin glass is brought him, within
which sits another glass, small and
goblet-shaped. The small glass is filed
to the brim with transparent liquid,