James Bún Batignolles — Restaurant in Paris

My boyfriend and I used to come to this place all the time as we live nearby. A while back, they were doing some work to the place and we found bits of material like grey steel hairs in our food so we hadn’t been in many months.

Being forgiving and imagining it was likely a one off of bad luck, we came back and our experience was just as horrible.

When our bobun arrived, the noodles were way overcooked and absolutely drenched in water. When I picked them up with my chopsticks they were deteriorating, clumped together and frigidly cold. There was so much liquid in my boyfriend’s bowl, it looked like a soup! When we pointed this out to the server, she told us they had messed up the sauce and it was too salty so they’d simply diluted it with water. She said if we were unsatiafied she could DUMP OUT THE EXTRA LIQUID and bring our bowls back. I never heard anything like this in my life!

My boyfriend demanded they bring us new food. After a brief hesitation, they did bring new noodles and the sauce in a separate dish, but it was the over salted sauce so it was basically inedible. I picked the pieces of chicken out of mine but couldn’t manage to eat the rest. I already felt sick from trying to eat the sweaty flacid noodles from the last dish.

When we complained again about the experience at the register the server said he was surprised because they don’t even put salt in the sauce (so why did the other server say that and why was it pure salt taste?). We ended up paying over 23€ for a terrible dining experience, repulsive food, and overwhelming nausea for the rest of the night.

I will never eat here again and I recommend that you...

Alright, this review is coming hot on the heels of my review of Nabab Kebab last night and thankfully it's a 180 degree turnaround from yesterday.

Now if you know me, you know I love Vietnamese food, I discovered the awesomeness that is Vietnamese cuisine while trekking from Hanoi to Saigon in 2007 and aside from them eating dogs, I really dig their style, dude.

Normally I'd be after a banh mi sandwich but today I decided to give the Bo Bun a spin and I was not disappointed. There were four types of Bo Bun to choose from and I went with the lemongrass beef varietal and the flavor was perfect. The vermicelle noodles cooked to perfection and garnished with julienne carrots and cucumber and cilantro. My one suggestion however is that they could really do without the lettuce, really, don't use lettuce in this thing.

In addition to the bo bun I went for the spring roll which was vegetarian (would have taken a meat option and paid more than the 2,5€ if they offered it but the vache qui rit cheese was solid) and a james-t team.

All in all I have to give these guys credit where credit is due, they've delivered some solid Vietnamese cuisine! Go and...

I was first excited about this place when I found it. Their fried nems are so good because they have cream cheese in them, however they are not included in the Bo Bun bowls and are pricey.. I ordered twice the bo bun "sur place" and all went well. However, the one time that I took food "emporter," it ruined it all for me. I tried the Pho which I hadn't tried here before, and ordered two of their nems. This was the saddest meal I ever ate (or didn't). The ratio of soup to noodles was ridiculous. I had this whole bowl of noodles and a splash of soup. The nems were completely inedible. Stale and hard, I could barely bite into them. I was desperate and even tried to heat them up in the oven but they were just so dry inside and nothing could salvage them. I have not been back since...