French Dip Sandwiches

En Français

Tucked away in a Muldoon strip mall, Paris Bakery and Café has quite a following of Eagle River and JBER clients who find the location convenient, as well as devoted fans who are probably happy it doesn't lie on a more (Yuppie) traveled path.

The Café's décor is tacky. Let's just get that out of the way up front. Weird wallpaper that looks to be stylized pink stone (although my 80-year-old dining companion said the pattern reminded him of fish fillets) trimmed with plastic "wood" paneling. The art on the walls looks like it came from Burlington Coat Factory. A gorgeous wood mantle stands against one wall where it is used as a service station, but any ambience it might have added was killed the orange safety cone placed in front of it. It felt like a cliché of France and I half-expected the servers to be wearing berets.

Obviously the chef, who hails from Le Mans, southwest of Paris, is more concerned about the food than the look of the place, and that's a good thing. Antoine Amouret took over as chef, owner and manager of the Café in April of last year. Trained in France as a pastry chef-a profession that allows for extensive travel-Amouret found himself in India where he made friends with an Anchorage resident. Amouret came up to Alaska for a visit in the summer of 2009 and happened upon the restaurant whose previous owner tried to hire him as a pastry chef. Amouret countered with an offer to buy the business, he explained on a chatty table visit after our meal.

Less French than French-influenced, the bulk of the menu is composed of burgers, sandwiches and pastas. Café Paris actually serves French toast at breakfast and French dip at lunch-items you would be hard-pressed to find on a menu in France-but we couldn't have been more pleased with (most of) what we what we did order.

We started with an order of escargot ($8.95 for six) sautéed in white wine and lots of garlic and served inside a tiny brioche topped with a tasseled toothpick. The pastry was light and flaky, and the snail flavor was dominated by the garlic and wine, which is pretty much the way it should be served. Substituting the brioche for the traditional snail shell was a nice touch and allowed us to enjoy the sauce a bit more.

The deep fried calamari ($8.95) is not something we would order again, and felt like a dish the chef included to satisfy customers but one he didn't personally identify with or care for. The squid rings were heavily breaded and tasted almost like onion rings. Serving them with tartar sauce was just weird.

French Dip Sandwich Recipe | Free Online Recipes | Free Recipes

The French dip is a very popular hot sandwich. Chances are you have made them at home or had them at your favorite restaurant. With this recipe you can make your own French dips completely from scratch. This recipe does not use deli roast beef but the slow cooker method. The slow cooker does all of the cooking for you, so this recipe does not require much work. The Au Jus comes right out of the slow cooker from the cooking process and it is the highlight of this recipe for sure. I like to add a variety of vegetables into the slow cooker with the roast to add more flavors. Some of the vegetables I added were celery, carrots and onion. This recipe is perfect for dinner or a party. Enjoy. Step 1: remove any visible fat from the roast and discard the fat. Place the roast into a slow cooker. In a medium bowl combine soy sauce, beef bouillon cube, bay leaf, black peppers corns, rosemary, thyme, and garlic powder. Pour the mixture over the roast. Add enough water to almost over the roast. Add any vegetables if you desire. Cover and cook in the slow cooker for 10 to 1 hours on low heat until the roast is very tender.

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