La Maison de Coree in Geneva - The night I arrived in Geneva to visit a dear friend, he suggested: a Portuguese and a Korean place. With memories of a fantastic meal at a nouvelle Korean cuisine place in Toronto, the Korean Village, I swiftly chose that.
Looking at the portions as they arrived at neighboring tables, chockfull of Asian and melanged families, we wisely chose one dish each to share.
What was called pork kimchi arrived with plenty of accompaniments (kimchi, seaweed, rice and pickled stuff); while the shrimp with vegetables was pretty straightforward. For me, they didn’t have the heft of traditional restaurats nor the finesse of Toronto's Korean Village.
Our bill, with a bottle of wine and no bottled water or coffees, was 104 SF.
Go back? I'm not so sure.
La Cafe de la Gare in Geneva. The following day I wanted to "do" lunch at a place near the station, as I had a train back to Paris quite early and I'm always anxious not to miss such. My host said "let’s go to the Café Central or Relais d’Entrecote" and I pleaded that they were too far from the station (however, the truth was that he likes them and I'm just lukewarm). "OK," he said, "there’s a café just near your train track; not good, not bad." "OK."
Slight diversion for a recounting of a piece of street theater: as we walked through the tunnel from the south side of the Cornavin Geneva SCNF/CFF Station where we'd parked the car to the north side, my buddy said "would you like to get a paper for the train?," we diverted into the Presse and on exiting, I noted two guys hanging around the entrance/exit to/from French trains who raised the hairs on my neck; they were up to no good, and indeed they were in back of us, ahead of us,then in back again and one tapped me on the shoulder as we mounted the steps to the Cafe and I shook him off and sped up. A few minutes later two waiters said "You just missed getting your pockets picked, we chased them away, they're here every day, and make their money this way." So much for the vaunted Swiss Army, police and Security forces.
OK, back to my topic; I said my friend had said that this place was "not good, not bad." Well, it was much more than that, it was quite good for rush-rush food. He ordered a green salad and fish soup (with croutons, rouille & cheese, of course) and I had a dozen fried local Lake Geneva perch with a huge green salad. I thought his soup was one of the best ever but my perch were overcooked but not crisp on the exterior, they were stuck in the "no man’s land" between lightly/undercooked/fleshy and crisply fried. Too bad, because they were good product.
Our bill with a ½ bottle of local rosé, one Coke and one coffee was unknown to me, since he insisted on picking it up while I dashed off to the train.
Go back? Yup.
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