Finding Albion and digging into Racines 2

• Buzz kill: Phyllis Flick shares several depressing reports about the rise in restaurants serving industrially pre-packaged food, including the landmark bouillon Chartier, where tourists are lining up to eat canned food. [Paris Notebook]

• Racines 2 comes to the rescue, serving “beautiful, barely processed produce” from an open and modern kitchen. Thierry Richard likes it even better than the mothership (created and then sold by Pierre Jancou, now of Vivant), but warns that the prices are a little high. Still, it’s “undeniably recommended.” [Chroniques du Plaisir]

• Alec Lobrano, who called Racines 2 a “dumbed down duplicata,” is  is feeling more kindly toward the new restaurant L’Intention. Still, he urges chef Cédric Barbarat to “channel his lustier instincts in the kitchen, where I think he’s currently too timid.” No word yet on Lobrano’s counsel for the bedroom. [Hungry for Paris]

• Whatta biche! Patricia Wells gets her game on at the gibier-prone Biche au Bois, enjoying the namesake deer, wild duck, and chocolate mousse. “The 28€ menu is a veritable bargain,” she says. [Patricia Wells]

• Continuing with her amble down old-school bistro lane, Wells also stops into L’Ami Louis, “a place that every Paris Food Lover should experience, at least once.” She admits it’s not a bargain, but says “if you are in a frugal mood, two people could get out of this iconic bistro for 136€, without wine, not outrageous in this day and age.” [Patricia Wells] Her’s is the first new review I’ve seen since A.A. Gill’s infamous 2011 slaying of L’Ami Louis: “It’s painted a shiny, distressed dung brown. The cramped tables are set with labially pink cloths, which give it a colonic appeal and the awkward sense that you might be a suppository.” [Vanity Fair]

• And here’s another restaurant we haven’t heard about in a while: Jeu de Quilles. Aaron Ayscough is pleased by the natural wine list and downright thrilled by the selection from Beaujolais, but says the tasting menu is lacking in vision. Coquilles Saint-Jacques with fregola? “It was like someone posed the question, ‘How do I make excellent fresh scallops taste like couch stuffing?’” [Not Drinking Poison in Paris]

• Chrisos praises lots of things about Sunday lunch at Drouant, but the kid-friendliness of the place (space for strollers, cool wooden high chairs), seems to stand out in the Paris restaurant scene. It’s not often a man can eat a stuffed goose and throw back two glasses of wine with his kid in tow. [Chrisoscope] To see Five (other) Great Places with Kids in Paris, click here.

• Emmanuel Rubin says that Albion has a great energy coming from the Anglo-Saxon duo who were formerly at Fish, with “stunning” food that’s somewhere between bistro and cottage cooking. [Le Figaro]

• François-Régis Gaudry continues his recent Asian kick with a visit to Le Petit Cambodge, where he is packed like a sardine among the high stool-seated hipsters and eats a Bo Bun too big for its bowl. Poor guy. [Et Toque!]

Earlier this Month

• Albion by Alexander Lobrano [Hungry for Paris] and Caroline Mignot [Table à Découvert]
• Les Affranchis by John Talbott [John Talbott's Paris] and Alexander Lobrano [Hungry for Paris]
• Chez l’Ami Jean by Meg Zimbeck [Meg Zimbeck]
• L’Arbre de Sel by François-Régis Gaudry [Et Toque!]
• L’Auberge du 15 by Chrisos [Chrisoscope]
• Au Passage by François-Régis Gaudry [Et Toque!]
• Blend by Alexander Lobrano [Hungry for Paris], Chrisos [Chrisoscope], and Caroline Mignot [Table à Découvert]
• Epicure by Thierry Richard [Chroniques du Plaisir]
• Le Galopin by John Talbott [John Talbott's Paris]
• Garnier by John Talbott [John Talbott's Paris]
• Le Grand Pan by Patricia Wells [Patricia Wells]
• L’Intention by Thierry Richard [Chroniques du Plaisir]
• La Laiterie Sainte-Clothilde by François-Régis Gaudry [Et Toque!] and François Simon [Simon Says!]
• Lao Thai by John Talbott [John Talbott's Paris]
• Neva Cuisine by John Talbott [John Talbott's Paris]
• Septime by John Talbott [John Talbott's Paris]
• Le Sot l’y Laisse by John Talbott [John Talbott's Paris]