Le soleil d'or - Joinville-le-Pont

I 'll preface this by saying that I 've never left a bad review until this one... the service at this place was just abysmal. Twelve waiters standing around doing nothing but fist bumping each other and yet somehow it still took us 20 minutes to get a menu and an acknowledgement. We put in our food order and 40 minutes later nobody had even looked in our direction. Tried to flag down a server multiple times to no avail. Eventually I walked up to the bar and requested the bill for our drinks because we wanted to leave. They charged us without even a shrug and a sorry and watched us walk out. Oh, and the bathrooms are filthy. Don 't let the great location of this place entice you... there are three other brasseries on the block with better food, drinks, and service.

Positive:The atmosphere was nice. We had a great view of the street, even from inside. So-so: Food was average, but they kept the water coming. Nice on a warm-ish day. Negative: Bathrooms were out of toilet paper.

They serve ice cream from the Berthillion. We shared a cone with raspberry sorbet. The service at the takeaway stand is very quick and they also serve crepes. It's conveniently located near Saint Chappelle and the Concierge.

We stopped in Joinville on our way back from Italy to the UK. We stumbled on the restaurant, which also has rooms, but we did not stay there. Lots of French eating there, which is a good sign. This is a great restaurant. We had...the budget menu courses for euros and it was truly great. Lots of interesting tastes and good size portions. We had cheese instead of dessert for no extra charge and had three good size pieces of cheese. We selected the house red wine a full and fruity Bordeaux. If you wanted to be critical I imagine service could be a bit slow as there was only one person serving, but she did fine by us.

From the starter (Beef carpaccio for him and cheese tart for me) to the main (steak for him and fish for me) to the dessert (chocolate for me and cheese plate for him) to the wine every bite, every sip was a delight.