While I've spent a lot of time in France, mostly in short stints (what happens when you live a couple km from the border), I haven't spent much time in Paris, just a few trips. My most recent one was back about five or six years ago. We had two great food experiences. One was buying tons of great cheese and butter (raw milk butter - yum!) at a few specialty shops, and stuffing ourselves at our rented studio. Cheap and good. The second was figuring out the best high end price/quality ration place we could find. It was some tiny, cramped, run down place in an outer working class arrondissement - no point in remembering the name since a year or two later the chef left for one of those super expensive three stars. In any case though, the food was of three star quality for about $150 for two - not cheap but great value. The service was very good but none of them spoke any English. The table next to ours had three American woman in Paris on business, they spoke no French. I watched the ordering with amusement, particularly when one asked about the riz de veau (sweetbreads - i.e. pancreas and thymus). The waiter explained 'leetle mooo.' Friend of woman - aah, probably some rice and veal dish. I struggled to keep a straight face  and chose not to enlighten them.  My girlfriend was away at the bathroom, when she came back and I told her what happened she accused me of being mean - but with a smile on her face. She agreed that well prepared sweetbreads are a wonderful thing to discover. Unfortunately when the American woman got the dish she figured out that whatever it was, it wasn't normal meat and pushed it away in disgust. Average Americans are so conservative about food - my local wine shop owner still thinks of me as the guy with a sick taste in food because I once mentioned I was making tripe - the perfect winter comfort food.