Small Plates

Paris, Day Eight: Final Hours

It seems almost silly to write about my last few hours in Paris. It's been nearly two weeks since my return and Paris seems impossibly far away again.

But despite my mixed day without Jeanne, my last hours in Paris were lovely.

I woke up completely rested and recovered from homesickness. I was genuinely sad to be leaving Paris. I wanted another week! But I got dressed and hauled my bags to the lobby.

The front desk staff was very sweet in their goodbyes. I was sorry that Mounira wasn't there. She'd been the most effusively charming host we could have hoped for.

The shuttle arrived on time and I was lucky enough to be the final passenger. Straight to Charles de Gaulle!

There was no traffic on a Saturday morning and we got there much earlier than expected. I passed through customs and ended up having a lovely chat with my ticket agent in French. It was a good measure of how much my French had improved in just a week. (All of that's gone now, I'm afraid, but for a week I was really riding high on the language curve!)

Off to the gate and some final random shopping. A quick hit at Fauchon, some last minute magnets for my aunts, and one of those exciting neck pillows that I've always envied on other passengers from a company called BE RELAX! (That thing paid for itself on the trip home.)

I had a final baguette sandwich that was pure joy (and more than made up for my final tragic meal) and bought approximately 500 gallons of water because I was tired of being dehydrated. And hilariously, one of my classmates (Thomas) was on my flight. I turned around in the line to board and there he was! I knew he was going to be in Paris at the same time, but I didn't expect to bump into him on the flight home!

I'm pretty sure we had a German flight crew. They looked German. Their accent (when speaking English) was German. They were the most cheerful and efficient and friendly staff EVER. I don't know how they managed to be slightly robotic and yet completely warm at the same time, but they did.

My flight attendant was utterly fantastic and seemed sincerely interested in providing us with the best and most comfortable flight possible. And her efforts were successful. I had a bulkhead aisle seat. We sat down, had drinks service, had a meal, I watched four movies, had another meal, and boom we were home! (You never expect to make wonderful discoveries from airplane food, but my chicken had a side of bulgar wheat which was fantastic! It's a grain I've never really paid much attention to before, but now plan to!)

The flight was the easy part, customs was another story. But after the lines and hassles and forms, I was out the other end and my good friend Amy T. was waiting for me. It was nice to see a friendly face and a ride home.

Home may not be Paris, but it is home. It's good to be back and dream of the prochaine fois....

Paris, Day Seven: Pangs

In spite of very little sleep, I'd told Jeanne to wake me up when she was getting ready. I wanted to spend some time with her, and I thought it would be a good way to get my own day started early.

We chatted as she packed and I was sad to see her go, but happy to have an extra day to spend in Paris.

Jeanne left for her shuttle, and I got myself up, showered, changed, and out the door. I started by going to the post office because I had something like 25 post cards to mail. I wanted to spend more time at the Louvre and then also shop along Rue Cler for some gifts.

Paris, Day Six: Chocolates, Chocolates, Chocolates!

Woke up again too late. We can’t seem to get a good handle on that.

Paris, Day Five: Better Late than Never

As wonderful as free WiFi is, sometimes more intensive uses (e.g., uploading pictures) takes more time than it's worth.

And, as most of you know, I'm back in Seattle now. But I took careful notes and am going to continue the updates now. This time, with more pictures!

Day 3, continued

I keep thinking we're having the quintessential Parisian dining experience, and then we keep topping it.

Dinner tonight was de trop, for sure. A four course spectacular (and only costing 24€!!) that was incredible both from a culinary standpoint and from a service standpoint.

I don't know how these guys could have been more courteous or kind. Maybe if they sat us in their laps and spoon-fed us? To start with, he didn't assume we didn't speak French. He asked nicely. We were fifteen minutes late for our reservation and they didn't bat an eye. They seated us promptly and brought us water and our menus and some typically stellar bread.

Jeanne ordered a starter of salade nicoise and I had some oeufs dur with mayonnaise, which came with a perfectly dressed green salad.

Next, Jeanne ordered the special--a flank steak in sauce, with frites. I got the coq au vin. We both kept dunking her fries into the thick, rich, brown sauce of the coq au vin because it was just so rich and flavorful. And way too much for one person to eat. I felt terrible leaving two perfectly tender pieces of chicken behind.

The cheese course was superb. They brought us a board and let us pick however many cheeses we wanted, and as much as we wanted. We were already so stuffed, we asked for small servings. Jeanne ordered a Cantal and a lovely bleu. I asked for a piece of the brie and the chevre poivre. All of them were amazing, but Jeanne's Cantal was the favorite of the night.

And really, we shouldn't have had the final course, but we couldn't turn it down. Jeanne ordered a raspberry sorbet which was almost as good as (but nothing on earth will ever compare to) my friend Sal's watermelon sorbet. (Which if you've heard me go on about it, you know what a compliment that is to the raspberry sorbet.) I got the creme caramel.

We were both about to die, but have somehow lived to tell the tale. And again, it cannot be emphasized enough how friendly and gracious and courteous and delightful our waitstaff were. The place was packed to the gills on a Monday night at 9pm. And they actually had to turn people away, people who were still coming in for a bite at 11pm.

We know we can't go on eating like this. But it's a little shocking to say that this is our third day and our first cheese experience! What is up with that, huh??

Tomorrow, we rectify the pastry situation. (Though we're planning on not eating another multiple-course meal, because owie.) We have big plans to enjoy crepes soon, too. The area we are staying in --the Japanese part of the premiere-- doesn't have a lot of bakeries or fromageries or crepe stands. But we're hoping to start tackling that very important part of our mission here, soon.

And now to pass out from another night of too much good food. No amount of walking can really be countering the calories, but I can't say that I really give a damn! (That's what the post-Paris diet is about.)

Paris, Day Three: Museums and Napping

We started our day at the Louvre. I spent all my time gazing at the Rubens exhibit on the life of Marie de Medici (because I am obsessed with it) and Jeanne took an audio tour. We met up for lunch and made our way to the 11th arrondissement for bahn mi sandwiches. They were quite excellent and a bargain at 3€. But after we bought them, we were pretty tired and just came back to the hotel where I took a very long nap. I have a ditzy tendency to let myself get badly dehydrated and I need to do some hydration recovery because it's a little bad. Jeanne got up after awhile to add to her Gallery of Expensive Shoes (some beautiful Christian Louboutain's) and then we just sort of chilled out in the hotel.

It's sort of the funny side of travel--this obligatory feeling that you must spend every second experiencing something. But experiences, while wonderful, can be tiring. And thus --naps! Naps are key to enjoying a vacation, i think!

Tonight we're dining at A la Biche au Bois, which comes highly recommended. We also took a minute to drum up a flexible schedule for the rest of our time here. Mostly to avoid missing anything that we really want to do:

Tomorrow:

Breakfast at Angelina's (where Coco Chanel used to dine). It's pricey but really excellent.
Notre Dame/Saint Chapelle
Movie for me (Coco Avant Chanel) while Jeanne shops at Louis Vuitton along Champs Elysees
Nap/Rest

And then David Lebovitz is having a reading/signing for his new book right off Rue Rivoli!! I'm a huge fan of his and am really excited to see him speak in person! 

Then a late dinner at L'ami Jean--another highly recommended place.

One thing's for sure--research pays off. Having personal recommendations for our restaurants, and taking the extra step to make reservations, has really paid off.

I feel that one thing we've really failed to do is get cracking on the pastry consumption. We've had one lousy pain au chocolat apiece since we've been here! True, it was a fantastic pain au chocolat, but I'm not sure how we've overlooked PASTRIES. I told Jeanne that that is our new trip priority. You can't come to Paris and forget about pastries! We've only had one dessert course, too!

We're not eating so much, but somehow are always a little full. Not sure what's going on here. But we're gonna fix it starting tomorrow. Sheesh. I would go get a pastry right now, but dinner's in an hour and this is yet another place with huge portions. Whatever happened to the notion of teeny tiny French haute cusine, with thumb-sized entrees? Every place we've been to has been exceedingly generousl

Paris, Day Two: Lessons in Overindulgence

It's so not our fault. How can anyone resist the cuisine in Paris?

Having gone to bed so late, we slept-in much later than we would have liked. It was around 12:30 that we woke up and realized half the day was gone. Utterly jetlagged, we hurried through showers and morning rituals and threw ourselves outside.

We figured out the best Metro station to get our passes and started walking. Stumbling through my inadequate French at the teller window, we bought a day pass for Sunday and a weekly pass for Monday-Sunday. The weekly pass, or Navigo Découverte, is a great deal and requires a one time setup fee of 5€,  the week runs about 16€, and you need a small photograph (which we'd both brought from home). It can be recharged weekly (or the next time you come to Paris). Much better than keeping track of Metro tickets.

(Buying individual day passes would have cost 5 x 9 = 45€, so the 5+16+5=26€ instead. More to spend on pastries!)

Anyhow, so we grabbed our first pain au chocolat from a cafe (and it was as good as expected) and some coffee and made our way to Rue Cler, which was unfortunately completely closed down as is typical on Sunday. Saturday is the good day to go, apparently, but we didn't mind and enjoyed our cafe creme and lunch.

No pictures of food, unfortunately. Jeanne ordered rigatoni in a truffle cream sauce which was fantastic. I had duck confit and crispy sauteed potatoes and a little green salad. The duck confit was amazing, as were the crispy potatoes. The salad greens were undressed and thus a little flavorless, but the rest was incroyable!

Paris, Day One

So much to share, but I'm not even sure where to begin! How about with this: Paris, je t'aime!

Part of the first days in any city is getting oriented. And getting lost is a bit of the fun, too. We walked down to Cafe Castiglione, which was the first restaurant I ate in the last time I was in Paris. We ordered almost a repeat of the first meal I had: Croustillant de Chevre Chaud to start and Croque Monsieur to follow.

Chevre Chaud is just amazing. Hot goat cheese wrapped in pastry with some herbs and baked until golden and melty. It was served with a small salad of rocket tosed with vinaigrette. Very very tasty. Jeanne got the Croque Madame (with an egg on top) and while it was good, it was a little burnt around the edges and hard to cut with just a butter knife. Still, we were very hungry and very excited to eat!

We walked over a block to the Tuilleries and just pulled up some lounge-y recline-y chairs by the pond and soaked up a bit of sun, talking the afternoon away. But it turned chilly and our jetlag kicked in. We wandered back to our hotel for a nap.

The beds are small, but very comfortable!

What was supposed to be a quick nap turned into 5 hours of blissful sleep. We woke up around 9 and decided to venture out for dinner.

I wish I wasn't too shy to snap photos at restaurants, but part of me wants to pretend that eating at Parisian cafes is an everyday experience.

I'm very excited to have Clotilde's Edible Adventures. She recommended a place called La Tambour, that had honest, simple French fare and was open late. It was in the 2°, but was easily within walking distance from our hotel. It started to rain, but it was warm out.

We sat outside, under a giant umbrella. Our waiter was an adorable Asian guy and I got to practice some of my French on him!

Jeanne and I both ordered crocks of steamy, rustic soupe a l'oignon. It was rich and delicious and rustic. Quite excellent. Jeanne ordered a filet of boeuf rossini (topped with foie gras) and I got a more traditional steak au poivre. The meat was very tender, but I think I'm going to take the leap from a point (medium) to saignant (rare) next time. There were also some crispy potatoes and haricot verts. And as Clotilde says, the place isn't a symbol of culinary excellence, but it was a good solid meal.

And this is when my laptop ran out of power. Neither of the adapters that Jeanne and I brought worked because the plugs are recessed into the wall. Oh well. The hotel was kind enought to give us a loaner.

We're Here!!!

Nine hours and many time zones later, we're here! My flight was largely uneventful, but I did forget how incredibly sore one's butt can get after sitting down for so long.

Jeanne was waiting for me right outside baggage claim with a big cheerful smile and an adorable new short haircut. An absurdly expensive cab ride later and we're checked into the Hotel Louvre St. Anne, which is extremely charming and extremely microscopic. The proprietess is very sweet and enthusiastic and helpful. I just don't understand when people say they find the French to be rude. That's never been my experience.

Jeanne's finished her shower, so I'm going to wash off the mess of travel and we're going to head out for our first meal. And oh yes, I'll be taking my camera with me!

Small Plates in Paris

A year ago, I bought a ticket to Paris. And today, the day of travel has finally arrived!

I bought my ticket in a very different economy, and I can't help but be aware that had I not bought that ticket last June, I probably wouldn't be going on this trip. I've decided it was an act of fate.

Paris is one of my favorite cities and since our hotel has free WiFi and I have a shiny new Dell mini, I hope to blog-as-I-go instead of trying to recapture all my memories at the end.

But then, I don't know. I may spend the entire ten days in the park eating cheese and bread and have little to show. But it's Paris --even bread and cheese in the park is noteworthy!

À Bientôt!