PARIS: DAY 3

Day 3, Monday, was our big day for touristy stuff. (oh, and I had to visit a few more shops, of course). It was a perfect, sunny fall day to do it, too. We started off at Notre Dame. I had hoped to go on a bike tour of the city, but the tour guides never showed. (It was their last day of the season, maybe they decided to just take it off), so we ended up doing our own little tour of Paris. Actually, it wasn't that little. We walked A LOT. (which is fine with me, that's what you do in Europe).

We made our way over the the Louvre and the Jardin de Tulliers. And eventually, we decided it was time for lunch. I had written down a recommended bistro that apparently had good tartines (open faced sandwiches) but when we arrived at 12, they still weren't quite open. We walked around for a few minutes, but eventually decided we were hungry and went to the more modern looking sandwich place across the street. It reminded me a lot of Cosi (if you've ever been to the ones in NY, Philly or DC) . Tom and I both picked up sandwiches, but I didn't want to eat too much cause I knew that I wanted to get dessert at Jean Paul Hevin.

Here's a shot of my chicken sandwich with curry.I liked it a lot. The bread was super soft and I liked the subtle curry. My only issue was with all the poppy seeds which promptly lodged themselves in my teeth. Here's Tom's sandwich, chicken with bacon (of course).Tom also really like his, though not as much as the sandwich he'd had at Le Bon Marche. After we finished our sandwiches, we were off to the tearoom at Jean Paul Hevin. It wasn't a huge space and when we first arrived it was actually only half full, but it filled up quickly. I ended up ordering some chocolate dessert with passion fruit. I love passion fruit, and the cake was quite good, though a bit too much. I once again had to enlist Tom to finish it. After we'd finished off the dessert, we headed down to the shop where I picked up a few bars of chocolate. And then we were off to check out a few more shops and sites.

We made our way to Dalloyau, where I picked up a cute box of macaroons for Leah. It was a really nice gourmet shop, but it was super expensive, so we didn't get much. The chocolate selection didn't really interest me. But they had these prepared lobsters that were like 45E per serving! (somewhere around $60/ea, and they weren't even that big) And then we hopped on the metro to the Eiffel Tower. By this time, we were exhausted, and decided it was time to head back to the hostel for a nap and some snacks.

We ended up visiting a bakery near our hostel, where I picked up 2 slices of quiche for us to share. This one had smoked salmonWhile this one had tomatoes and zucchini.They were both really good, especially with the super buttery, flaky crust. I did like the salmon more, and at less than 6E for both slices, it was certainly a great deal.

After a quick nap, we headed out to our final dinner in Paris. I was hoping that it'd be the best meal we'd have there. I'd had Tom make reservations at Vagenende, which had been in a USA Today article and was supposed to have a good prix fixe menu at under 30E. The restaurant was truly a classic French bistro, which was packed and had some old school decorations and waiters running around. We were seated in a tight corner, not the best seats in the house, but I was fine with it cause we were near the windows, allowing in a nice breeze and it allowed us to observe the entire restaurant. I did actually end up ordering the prix fixe menu, while Tom ordered off the regular menu.

Ok, so sorry for the dark, fuzzy pics. I did my best. I started off with the classic French onion soup. I normally don't eat this, cause it is made with a beef broth, but when in Paris....At any rate, I found this very yummy, albiet really really cheesy and I couldn't finish the whole thing.Meanwhile, Tom got an order of escargot, which he really enjoyed, in all their buttery goodness. I think he's gonna put up the video of him eating some on his own blog.For my entree, I got the roasted chicken with potatoes. Unfortunately, this was probably the worst part of my meal. The chicken was dry and overcooked and pretty tasteless. I could definitely make a better chicken than that, but it was on the prix fixe menu afterall, and with a restaurant doing that kind of volume, I guess quality is hard to maintain. Meanwhile, Tom got the salmon and rice, served with another butter based sauce, which I think he was pretty happy with.We finished out meal with a slice of chocolate cake, which was probably my favorite thing out of everything I ate there, especially with the candied orange peels and the almond sauce on the side. It was quite good.