PARIS: DAY 4, THE LAST DAY

Well, it was our last day in Paris. But our flight wasn't taking off until the early evening, which meant that we had time to continue exploring the city and also visiting a few more chocolate shops. Oh, also, as promised, here's the tabblo with pics of all the chocolate shops we visited. Please look at it; it took me 2 hours!

Hands down, my favorite chocolate shop in Paris is now Michel Chaudun. I bought a box of his chocolates and almost finished off the entire box by myself the day after I got back. Sigh. So yummy. When good chocolates around, I just can't stop myself from eating them all up! And I liked the fact that he was actually at his shop.

Tom and I spent most of the morning walking up and down the Champs Elysee. So here's a hilarious thing that I spotted while we were walking. Look closely. Just think, this is mounted on a wall outside the Swatch store on the Champs Elysee. Excellent. After walking for a while, we needed a break. So off we went to Angelina, that famous Parisian hot chocolate shop. I have a soft spot for Angelina's since it was the first place where I ever had real hot chocolate. When I was a college student we went right after visiting the Louvre (after having spent 3 hours in the rain waiting to get into the damn place). So we were cold and wet and I never really noticed the surroundings. On my second trip there, I noticed how over the top and gilded this place is. We arrive fairly early, so Tom ordered a brioche and coffee while I got a hot chocolate. Here it is:I gotta admit, the hot chocolate that I'd had at L'Charlotte d'Isle was much better than the stuff at Angelina's. But I liked the fact that Angelina's served their chocolate with a pot of fresh whipped cream on the side. It was sweeter and not as dense as the stuff at L'Charlotte, but it was still good.

After walking a bit more, we were ready for lunch. I had written down a place in the 9th that was known for good tartines (open face sandwiches), but it was closed when we arrived. Maybe they only serve dinner? At any rate, there was a cute like creperie on the same street, so we went there instead. We decided to sit outside, even though it was a cool day, cause it was on a cute little street and it's fun to people watch. I decided to get the 15E set menu while Tom just ordered a crepe. Here's my crepe, you can see it was served with a little pat of butter on top.And here it is cut open. I wanted to show you how orange the egg yolk was. Now that's fresh!After the crepe, I was supposed to get a green salad and a dessert crepe. But we waited and waited, and it was starting to get really cold and sprinkle a bit. So we gave up. (Right as Tom went in to pay, the dessert crepe was coming out, but what happened to the salad?) We turned it down and headed back to the hostel to check out and head to the airport. Wait, right after we went to this nice patisserie near the place we had lunch. I wish we'd had lunch there. It was warm inside.

In closing, I wouldn't say I had the best food in Paris on this trip. I guess we just really didn't have the time, and missed out on a lot of places for weird reasons (well, it is Paris after all). So maybe on the next trip. I'm making it up on my trip to NY this weekend. I was very happy with my chocolate purchases, though, and continue to make my way through those. In closing, here's a pic I took in the 9th. If you're unfamiliar with these, it's by a French artist who goes around putting these space invader mosaics up in different places. I'm sure there's a website or blog out there that tracks them. I've seen them in LA, too. And I know there are ones in NY. Neat, huh?

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.

PARIS: DAY 2

On our second day in Paris, it was time to continue working with a visit the the Salon du Chocolat. As I explained to all of you in the previous post, I'm gonna document the work stuff with a Tabblo, coming soon. But suffice it to say, it was crowded and crazy. There were so many people there that it was a big battle to get anywhere near the booths, let alone grab samples. It was fun checking out chocolatiers who don't have shops in Paris, and I was able to get some great caramels from Le Roux and an assortment of other bars.

During the afternoon, I went to check out the famed flea market at Clignancourt, which was just a 10 minute walk from our hostel. I didn't take any pics cause it was so crowded and busy, filled with hundreds of vendors and thousands of visitors, and i didn't want to get pegged as a tourist and have anything stolen. But I did wander about for a couple of hours and had a great time, watching people shop, interact and sell. I figured out that the Parisians also enjoy hot dogs as quick take out food, but would rather have a crepe or a panini. ( I also observed a McDonalds about 20 feet away from a KFC, and unfortunately, people were actually eat there. Sigh. )

For dinner that evening, we set out for the Rotisserie Beaujolais near the Bastille. ( I realize I spelled that incorrectly, but I'm also too lazy to look up how it's actually spelled). There weren't as many dinner options on Sunday, since many restaurants are closed. Luckily this place was open. We got there an hour too early, cause my clock hadn't reset itself for daylight savings, so we ended up wandering around the neighborhood and checking out the Place du Vosges. And we did walk by a bunch of cute restaurants that I would've like to try out. When it rolled around to our reservation time, we went looking for the restaurant, but couldn't find it. I probably wrote the address incorrectly and neither of us had the phone number. So after searching for 10 minutes, we gave up and found a neighborhood bistro specializing in seafood.

At the restaurant we chose, they didn't have any written menus. Just a chalkboard with the dishes they had for that day. And neither Tom or I were really able to understand most of the dishes. So I went the safe route and ordered what I did understand, a seafood soup and a shrimp salad with parmesean. Tom got some shrimp ravioli and a grilled whole fish. I'm sorry I don't have any pics for you guys. It was just too dark in the restaurant and I didn't want my flash going off like some crazy American tourist.

At any rate, I was not in love with the food. For my soup, I expected something more akin to a boullaibase. Instead, I got some soup that was essentially thickened fish stock. It was passable, but not great. I could've made a better version myself. My salad turned out to be waaaayyyy to parmeseany and tart. The thing I enjoyed the most at dinner was actually Tom's fish, which was simply prepared and quite good. So our second day was not our best food day, but at least I got some work done!

PARIS, DAY 1:

We arrived in Paris early on a Saturday morning and headed straight to our hostel where we dropped off our luggage. (We wouldn't be able to check in until 3pm, so we had lots of time free). Of course, I'd already had this entire trip planned out. We had a lot of ground to cover, and not a huge amount of time. So we hopped on the subway and started out on my plan to visit 9 different chocolate shops that day. I'm not going to sit here and actually record all the chocolate shops we went to, since all of that was pretty much work related and I've decided to create a Tabblo for that stuff. So I'll focus more on the things we ate.

We had visited 2 chocolate shops and decided that we needed a break and some late breakfast/lunch. Luckily, we were near the famed department store, Le Bon Marche and the Grand Epicerie, which is the huge marketplace located within the department store. We initally got lost looking for the marketplace, but soon figured out that it was in a second building and headed over there. And when we walked in, it was teaming with activity. Not only was the place huge, it was also full of shoppers and staff, and it was kinda overwhelming for both of us. (Having gotten off our flight recently and only having a few hours of sleep with no caffeine, it was hard to focus on much). I looked quickly at the chocolate section, but we headed straight for the back where we found the prepared foods section. We grabbed some food and drinks and checked out and headed to a nearby park where we sat and enjoyed our first bites of Parisian food. (Actually Tom had purchased some ridiculously expensive financiers while at Christian Constant, but this was our first real meal).

We each had one of these little Thai shrimp thingies. I didn't think they were that great, cause they were cold and the skin on the packets was pretty tough. And they were kinda greasy. At least they were pretty, though.
And we moved on to our sandwiches. I had a simple sandwich of grilled veggies, which was pretty good.
And Tom had also had a simple sandwich of ham and cheese on a baguette. As soon as we took our food out, the pigeons began to gather, and you can see one in this pic, near Tom's knee. Turns out that that sandwich was Tom's favorite thing he ate the whole trip. He says it was due to the quality of the bread.
After our quick lunch, we headed back to Le Grand Epicerie, cause I wanted to get a better look at the chocolate section and everything they had inside. It really was amazing, with its own pastry counter, bread counter, meat section, cheese section, seafood section and everything!
Here are crates of fresh oysters.
And the aforementioned seafood counter.
There was so much yummy food, I think I could've happily spent the entire day there, but we had things to accomplish.

But moving on, we visited another 3 chocolate shops before we stopped at Pierre Herme, the famed French pastry chef. He has only one store in Paris, and I was surprised at how tiny it was. There was a line out the door, which we dutifully waited in, until it was our turn to buy some pastries. Here's a pic of the pastry case. And yes, that really does say 26E (about $30) for a quart of ice cream.Suffice it to say, this place was shockingly expensive. It was also so full of people and staff dropping off more inventory that I didn't have much time to linger and think about what I wanted to order. I settle on buying two chocolate bars and this little bag of 6 macaroons. Aren't they pretty?
Pierre Hermes changes his macaroon flavors every year. But here's my favorite one and the best thing that I ate in Paris, the Passion Fruit Macaroon.The filling was so passion fruity and tart and wonderfully flavored. It was great. I also really liked my salted caramel macaroon. Unfortuately I couldn't eat them all at once and stuck them in my back pack. By the time we got back to the hostel, they were a bag of crushed macaroons. I ate them anyway.

Next up, it was time to visit some more shops and head to the Ile St. Louis for some hot chocolate and ice cream. Turns out that the Ile St. Louis was my favorite area that we visited the entire trip. I would happily stay there in the future. It's a more residential island, just next to the Ile de la Cite (where the Notre Dame is located and where the city of Paris started). The main street is filled with great shops, some quirky and many filled with food. We made our first stop at what I thought was Berthillon, the famous ice cream store. Tom bought an almond ice cream, which I think he liked. I thought it tasted like marzipan and was too sweet for me. I was holding out for some hot chocolate, anyway. Turns out that place was just a cafe that happened to sell Berthillon ice cream (like every other cafe on that island), but that was ok since the actual Berthillon was closed (I'm not sure why).

We eventually made our way to our last stop for the day, a tiny, adorable place called La Charlotte de l'Ile. It's owned by an older woman and was pretty empty when we arrived. Just imagine if you had an old eccentric aunt who kept everything and had funny nicknacks everywhere, like strange teapots and such, and that is exactly what this place is like. We sat in the front room, next to an old piano, and I ordered a hot chocolate, reportedly the best in Paris.My chocolate was brought to me on a little tray, and I loved that it was served with a tiny pitcher of water with its own little shot glass. And the chocolate itself was amazing. I told Tom that it was even better than the chocolate at my own store. It was dense and dark and had a lot of depth to it. But it was too much! I couldn't finish it all and had to make Tom help me.

Finally we were done with chocolate shopping for the day and we returned to our hostel where we crashed for an afternoon nap. When we got up, we were kinda hungry, but first made our way up to the Sacre Couer, which was right near our hostel. We descended on the other side of the hill in the 9th district, an area famous for the presence of the Moulin Rouge and I went off looking for a take out place called the Chicken Family, which I'd read about in a blog called Chocolate and Zucchini by a blogger named Clotide who lives in the 9th.Chicken Family is famous for it's roasted chicken, so I bought one along with some kind of seafood salad. We were hungry and tired by this point, so my plan to have a picnic near the Sacre Couer didn't happen. We returned to our hostel instead. Tom wasn't a fan of Chicken Family, nothing appealed to him, but I did enjoy my roasted chicken. It was super moist and tasty and they'd even seasoned the interior. Another one of the best things I ate during the trip. And that's it for dining on Day 1.

THIS PICS FOR LEAH

We're back from Paris. We saw this on our first day at Le Bon Marche (which is a freaking awesome store, more about that later). I so wanted to get this for Leah, but it never would've lasted, so we took a pic instead. Enjoy!