Eating Paris

You thought you had a delicious Thanksgiving dinner last year, I'm sure. Turkey, stuffing/dressing (technical usage hotly debated right now at the Meldrumhaus), pies. Well, I hate to tell you, but ours was probably better. You see, for Thanksgiving this year, Sara and I ate Paris. All of it.

I realize as I'm sitting down to write this blog experience that our picture-per-calorie-consumed density is depressingly low, primarily because I hate photographing food in restaurants. However, I want to describe this culinary adventure in some detail, with a few photos of some Parisian highlights (Versailles, Sacre Coeur, the Opera, baguettes) for good measure. Kudos to the diligent who read the descriptions of eating.

We arrived in Paris in the early afternoon, thanks to our speedy two-and-a-half hour connection direct from Aachen. After getting settled in to our B&B in Montmartre, we hopped on the Metro towards the 10th arrondissement--we had done some research and found it to be a place with a good restaurant density. We went into a taqueria--Candelaria--that featured the best tacos we'd ever had. They're not quite the earthy crispy tacos of Cactus Taqueria in Berkeley, but they were refined, small tacos in a soft corn tortilla that, to our sadly Mexican-food-deprived taste buds, were heavenly. We each had three plus chips and salsa and some agua fresca. It wasn't as cheap as Cactus (nothing in Paris is), but it was great. Probably better than San Francisco's Mamacita, our Bay Area alternative for fancy tacos.

We decided to walk to from the 10th down towards the Musee d'Orsay along the Seine. As we got close to the museum we started getting hungry (our tacos were small and we only had one snack on the way there)--since the museum was open late (Thursdays until 9:45 pm), we decided to stop by the chocolatier Jean-Paul Hevin for our first of three hot chocolate experiences. JPH was my least favorite of the three--it was thick and creamy but didn't have the chocolate flavor to support such a thick consistency. The cake there, however, was delicious. And beautiful. Sara's passionfruit-filled-meringue-y thing was light enough to offset the weight of the chocolate, while I, the glutton for punishment, ordered a dark chocolate-raspberry torte to complement my hot chocolate. Almost too much at one go, but I did the best I could--I ate it all.

We visited the Musee d'Orsay, which has a really fantastic collection and is set in a beautifully converted train station. Our favorites were some early 20th century works by George Desvallières. (I only know because I took a photo of the nameplate by a painting which is STRICTEMENT INTERDIT in the Musee d'Orsay, apparently.) My favorite is this (in small format):

Le Christ à la colonne by George Desvallières.
From the Musee d'Orsay website.

After our night at the museum, we went to the area near the Gare du Nord (North Train Station) for our Thanksgiving dinner at the very French sounding "Playtime." We chose Playtime due to its proximity to Montmartre, as well as its recommendation in parisbymouth.com (a highly recommended site for any foodie trips to Paris). We were super lucky to get our table for two (without a reservation) as two or three other groups were turned away immediately after us. I won't give all the details, but I'm about 95% sure that this was the best meal I've ever had. I had a fancy (though not Kobe) Japanese beef that melted on my tongue. Sara had a 14-hour slow braised pork (and she never gets pork). We we had a trio of small desserts with funky fruits. The server took 10 minutes to walk us through the menu and answer all of our questions. All this in a rather casual location (making it feel very homey): it was an absolute delight. It certainly wasn't traditional Thanksgiving fare, but it was a delicious, delightful, highly recommendable alternative.

Sated, we headed back to the B&B to refresh ourselves prior to our trip to Versailles. Before we left for Versailles, however, we stopped by a bakery (Boulangerie Mauvieux), which had won the 2012 award for the best baguette in Paris. (Note: this is a serious competition. Of the 180+ baguettes submitted each year, some 60 are disqualified for not meeting the requirements of the dimensions of the baguette.) We sat down in a park to enjoy our breakfast. These baguettes are really, really good. The texture wasn't so different from other good baguettes we've had, but the flavor was somehow richer and more developed. Speaking of richer and more developed...





...welcome to Versailles. The palace of kings, setting the standard for all the other Baroque palaces (of which we have seen quite a few), and only a 30 minute train ride outside of Paris. The iconic Hall of Mirrors is certainly impressive, though the tourists detract somewhat from its grandeur:



Marie Antoinette's jewelry cabinet was ornate (and next to a quick getaway door for her):



But perhaps the best part, despite the drizzle and cold, was the gardens. They are a huge, labyrinthine collection of trees, statues, and fountains, of which we could only explore a small part. It would be amazing to stroll around there in the summer (anyone up for a visit?), but even in the winter they were strikingly green.





The frogs and water maidens in the above photo made us smile (none of the fountains was actually spouting water at the time), and the fountain of children (and made for children) below was under repairs.



We were most impressed by the huge fountain/pool to the north (?) of the palace, dedicated to Neptune and his watery minions. The wall-sculpture was replete with intricately carved details, but one could hardly make them out for the distance--the pool separating you from being able to see the sculpture is some 60 feet wide and 100+ feet long.





Right next to the Tribute to Triton (I made that name up) is this great fountain with a dragon who is either in serious pain or laughing hysterically. Can't tell which.



A little rain at Versailles can't keep Sara's smile down.



On our way out of the gardens, we stopped in the palace for hot chocolate number two at the world-renowned Angelina. This chocolate was seriously great (and sipping it inside of Versailles didn't hurt). It was thick like JPH, but had so much more flavor--it really tasted like drinking a melted chocolate bar. They served our two cups' worth of hot chocolate in a single carafe, and two ramekins of whipped cream. It was a meal unto itself (even though we got other food there, too), which was good because it's not cheap to eat inside of Versailles--this hot chocolate runs about $10 per cup. Definitely worth it at least once.

After our Versailles excursion, we came back to the city hoping to take a tour of the Opera. Alas, the last tour concluded an hour before we arrived, despite our previous research indicating that it'd be open.  (I suspect that there was a performance that night, causing early closure for tours.) The exterior, however, is stunning, laden with tributes to music and musicians. The sky, really twilight, was made this deep blue by a few spotlights on adjacent buildings. Absolutely memorable. (The blue really is true to color, at least on my screen.)



After a few moments at the Opera we did something crazy. Hoping to catch an English movie (something we don't get so often in Aachen) and still eat at a reasonable time, we walked essentially the length of the entire city. (Okay, I just checked google maps: really only 3.1 km, but after a whole day at Versailles it felt like the whole city. Especially for Sara, who was carrying at the time a 1.25 pound baby in her belly.) We got to the area of our restaurant and decided to see the movie first, so we walked an additional 1.4 km to see "Argo." It was great--definitely worthy of best picture. We then walked back to Clasico Argentino--an empanada/Argentine gelato place that really was the whole reason for our trip. We hadn't had empanadas for a long time, despite their being the featured food at our wedding in 2008. These empanadas were great--the filling wasn't quite as flavorful as some homemade empanadas I've had/made, but the masa (dough) was superb: perfectly golden with just the right crunch and flavor. The gelato was good-not-great, but, overall, our Friday in Paris was superb. We slept well that night.

The next day, being our last in Paris, we got up to explore Montmartre some more, including the iconic basilica Sacre Coeur.



Sara and my brother Jaren had gone inside once about a year prior when we were last in Paris, though I stayed out to watch the luggage. This time, we climbed the dome of the basilica (climbing church towers is a pastime of ours) for a beautiful view of the city--the ceramic chimneys on each roof really get me.



On our walk toward (a failed attempt at) brunch, we stopped by the bakery that had won the 2011 award for best baguettes in Paris. Sadly, they were closed. However, three storefronts down the road we stumbled upon the 2010 winner (which we had not previously researched), and grabbed a couple. Here is me in my best Parisian-with-baguettes pose:



These baguettes were the best bread I've ever tasted. I can't really place it--the 2012 ones were great, too, but these just seemed a little more nuanced and a marginally better texture. We ate one baguette in Paris and brought one home.

We then walked to our pre-researched brunch place, but it was totally full that day. (We love the culture of going out for breakfast/brunch, which doesn't really exist in Aachen, despite it working against us this time.) So we carried on our walk to a second-tier lunch restaurant we had found, Le Petit Cambodge, a Cambodian restaurant. This turned out to be one of the highlights of the trip. We had rice vermicelli bowls chock full of veggies and beef--something like Bowl'd in Albany, CA, but with noodles in lieu of rice. We also snagged a fancy "Cambodian" dessert: sliced bananas cooked in coconut milk topped with toasted peanuts. This was awesome. So light yet satisfying, we make this one at home with some regularity now.

We walked down to l'Orangerie museum--a small gallery that focuses on late 19th and early 20th century paintings that you can really get close to. A highlight was the temporary exhibit of works by the Belarusian Chaïm Soutine. His expressionist portraits were particularly delightful, as you can see here.

Just before our return journey, we stopped by one more chocolatier: SIP. (It's just called "SIP".) I think this one was my favorite of the trip: a balance between the under-flavored JPH and the overly rich Angelina. Sara still preferred the Angelina to SIP. However, we agree that our US favorite--Jacques Torres in New York (of course with a French name)--holds its own with, and perhaps surpasses, its Parisian competition.

All of that and we've still only scratched the surface of Paris, though after the second visit it feels like a good scratch. We had previously seen the Eifel Tower, Notre Dame, the Louvre, and the Rodin museum, and our culinary tour of Paris added to our love of the city. We spent a huge sum on eating all of Paris, but it was totally worth it--definitely one of the best Thanksgivings I can remember.

Paris, Whirlwind-Style

Last week we made the first of what I hope will be several trips to Paris. Tyler's middle brother, Jaren, flew into Charles de Gaulle early Monday morning and we took the first train into Paris to meet him. Though we were only in the city for about 30 hours, we packed a lot in. (I had been to Paris for a weekend before, but it was the first time for both Ty and Jaren.)

The first thing we did after dropping off our luggage at our hotel was go in search of lunch. (Paris lodging aside for the interested: We stayed in a triple room at the Hotel Marignan, just off Rue St. Germaine and a five-minute walk from Notre Dame. It was an odd little room, with a water closet on one side, a sink on the other, and the shower down the hall. But it was clean and the location was great.) We walked to Cosi, a foodie sandwich place I'd seen recommended on a food blog. We got there a few minutes before it opened, so we took a little stroll along the narrow street it was on. At the end of the street was a tiny park with a dome rising over the surrounding rooftops. You can't throw a rock in Paris without hitting something beautiful like this.



Here's Jaren outside the sandwich place (which was delicious, by the way) doing his Paris face.



And here's my impression of Jaren's Paris face. Similar but scarier.



After lunch we walked to the Louvre. As we were coming in under the archway, Tyler asked, "Are all of these buildings part of the Louvre?" And I said, "No, no, I'm sure they're not." Turns out they are. It is truly huge. There is about twice again as much as you can see in this picture extending out behind the camera.



Once we got inside we spent about half an hour trying to figure out how to navigate. During this period we saw a lot of French statuary.

"But WHY, Mom?" "That's just the way it is!"

It's hard to tell from this picture, but these guys (captives of various nations conquered by France) are enormous, and so is the hall they're in.



We eventually figured out how to get around and hit most of the highlights of the museum (Venus de Milo--nice but not stunning; Winged Victory--awesome; Mona Lisa--thronged by people trying to take pictures with their cell phones from 20 feet away. I squeezed to the front to look and thought it was very cool; Tyler and Jaren were underwhelmed.) I believe Tyler and Jaren's favorite works, though, were the weird boob paintings.

This painting, too, is listed as a highlight. Apparently these women are sisters. Hm. And can the knitting woman in the background really be oblivious to what's going on here?

Who knew the asp bit Cleopatra right on the nipple?

After our quick trot around the Louvre, we walked through the Jardin Tuileries toward the Eiffel Tower. Unfortunately, the top was closed, so we didn't go up, but it was a nice walk. The next two pictures were taken from a sort of shelf at the end of the gardens overlooking one of Paris's mammoth traffic circles. Notice the über-fancy streetlights on the left (the large green pillars).





After being thwarted at the Eiffel Tower, we took the metro back to Notre Dame.



Later we walked to the Rue Mouffetard, where we went to a patisserie. Tyler got a miniature Yule log made of frosting.



By this point, Jaren had been up for about 30 hours, but we dragged him to the other end of the city once more to climb the Arc de Triomphe. Though it was raining, the view was spectacular. It's a little hard to tell from this picture, but all of the trees along the Champs Elysee had rings of Christmas lights around them that gradually changed color. When blue, they made the avenue look like the French flag--red taillights, white headlights, blue trees.

We didn't see a light show, but the Tower was lit up.

We finally let Jaren go to bed after that, and Tyler and I went out for crepes and hot chocolate. Yum.

The next morning we breakfasted on baguettes at the hotel, then went to Sainte-Chapelle. It is really, really, REALLY worth seeing.

The top floor is pretty much made of stained glass.

This castle and fleur-de-lys motif is everywhere, both inside and out.

Sainte-Chapelle is kind of hidden among government buildings.

Next we headed over to the Rodin Museum, enjoying lovely views along the way.



The coolest thing about the Rodin Museum is that his most famous works are out in the gardens. Here's Tyler at the Gates of Hell!

The Three Shades. Or four.

After Rodin we went back to the hotel to fetch our backpacks and Jaren's suitcase and headed toward Montmartre. We hauled the luggage up the very steep Butte de Montmartre, and just barely had time for a quick circuit through the Sacred Heart Basilica (while Tyler waited outside with the bags and looked at the view) before we had to jog back down the hill to the Paris North train station.

Our feet were glad of the chance to rest on the train, though I, for one, would've loved to spend the whole week walking around Paris. Next time I'd like to focus a bit more on the food. As you can see from Tyler's post, Brussels, which was next on our itinerary, was all about the food.