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.

Epic Deutschland Tour, Part 3: Reconstruction, Reichstag, Ritter Sport

Note to our accidental readers: I follow the statistics on the blog fairly closely. For example, September 2012 (in which we made a significant announcement regarding our Agricola strategy) saw the third most hits in any month since we began blogging. (The other two months were last July and October, when people still missed us and got to see our travels around Greece, respectively.) We didn't fully consider the ramifications of titling a recent blog entry "German Drinking Games." You'd be surprised how many people find our blog by searching for "German drinking games." I hope if you're arriving here looking for advice on how to drink like a German you're not terribly disappointed.

On part three of our epic tour de Deutschland we traveled deeper into the heart of East Germany, this time arriving at Dresden. Lots of people had told us that there are really beautiful things in the former East, but we didn't really know what to expect. Weimar was also an East German city, but it seemed more or less the same as other, West German cities that we'd seen (with its own, Weimarian character, of course.) Dresden, on the other hand, blew us away.



The old town area is covered with beautiful buildings, mostly Baroque but also some Renaissance and modern stuff, too. The whole city was destroyed in the war, and though much of it (thankfully) has been restored, there's still a lot that hasn't been. According to our tour guide, there used to be some 600 buildings of such grandeur (see photos above and below) in the city center, while today there are only 30 or so. From a purely geographic point of view I don't see how that would be possible, but I'm not going to argue with him. At any rate, it's a fantastic city center.

Below is part of the Zwinger Palace. Previously a part of the city's wall, the Zwinger underwent several expansions and renovations in the 17th through 19th centuries, giving it a garden, an orangery, and an art gallery. Apparently the garden/courtyard was used for a month-long wedding celebration involving jousting and other riding sports, including one where women would ride (side-saddle, so as not to reveal too much of their underskirt) and try to collect hanging rings.



The white bells hanging from the clock window are made of Meissen porcelain. This was the first hard-paste porcelain developed in Europe (China had it going on long before its European debut in 1708) and dominated the European porcelain market for decades. The bells, when not too cold, still chime the hours and quarter-hours; we were lucky enough to hear a little chime song, which sounded rather bright and birdsong-like to me.



Above is a photo of a fountain in the Zwinger complex, and below another view of the courtyard.



The other buildings in the city were also beautiful. This is a view of a former palace (?) that is now part of the Dresden museum.



And another Dresden museum.



This is a rather interesting mural titled "Fürstenzug." It, like the bells at the Zwinger, is made of Meissen porcelain and depicts the progression of Saxon kings from the 12th through early 20th centuries. (You can see a high-res image here.) The mural was only minimally damaged in WWII, owing to a few clever Dresdanians who painted the mural flat grey and, thus, made it extremely boring looking. It was impressive--more than a football field (either American or regular football) of Saxon rulers.





Despite Dresden's extremely non-religious population (only 10-15% of the population goes to church regularly), there are two extraordinary churches in the old town. The recently rebuilt Lutheran church, peeking out in the background below, has come to symbolize international cooperation--the church was rebuilt using funds from many different countries and they used many of the same bricks to rebuild it!



The other main church is, of course, a Catholic church. Both churches are extremely beautiful and in very different styles.

This is another view of the Lutheran church (the Frauenkirche) showing the black bricks that were part of the original, pre-WWII structure. Sadly, photography inside wasn't allowed, but it was brightly lit, owing to the many windows, and the altarpiece was original and pieced back together. Also, the original cross from the top of the church, crooked and rusted after the war, is on display near one of the inside doors. I found that cross particularly moving.





My favorite building in Dresden was the Opera House, shown below.



I'm not an architect, so forgive my lack of precision, but I like the combined styles of "round" and "triangle" on this building. Plus, it has great brickwork around the front and the domed balcony looks fantastic. I wish we could have seen the inside but it wasn't open to us. This opera house is well known for being the location of 25 or 30 different opera premieres, none of which I know.



We crossed the Elbe river to the newer side of Dresden where we ate lunch with some new Humboldt friends, Alicia and Bryan, and we found this Church of the Three Kings, which we dutifully ascended.



It was a great tower to climb because, unlike the more popular Frauenkirche in the city center, this tower offers a view of the city center.



And I made a mini-Dresden from the same tower.



On our way back to our hotel in Dresden we passed this building, which is completely forgettable except for the glow-in-the-dark, larger-than-life spider in front of the main window.



And we caught a brief period of sunshine and perfect weather as we walked by the outside of the Zwinger once more.



The next day took us to the capital of Germany and one of my favorite cities anywhere, Berlin. This time I (Sara stayed at the room to catch up on some sleep) took a tour of the Reichstag, the hall of Parliament. We'd previously been on the roof, but I hadn't seen the inside.



Early on in the tour I saw this wall and thought, "Wow. German attention to detail, huh? They can't even keep the walls of their parliament free of graffiti." Then I realized that is was deliberate--this graffiti was scribbled when the parliament building was partially toppled due to air raids in 1945.





We got to enter the hall of parliament and enjoy a brief description of how German government works. I don't know all of the details, but Angela Merkel, when she's visiting, takes the front-right seat (as seen in this picture) in the left bank of seats. Also, Germany's system of government is huge and complicated, but has some really great ideas going for it (each member of parliament sits in an assigned block with their own party members--makes for easy vote counting.*) Also, the big aluminum bird is the Fat Hen. (Look at the little icon up by your address bar. Get it?)



One Berlin destination that we'd talked much about but never visited was the Ritter Sport factory/museum/store. This time we were careful to plan out a trip and, together with Carly, Dan, and Sarah (our Australian friends on the trip), made the trip to Mecca Ritter. It was beautiful.



The biggest part of the allure (frankly, the only thing to do there besides eat chocolate or buy chocolate) is to make your own Ritter Sport chocolate bar. The fountains of chocolate flow freely,



and after you have them mix your ingredients and chocolate to the mold and it has set in the fridge for 35 minutes, you get these:



And when they come out of the mold, they look just like this:



Sara, whose taste buds seemed to be superior to mine for this trip, got almond/raspberry, and I got sour cherry/hazelnut. They were both amazing. We're keeping these Ritter Sport make-you-own-chocolate photos as a sort of documentation on the birth of our first bars of chocolate. We hope to return.

The last thing we did (and photographed) in Berlin was a trip to the Pergamon museum, the second most visited musem in Europe (after the Louvre). Sara, who had been to the Pergamon last fall, decided to take advantage of being in a city with a real population and went to see Pixar's Brave in English (she wasn't thrilled with the movie, but the experience was nice). I tackled the Pergamon on my own and, armed with my philosophy of don't-try-to-see-everything, really enjoyed it. The great altar:



The frieze around the great altar:



The market gate:



And the Ishtar gate:



They were all phenomenal in scale and detail--it's really amazing to think of the man hours that must've gone into those works. I was a little bummed, though, when every massive object (the ones shown above) had a disclaimer: "Due to space/transportation/budgetary considerations, this is only a fraction of the XXX. The real XXX was approximately five times taller and three times wider and could NEVER be housed in a museum." The whole point of having these objects is to wow us with their magnitude and gravitas, then they tell you that they only caught a fraction of it. I was a little underwhelmed, but still, it's a fantastic museum in one of my favorite places ever.

*The votes, since they tend to follow party blocs, tend to be easy to count. However, there is no electronic voting in Germany and, if it's a close call, the president can call for the Hammelsprung (literally, ram's leap). Then, each member of parliament stands up and leaves the plenary hall. Then, when their name is called, they walk through a door labeled Yes, No, or Abstention. It must take a long time for the 622 members of the Bundestag, but I bet the count is accurate.

The Meldrums Take Manhattan

Drinking fountains. Free bathrooms. Free water (with ICE! and refills!) in restaurants. Pizzerias without a single mention of seafood on their menus. These are just a few of the wondrous things that greeted us upon our return to the land of our births. Also, the Meldrum family, complete with Austin, whom we hadn't seen for more than two years. (He was on a mission for our church in Chuuk, one of the Federated States of Micronesia.) We spent an excellent week in Manhattan together. (Technically, we only had everyone all together for three days of the trip. Tyler came late because he was at a science-in-art-conservation conference in Vermont and Jaren had to leave early to get back to DC for a class.)

As with any good Meldrum vacation there was abundant silliness and fun, and as with any good New York vacation there was abundant good food. Here are some pictures that capture these two vital aspects of the trip.

For reasons best known to himself, Jaren made t-shirts for everyone with his mother's face on them. Becky promised to wear hers often, though she was (understandably) reluctant to wear it out into the city, since the picture is so well done that it's very recognizably her.

In addition to the shirts, there were lots of other presents to exchange. We got some lovely American things ...

... and gave away some German goods. Austin got a Berlin Ampelmann shirt. (The Ampelmann is the little guy on the pedestrian traffic lights from East Germany, now seen all over Berlin.)

I think Becky would agree that she got the best of all the European presents--Belgian and Dutch chocolate.

We had to try this taqueria--it was started by two brothers from Berkeley who found New York sadly lacking in decent burritos. They based their restaurant Gordo's, my favorite taqueria, from the food down to the wood-and-leather stools. And yes, the burritos really did taste like Gordo's. I teared up. Just a tiny bit.

We took a ferry past the Statue of Liberty to Ellis Island. I'd say Benton looks the most solemn, Becky has the best posture, and Austin and Eric are tied for most disgusted face.

After our afternoon on the water we were starving. Luckily, Eric knew where to find Grimaldi's Pizza. Amazing--it came close to being as good as the pizza we had in Perugia. And there wasn't a bit of tuna in sight.

Becky was excited about Times Square.

Not pictured:

On Thursday night, before Tyler arrived, Kenny, Eric, Jaren, Austin, and I went to the taping of the Colbert Report. We showed up a scant forty minutes before the doors opened and all managed to get in. We had to wait inside for a long time, but it was well worth it. Before and after the show Colbert took questions out of character--he was at least as funny, if not funnier, than he was in character. He told us about the little library he has to one side of the desk on set. The fiction section includes On the Origin of Species, while Watership Down is on the nonfiction shelf. Colbert said that when he tries to make a joke that is too highbrow, his producer says, "Remember, your character thinks that rabbits are at war with each other." If you're interested, you should be able to watch the episode we saw here. (No, you can't see us in the video. Sorry, Austin, but no, you can't.)

Another highlight was a behind-the-scenes tour of the American Museum of Natural History, given by my dear friend, Amy, who works there. First we went to the astrophysics department, where a graduate student tried to recruit 13-year-old Benton to the field. Then Amy took us to a room in the depths of the building where the stacks house whale skeletons. We learned that a single whale vertebra is bigger than a human head. Over the next hour she led us through a maze of rooms and corridors stuffed with preserved vertebrates of every kind. Though Amy had told me about her job before, seeing the animals and the scope of the collection was still kind of shocking.

It was a little sad to be in New York City without my sister Laura (since the three trips I'd taken there before had been to visit her), but luckily we got to see her and the rest of the Bay-Marostica family next!