PARIS!: Food
This wasn’t really a surprise but more like a confirmation that food in France is really, really good. Needless to say the baguette was our primary carb and cheese was the primary source of protein for us.
Since I absolutely refuse to wake up to an alarm early in the morning on vacations, we always missed breakfast. Our three meals for the day was brunch, tea time (except neither of us really drank tea but we did eat pastries that went with tea!) and dinner. We’d wake up and pick from the 1 of like 5 bakeries near us and get a foott long sandwich.
Paris ruined sandwiches for me, in that I can’t buy a sandwich in NYC anymore because the quality is usually subpar than what it is in Paris. I refuse to pay through the nose for crap. However, I did find a French boulanger like a five minute walk from the office I work at. I’ve had two sandwiches from them and they’re really good. Unfortunately they cost me like $10 a pop.
ANYWAY, in Paris, my sister and I usually split a sandwich for brunch. I didn’t take any photos of our sandwiches because it didn’t occur to me to even take some until after I’ve inhaled the sandwich.
Once in awhile, my sister and I would have picnics (most often in our hotel room) because we were too lazy to find a brassiere or too cheap to eat out. Our picnics consisted of one 3-4 foot long bageutte, a cheese, a meat (usually proscuitto), and a tomatoe coriander spread I got from Olivers and Co. off of Rue Cler in the 7th Arrondisement. In addition to the ham, I’d splurge on foie gras. I’ve never really had foie gras before but I liked it. It’s surprisingly filling, probably because it is rich of duck innards. My sister described the taste as “creamy Spam”, which I guess is one way of describing it. I thought the saltiness of foie gras is a bit more subtle than the saltiness of spam. Also foie gras actually tastes like duck (well if you got the foie gras that was 100% duck, which I did usually get).
Macarons, foie gras, and crepes, were the food products, I just HAD TO EAT in Paris, or else I would’ve been profoundly disappointed. So each time we went into a bakery at tea time I just had to have a macaron. I think the best macaron I had were at Dallyou (I got the strawberry flavor) off of the Jardin Luxemborg and Laudree (I had the orange blossom flavor), of which the founder invented macarons on Champs Elyasses. Then The worst was defintely at a PETER(?) kiosk in the airport. The worst macaron was stiff and too chewy while the best macaron was just the right amount of chewy with a rich filling. I guess a good macaron would have variety of textures while a bad one would just be stiff? I have no clue was a “real” macaron tastes like because all the macarons I’ve had were different. My sister, who never had a macaron before said it was like a brownie with fudge in the middle.
Now, crepes are easier to pin down, in terms of gastronomical experience. Crepes are just a simpler affair. They are essentially micro-thin pancakes. Most of the crepes we had were simple dessert crepes we had, we bought from off the street. We had crepe meals at these creprie [name?] on IIle (the other island that is not the island where Notre Dame is). We had gallettes which are just like ordinary crepes except that the batter is made from buckwheat and is savory. The gallette I had was called “Provincal” and had mozarella cheese, olive oil, basil, and tomatoes. It was really good. The crepe by itself would’ve been really good too.
On the last night, we went to a restauraunt roughly translated as Bistro in the 7th. We ordered the menu du jour. Basically you get a starter, an entree, and a dessert, in some places you even get drinks. There were tons of other restaurants right next to it, but I picked this one because they had foie gras and my sister was intrigued by the duck.
For our starters I had the foie gras while my sister had the marinated haddock. I could taste that the foie gras wasn’t 100% duck but it was still good. The marinated haddock wasn’t fresh haddock, rather it was salted haddock, so sorta like the salmon they you can eat right out of the pack. It was a bit too salty but the potatoes sorta offset that.
For the entrees, my sister had roasted duck.
While I had the chitterling sausage au nature (plain). I opted out of the mustard sauce because I thought it would too be spicy. Essentially I wussed out.It tasted strang and unfamiliar. There was sorta of a strange smell but it didnt deter me from finishing the whole thing. At first I didn’t know what chitterling sausage meant but apparently it’s pig intestines. No wonder it smelled funky. Now that I know, I’m not fazed because I’ve had thymus glands before.
My sister isn’t as adventurous as me. She usually picked a menu item she recognized, like duck and potatoes. At Angelina’s, a cafe a few blocks away from the Louvre, and was frequented by Audrey Hepburn, she ordered a plain jane club sandwich (but she told me it was very good club sandwich). I ordered the croussilant ratatoutille, which reminded me off a square spring roll. It is basically vegatable drenched in a kind of sauce, then wrapped in some sort of fried crust. It was savory and I’m having a hard time describing the flavor because it was all novel to me, which is really the best kind of sensation, tasting something you’ve never tasted before.
For dessert, I had the mont blanc. The waiteress basically just bought us a tray of desserts and we just picked one. Now I didn’t know that the Mont Blanc was Angelina’s signature dessert, I just picked it because I saw a lot of people around us pick it. I wasn’t disappointed. It’s basically 2-3 inches of chestnut cream on top of white cream on top of a macaroon. Delicious.
Another good dessert I had was at Laduree. Chantilly cream, on top of a glazed cream puff, decorated with mini-cream puffs. I was tempted to get the hot chocolate too but I figured that would be overkill. Overall, I think it’s sorta amazing how my sister and I didn’t get extremely fat from all the sweets and cheese we had.
No comments.
No comments yet.