Paris, Part Trois –- The Pictures!

At long last:

Paris - May 2008

© ELA Photography

Paris, Part Deux –- The Food

It's true, the French can cook. And bake. And eat. Like many places in Europe, it's not particularly easy/enjoyable to eat vegetarian and it's especially difficult for the lactose-challenged. If you avoid foie gras (for health, taste, or ideological reasons), keep those thoughts to yourself and be vigilant; if you love it, rejoice!

Friday

1. Drinks at Le Seven's Bar (7e, 58 Rue St-Dominique) -- it was our very first non-train station/non-hotel interaction, so we hesitantly ordered and then quietly sipped our cocktails while oh-so-casually flipping through the French newspaper left on the bar. We practiced asking for the bill and Eliot finally worked up the courage combined with the international 'check please!' motion. The two bartenders couldn't have been nicer and thanked us in English when we left. It was a reassuring start.
   
2. Dinner at L'Ami Jean (7e, 27 Rue Malar) -- FANTASTIC! -- we couldn't get a reservation until 10:30pm (and didn't sit until after 11pm). The set menu was €33 and well, well worth it. I had a white asparagus appetizer, cod, then a watermelon 'milk shake.' Eliot had some sort of chicken appetizer recommended by our server, John Dory, then riz au lait (very fancy rice pudding in a HUGE bowl).

Saturday

1. Lunch on-the-go (baguette, cheese, salami) before our bike tour that never happened because the Bike About Tours guy never showed up! (And we haven't heard anything from Bike About Tours since despite our follow-up phone call and email.)
   
2. The amazing Berthillon ice cream – caramel for Eliot and cherry sorbet for me – on the Ile St. Louis
3. Dinner at Le Dome du Marais (4e, 53 Rue Francs Bourgeois). Our res was at 8:30pm, which was good because there were numerous courses. We did the cheapest prix fixe (€36?). The restaurant was beautiful (it is indeed a dome) and the cheese course and desserts were especially tasty. The maitre d' recommended the nearby Cafe des Musees (49 rue de Turenne) when we asked for a suggestion for Sunday, which we didn't get to try. Maybe next time...
   

Sunday

1. A wonderful surprise b-day breakfast in bed at our hotel! (We saved every last little jam and honey pot.)
   
2. Picnic lunch (supplies from the Rue Cler market) in the park at Hotel des Invalides.
3. Cocktail hour at the Hemingway Bar at the Ritz. Our drinks were *on the expensive side.* Let's call it one of those once in a lifetime/"well, we are on vacation..."/only because it's my birthday experiences.
   
4. Late-night, post-Eiffel Tower dinner at Les Philosophes (Le Marais, 28 Rue Vieille du Temple), which was a place that had been recommended to us, but we actually just stumbled upon it after the two falafel places we were aiming for were closed. Our server couldn’t have been nicer and even seemed (unnecessarily) apologetic about his minimal English. It was a great place for a casual outdoor midnight meal.

Monday

1. Lunch at Comptoir de L’Arc (73 Avenue Marceau, a block SE of the Arc de Triomphe), which appeared to be a hip place for the suits and cigarette-smoking, espresso-drinking 20-somethings alike. And for good reason, our lunch was delicious.
2. Macarons from Laduree (75 Champs-Elysees) – we picked out a colorful selection of 15 mini-macarons to take home and then bought two (larger ones) for the road. Cookies have never been savored as these macarons were. Eliot and I managed to get two bites per person out of each mini-macaron -- mind you, these are about the size of Oreos. AMAZINGLY, we discovered that Laduree has an outpost at Harrod’s in London, so we restocked this past weekend. If you go anywhere in Paris, go to Laduree. I guarantee satisfaction.

“Paris, Part Trois – The Pictures” coming soon!

Paris, Part Un -- The Sights

We went to Paris for the three-day weekend (also, coincidentally, my b-day ;) ). I have always been a little nervous about Paris because I speak no French and you know what they say. Well, it was no problem at all. Bonjour/bonsoir/madame/monsieur/merci/parlez-vous anglais/au revoir/and lots of smiling sweetly sufficed.

ITINERARY

Saturday

1. 11:00 am: The Louvre. We started out big. With our Museum Pass (if you're planning to go to more than one museum, get one), we breezed right in. We followed Rick Steves' museum tour, which I thought was great. Most importantly it gave us direction. The Mona Lisa sat demurely for the screaming masses. I actually kind of had to jump up and down to see her; not a classic viewing technique really.
2. 2:00 pm: Walk along the Seine to the Charlemagne Statue for our bike tour with Bike About Tours, which didn't happen because our tour guide didn't show up(!!), so we went into the Notre-Dame instead.
3. 4:30 pm: Deportation Memorial – a memorial for the 200,000 deported to Nazi Concentration Camps during WWII.
4. 5:00 pm: Ile St. Louis for ice cream.
5. 5:30 pm: Walk along Blvd. St. Germain (the Left Bank). We saw the famous Café de Flore and Les Deux Magots, but couldn’t stop because my allergies were killing me.
6. 8:30 pm: Dinner in Le Marais (see “Paris, Part Deux” coming soon).

Sunday

1. 11:00 am: Rue Cler Market, which is adorable. The flower shop had a line stretching halfway into the street. I would have bought peonies.
2. 12:00 pm: Walk to/under the Eiffel Tower.
3. 1:00 pm: Musée du quai Branly for the Planète Métisse (Mestizo Planet) exhibit, which was interesting, particularly because of the way it was presented.
4. 3:00 pm: Napoleon’s Tomb, which is…decadent.
5. 3:30 pm: Rodin Museum – The Thinker is really beautifully displayed outside in the garden. I was happy we squeezed this museum in actually; it was very enjoyable (especially with our Rick Steves’ tour :) ).
6. 5:00 pm: Musée d'Orsay. We had one hour exactly before closing so we raced, and I mean RACED, through the 5th floor (the Impressionists). The collection is actually pretty amazing, but how many museums can one do in a day really.
7. 6:00 pm: Hotel for shoe changing and power napping.
8. 7:30 pm: Hemingway Bar at the Ritz.
9. 9:30 pm: Up the Eiffel Tower! I think we made it to the top at about 10:30 pm and it was gorgeous (albeit windy). There was some sort of French pop concert happening in the Trocadero, which provided some needed entertainment while waiting in line (in the rain).
10. Midnight: dinner in Le Marais.

Monday

1. 11:00am: Arc de Triomphe – We probably wouldn’t have gone up if we hadn’t had Museum Passes, but the view is gorgeous, as is the Arc itself.
2. 12:00pm: Champs Elysees – We got about half a mile down (didn’t pass any stores of interest really – we popped into the Peugeot store and looked at the garish bags in the window at LV) and then somehow Eliot managed to drag me off track for lunch and then before I knew it, it was time to go back to the hotel to checkout. No clothing and, more importantly, no shoes were purchased. How did this happen??
3. 3:30pm: RER back to CDG. :(

Stay tuned for “Paris, Part Deux – The Food”

Amsterdam

WARNING: Belated Post! (Work is cramping my blogging style.)

We went to Amsterdam for the 4-day Easter weekend (way back in March) and it couldn't have been easier: Cardiff to Schipol in a little over an hour. We took the train to Centraal Station and the tram to our hotel. We did not take a single taxi the entire weekend, which was pretty amazing considering the high temperature was 3 degrees C. After dropping our stuff off at the Hilton (we got a great rate on Expedia), we headed the few blocks north to Vondelpark. It was cold, but not snowing, so we walked and walked. And kept walking for four days. It snowed off and on for our entire trip, which was not ideal for sight-seeing, but it was beautiful. And yes, the locals bike in the rain, sleet, and snow. They bike holding umbrellas. They bike text-messaging.

Highlights:

• Walking through the 'residential' neighborhoods -- Many flats have curtain-less, street-front windows revealing their impeccably decorated and perfectly lit homes. And everyone seemed to be hosting gorgeous dinner parties -- sometimes we literally weren't sure if it was an apartment or a tiny restaurant! Every so often, we'd also come to a perfect corner pub that we swore would be *our* pub if and when we moved here.
  
• Shopping at the tiny neighborhood stores -- I bought a 'unique' tank top at Universe on a Tshirt, peach moccasin-like flats in a teeny hip shoe store, LaBeuf, in/near Chinatown, and several things at Sissy-Boy (which is decidedly not a neighborhood store, but still a success -- it's sort of like H&M but with more 100% cotton). Oh, and the neighborhood grocers and bakeries were to die for; even the convenience stores had personality.
• Eating at perfect little restaurants -- We stumbled upon La Oliva (Egelantierstraat 122-124) after attempting Ristorante Hostaria (next door) and couldn't have been happier. Our menu options were in Dutch or Spanish (we chose Spanish) and we enjoyed several courses of tapas while the snow swirled madly outside. And we didn't hear a single American or British accent! Success! The next night, per our guidebook's instruction, we had the rijsttafel at Tempo Doeloe (Utrechtsestraat 75), where we were taken in like old friends. Imagine my sheer glee, when I later found this article on Bittman's Bitten.
  

Advice:

• Get a strippenkaart (strip card) if you're planning to take public transportation. We bought ours at a kiosk in Centraal Station.
• Buy a pack of Stroopwafels (caramel cookie-type things). They are amazing, and a perfect snack while sight-seeing (thanks for the advice, Travis!). However, I've now seen them at the supermarket AND at Starbucks here in Cardiff, so I'm pretty sure the word is out.
• BUY YOUR MUSEUM TICKETS ONLINE. The lines for both the Van Gogh and Rijks museums would have been prohibitively long had we not bought our tickets online. (You don't even have to choose a date or anything.) We did not buy a ticket for the Anne Frank House/Huis because we would have had to select not only a date, but also time slot. Thus, we had to wait for about an hour (but it was well worth it). I spent most of my time in line trying to recite David Sedaris' "Possession" (excerpt here) to Eliot, but the essay is definitely not as funny in the retelling.

Pictures

© ELA Photography

There is hardly a European city that I've been to that I don't matter-of-factly say to Eliot "I would live here," but I really would live in Amsterdam. I would just need a new coat. :)

The One

Our coworker Joanne often describes things as "the one." This cake is "the one," this curry is "the one," this guy at the gym is "the one," and so on.

Well, this butternut squash soup (from All Recipes) is "THE ONE."

We made about half of the recipe, but altered it slightly (based on the comments and what we had).

• Half a large onion, chopped up real nice
  
• 2 Tbsp butter
• 4 cups butternut squash
• 2 cups water
  
• 2 cubes chicken bouillon
  
• (didn't have marjoram)
• several grinds of black pepper
• 1/4 tsp chili powder
• 1/8 tsp nutmeg
  
• Approx 2 oz low-fat cream cheese (which is much less than the original recipe calls for)
  

We followed the cooking instructions and pureed in the blender. It was AMAZING. Better than any I've had at a restaurant and it couldn't have been easier. It gives new meaning to "the one."