Contemplation and Gourmandism

More walking, this time at the Jardin du Luxembourg (map here) -- nicknamed Luco by the locals -- a large public park behind the Palais du Luxembourg, the seat of the French Senate. It's quite lovely and even though Jon and I have both been here on previous trips to Paris, the tranquility of the place is always worth a return visit. Most folks are drawn to the space immediately behind the palace, with the famous Medici Fountain and the pond where children sail model boats. If you continue going south, there's an open strip of lawn lined on the sides with precisely-trimmed trees where couples can often be seen making out (a common sight around Paris). It's all as wonderful as advertised and there are plenty of other things to see and do in the park (over 100 statues, tennis courts, large fenced-in playground, etc.) but my favorite part of the Jardin du Luxembourg is a small section along the very southern edge, just west of the long strip of lawn. There, one can find an open expanse of grass bordered by a walkway and lined with chairs. The parterre facing the palace has umpteen chairs all around but you'll need luck, speed, and daring to secure one. The section to the south always has available seating and it's far quieter than the sexier parts of the park. Jon and I sat there in repose for a good 45 minutes in a contemplative frame of mind, just soaking in the rightness of it all. Nearby, a middle-aged Frenchman in a sharp suit reclined in his chair, reading a newspaper and smoking a cigar. On the grass in the distance, 2 little girls ran around without supervision (at least until their father swooped in playfully and gently wrangled them off to the side 20 minutes later). Strolling around town and eating excellent food are both great vacation activities, but stopping the universe for a short while and reflecting on everything and nothing makes for a deeply satisfying experience. Highly recommended.













We continued wandering around the 6th arrondissement, including a disappointing detour down a narrow side street. Jon and I share a similar sense of adventure, and we'd been having pretty good luck at going off of our planned route when spying a tight street jammed with shops. We went down one such street off of Boulevard Saint Michel, just to the north of the park. We were quite dismayed to find that while absolutely packed with lively bars and restaurants, the area purely catered to tourists (Americans in particular). The nail in the coffin was a stretch of restaurants each with an aggressive barker outside to lure folks in. We beat feet out of there as quickly as possible. (A little research after the fact indicates that we were on Rue de la Huchette, affectionately referred to by guidebooks as "Bacteria Alley".) While we certainly are not qualified to assess what is or is not authentic Paris, we're making an effort to avoid restaurants with English menus and neighborhoods with plethoras of souvenir shops.

Dinner was at a place recommended by my good friend Chung, who visited Paris a few months ago. He and I share a very similar palate so he's one of the few people whose eating recommendations I take at face value. When he suggested Bouillon des Colonies, I was a bit skeptical since he described it as world food, but I trust him implicitly so off we went. It's actually a relatively recent next-door offshoot of Bouillon Racine, an Art Nouveau-style French brasserie opened in 1906 that's classified as a historic monument.

The restaurant is not very large and the décor is eclectic. Some of the items on the walls according to the website: hangings and masks from Senegal, a Fulani spear from Nigeria, a Masai spear and shield, a Crocodile Dundee hat, a Balinese mask, a Shinto monk's rope, a Buddha from Ceylon, a tapestry from Rajasthan, opium pipes from Hong Kong and Thailand, and a Burmese prayer book.

We started with Vapeurs Cochinchine (Chinese steamed dumplings) and an Assiette Afrique Orient (East African Plate). The assiette contained four items: tchoutchouka (an Algerian dish of cooked strips of bell peppers and onions), hummus, baba ghanoush, and carrots cooked with honey and cumin. The first three items were all fairly mild in flavor and not particularly interesting, but the carrots were fantastic. The cumin lent a really interesting savory note that I rarely associate with carrots, while the honey provided a nice glaze that kept the very soft carrots intact without interjecting too much sweetness into the mix. It seems like it shouldn't be difficult to make at home and if I ever learn to cook, this would definitely be part of my repertoire.

The dumplings were all very tasty, with one each of pork, beef, shrimp, and vegetables. There were two dipping sauces provided. One was just plain soy sauce which was frankly disappointing, as I've never been to an Asian restaurant in the US that would provide a dish of soy sauce without adding something to it like rice wine vinegar, scallions, sesame oil, wasabi, etc. The other dipping sauce was as awesome as the other was disappointing; it was something like sweet-and-sour sauce in color and texture, but with only a faint hint of sweetness, no real sourness, and a distinct kick of heat that was a "wow" without being overwhelming or persistent. The spiciness was in a perfect zone to generate endorphins but not set off any alarms. After I finished the dumplings I kept sampling the sauce by itself to figure out why it was so tasty. I never figured it out but I'm happy that I had the chance to experience it.

Jon ordered the beef saté with basmati rice, while I went with the duck pastilla. The beef -- cut into strips sized 6cm x 0.5cm -- was served in a hemispherical lump with sautéed onions and was ridiculously tender, truly falling apart in the mouth with a bare modicum of dental effort. The flavor profile was expansive, with a somewhat peppery and very savory brown sauce. Not quite earth-shaking, but very, very tasty. The duck was the best dish of the trip so far, consisting of a densely-packed square of shredded dark duck meat inside of a thin phyllo-like pastry. The duck was super-rich, even by duck standards, with a well-rounded flavor profile: a little sweet, texturally fatty and meaty at the same time, with mostly round and dark bass notes of cumin, coriander, and any number of well-blended spices. The thin coating of sauce on the side of the plate was akin to the concentrated sauce or gravy that the French create when deglazing a cooking vessel. The sauce was very thick (pulling the meat through the sauce left a channel that was not immediately filled in by the surrounding sauce) with a distinct caramel note and a broad spectrum of spices, of which I can only confidently identify black pepper and curry powder. To push things over the edge, the pastilla was served with a side of warm hummus. If you've never had warm hummus, definitely give it a try because it really changes the mouthfeel (softer) and makes the hummus an outstanding team player. Words really don't do the dish justice, as Jon and I looked at each other dumbfounded at just how crazy delicious we found the dish. I would have licked the plate if I didn't think that would have gotten me tossed out of the restaurant. On a side note, we had a bottle of Côtes du Rhône -- selected by Jon -- with dinner which worked out very well, as the varietal has a bit more body than a typical pinot noir and paired well with the relatively strong flavors of the dishes. Just a great, great meal.

I again apologize for the horrendous quality of the pictures, but we've been putting far more effort into the process of eating food rather than the process of photographing it.














Continuing to fall further behind in these blog updates, I'm now 2.5 days in arrears. In real time, our stay in Paris has just ended and we leave our apartment for a train to Amsterdam in about 90 minutes. Up next on the blog, more club action and a passel of mussels from Brussels.

Number of waffles topped with whipped cream purchased from a street vendor: 1
Ratio of napkin wipes of the mouth to bites of the waffle: 1:1
Number of battery-powered electronic devices brought by the two of us: 8
Number of those devices carried on our person when out: 5

Acidity and Invigoration

There was some more walking around town, this time near the Montmartre section of town, around the Moulin Rouge and Paris' red-light district of Pigalle. Though the area is unsurprisingly a bit touristy (and we're trying to avoid touristy areas), it was neat to discover that it's also a very musical section of town. I counted a double-digit number of small establishments selling guitars on a single block off of the main street (Boulevard de Rochechouart), as well as several piano shops and sheet music stores. The line for the Moulin Rouge consisted of mostly older, rather well-dressed folks. It's not something I'd thought about before but I found that a little surprising, though on second thought it shouldn't be.







Dinner was at L'Alsaco (map here), a charming little restaurant that strives to recreate the feel of a small village establishment in Alsace, with wood-paneling all around, medieval-style paintings, and exclusively Alsatian wine, beer, and bottled water options. Pretty much everyone there orders one of their choucroute options. Choucroute is French for sauerkraut but the word is often used as shorthand for choucroute garnie, which is any preparation of hot sauerkraut with meat and potatoes. The meat is usually an array of sausages but other variations include a large ham hock or a selection of seafood (choucroute de la mer).

We started with a dish called pipalakass, made from sour cream, onions, parsley, and cumin with a small boiled potato on the side. It reminded me somewhat of the dip that one makes with French onion soup mix, but far better. The flavor profile is subtle, with nothing jumping out at first except the smoothness of the sour cream followed quickly by the crunch of raw onions. The raw onions didn't have the sharp flavor one might expect and were quite sweet. Hints of cumin and parsley then come into play late with a very feathery touch. The restraint of the flavors makes this dish easy to eat in quantity; it's basically flavored sour cream and unsurprisingly it went quite well with the boiled potato. We also had a dish of mini-pretzels on the table, and dipping them into the pipalakass proved to be quite addictive.

For my entree I ordered choucroute with jarret (ham hock). This tickled me, as my most distinct memory of eating choucroute with colleagues several years ago in Le Havre is of looking over at another table who ordered communal plates of choucroute that included a Flintstone-sized hunk of meat-on-a-bone. My recollection may be faulty but I recall it appearing to weigh at least 4 or 5 pounds and looking awesome. As such, it's hard for me to pass up the opportunity to order a large lump of meat so I can chuckle at the memory.

I also want to note that French-style sauerkraut is different from the German-style sauerkraut we're used to in the States. Choucroute is not nearly as sour as the German stuff and has just a little bit more crunch with hints of sweetness and spices (one almost always finds several whole cloves in every pile of choucroute). Accompanying meat is placed on top of the choucroute and the whole thing is always served warm; typically the plate is placed over a couple of Sterno-type heaters to stay that way.

My buddy Jon (like my bologna, my buddy has a first name) ordered the traditional choucroute garnie with an array of sausages and bacon (called lard in French so don't be fooled). There's no need to go into a detailed blow-by-blow description of the entrees -- I know it's shocking that I'd pass up the opportunity to throw in a few hundred more words on this blog since there's clearly not enough sesquipedalian bloviating going on already -- but suffice it to say that everything was delicious and flavorful, with the fattiness of the various meats (especially the crisp and salty hock) nicely balanced by the light acidity of the choucroute.

(Apologies for the quality -- or lack thereof -- of the pictures; it was dark but we didn't want to disturb the other diners with flash photography.)







That night, we decided to get our club on. Jon did some pretty extensive research since this is really his métier and identified a number of hot nightspots in Paris, with a club called Batofar (map here) seeming like the most interesting of the four or five coolest options. It's ranked #38 on the list of 100 top dance clubs in the world and has many of the hottest global DJ's on tap. And it's located in the belly of a lighthouse boat floating on the Seine! The boat's not huge but there's a decent-sized dance floor (I'd estimate about 15 meters square) and 3 bars inside, with another restaurant/bar full of smokers topside. It was raining lightly but insistently as we walked the quarter-mile from the Bibliothèque François Mitterrand Metro station a little before midnight on Friday. We were a little concerned that we might not get in because it was already late and it didn't look like the boat could hold too many people. Our fears proved to be unfounded as we boarded and entered the belly of the boat; no one was on the dance floor and there were less than a dozen people down below in total, though the music was banging and the multi-colored lights were swinging about with gusto. We headed to one of the bars for a drink and tried to figure out the deal: were people put off by the rain / was it still too early for the party to get going / was this club no longer "it"? We decided to wait it out and wandered onto the edge of the dance floor to people-watch. We took up station at the base of the stairs that everyone entering had to descend, so we were well-positioned to assess the inflow/outflow situation. For the next hour or so, people entered by twos and threes, looked around to see if critical mass had been achieved, then mostly went back up the stairs after satisfying themselves that it hadn't. One particularly energetic fellow took to the dance floor and went to town with inscrutable but sincere dance moves. The slowly-gathering crowd looked on approvingly, as it usually takes a brave soul or two to catalyze the formation of the dance mass. Eventually the crowd grew large enough that it spilled over onto the dance floor, with folks beginning to get their groove on. The DJ's for the night were posted on the walls with precise timeboxing and record labels included so we could see that it was DJ La Grande (Bric-à-Brac Electro) energetically bouncing about in a Ramones t-shirt and spinning some fantastic music.

A couple of notes about proper Euro-style clubbing, as many clubs in the US don't do it particularly well. In Europe the clubs are DJ-driven, with the DJ on an elevated stage at the front of the crowd. The DJ is truly performing, constantly tweaking beats/transitions/volume/etc. to match or direct the energy and mood of the crowd. No self-respecting DJ would be caught dead simply playing a record; all of the music has to be either hand-crafted from scratch or remixed into something truly unique. One of the real keys to clubbing nirvana is a carefully managed set of ups and downs in energy level; the go-meter can't be stuck at 10 the entire time. There's a regular point at which much of the bass and beat are removed and the sound spectrum is fairly narrow. At this point, most people aren't dancing energetically but just kind of swaying, catching their breath and waiting for what's to come. The DJ then slowly begins to build tension, most often with a repeating riff that rises incrementally in pitch but other techniques include the manipulation of volume and fullness of sound. The energy of the crowd begins rising and people begin moving with more vigor, but the air is tight because everyone wants to bust loose yet the DJ won't allow it, just teasing the crowd. The music keeps building in intensity and as it hits a point where you can't take it anymore, the DJ keeps it going just a little bit longer, uses a subtly different sound pattern to signal that relief is coming, then brings in a thunderous crash of music with fat bass, pounding beats, a catchy riff/melody, and just a generally full palette of insistent sound that absolutely demands terpsichorean satisfaction. The lights go mad and the crowd screams their approval and dances with renewed abandon. The feeling of release after the agonizing buildup of tension is marvelous, especially since one is able to actualize that joyous feeling with the most direct form of personal physical expression. A skilled DJ not only micromanages every aspect of that process to maximize the euphoria, but also knows when to begin another cycle. I imagine that DJ's must get their own special rush of power and joy to be able to control and be responsible for the happiness of so many people. Another interesting aspect of DJ-driven club culture is that most dancers are oriented towards the DJ. My experience in US clubs is that the dance floor is made up of a series of self-enclosed units; I think of it as a series of circles with inward-pointing arrows. Euro-style, most (but not necessarily all) arrows point in the same direction.

By 2am, the club was rocking at full capacity and the next DJ (introduced by a young woman carrying a placard, just like rounds are displayed at a boxing match) was in full stride. I affirm for the record that Jon has skills on the dance floor. At one point while he was tearing up the dance floor, a very cute French girl leaned in to say something intimate and complimentary into his ear. The exchange ended quite abruptly and later on, he explained that she said something to him in French and he slightly panicked, reflexively answering in his too-honest fashion that he didn't speak French. This clearly turned her off and the conversation was over. Lesson learned, folks: when hitting a French dance club, either learn French or learn how to lie. *Shaking his head sadly*

Grabbing a drink at the bar near the bow of the boat, it was amusing to note how tilted the entire boat was towards the stern; we hadn't thought about how the addition of several hundred people might affect the way the boat sat in the water. Looking out the portholes, one could see that the boat was ever-so-slightly bobbing in the water though it wasn't really noticeable with the sensory overload going on in the background. We left at around 3:30am and caught a cab home, club itch scratched. Or so I thought.







Cost in Euros of a small Dixie cup of beer at Batofar: 5
Cost in Euros of a bottle of whiskey/vodka/rum at Batofar: 100
Current value of 1 Euro in US dollars: 1.48
Approximate cost in dollars of bottle service at a typical Vegas club: 700

Deception and Porkaliciousness

I'm again falling behind in updating this blog, as it seems to take almost as much time to write about our days as it does to experience them. We're about 2 dinners behind so let's get to it.

Dinner after the crazy delicious ice cream was at a rather traditional brasserie called l'Européen, across from the Gare de Lyon (map here). We actually had a choice of another restaurant across the street, but we decided that that other restaurant was more chain-y and went with the restaurant with more character. The decor of l'Européen was distinctive, with mirrors all around and a plethora of interesting lighting fixtures adding to a rather old-school European feel. Another thing that I like about dining in France is that the level of service in pretty much any restaurant is quite high. You'll never find a waiter who casually tosses down your silverware or nudges you as your water is poured. It's easy to take this for granted until you go to another country and find yourself a little shocked that not everyone takes service seriously (I experienced this on a weekend trip to Barcelona after spending a few weeks in France). I don't think the fact that there's no tipping (service compris written at the bottom of menus indicates that tip is included) explains all of it, since other countries without a tipping culture aren't as up to snuff. I guess the French just care enough about food and the food experience to ensure a good time regardless of whether or not one is doing the actual eating. My kind of people.

Back to the food, the only part I'll write about is the appetizer: 6 oysters (huîtres in French). One of the key things to look for when eating raw oysters is to see if there is a good quantity of liquid in each half-shell. This is referred to as the liquor, and many aficionados believe that much of the flavor resides there. I tend to agree, as the liquor tastes of the ocean: briny and a little iodine-y, with the tiniest hint of umami. It obviously takes a little extra care when opening an oyster to ensure that the liquid doesn't drain out, so most establishments don't bother. The oysters here came filled to the brim with liquid so I was quite optimistic. The oysters themselves were quite fresh, but the liquid was simply very salty with none of the other flavors that I associate with oyster liquor. Either my palate was thrown off by the house red wine, the ocean water in France has a different composition, or they're cheating by pouring salted water into the half-shells. Regardless, I do enjoy raw oysters and they function well as an appetizer, whetting the appetite for what's to come without compromising eating capacity. The entrees were good but not spectacular, so I'm going to move on for the sake of expediency.













After some post-dinner wandering and logistical planning back at the apartment (we still needed to secure lodging and transportation for the rest of the trip, but those are just minor details) we headed out for a late night drink at Bistro Cent '8 -- across the street from the Monoprix where we get groceries -- which always seems to have groups of happy people sitting out front drinking and smoking up a storm (the French ban on smoking in workplaces took effect in February 2007, while bars and restaurants followed in December 2007. Smoking is still allowed outside, so many of the outdoor tables are occupied by smokers). As we were chilling, my buddy came up with the brilliant suggestion of getting some late night eats in the heart of Paris (again, we're near the southern edge of Paris proper). Our only concern was around transportation, as the Paris Metro closes around 12:45am to 1:00am. A little research indicated that there's an all-night bus service (Noctilien) that runs from 12:30am to 5:30am (the Metro reopens at 5:20am). We didn't bother to nail down the details because it was a little after 12:30am already. We paid our bill and booked it to the Metro to get in before it closed. As we went down the stairs into the station, other folks were sprinting as well, so we continued to hustle and caught the train without incident.

We went to a famous all-night establishment called Pied de Cochon ("Pig's Foot") which specializes in all manner of pig parts. We arrived there well after 1am but there were quite a few patrons already, and more continued to stream in as we ate. We each ordered French onion soup (of course in France, they just call it onion soup: soupe à l'oignon) and I ordered La Tentation de Saint-Antoine, the Temptation of Saint Antoine. He must have been a very temptable saint, because the plate consists of 4 pork products: ear, snout, shank, and tail. The bread that came at the beginning of the meal was accompanied by a small container of dull gray hash. Confiture can be translated as preserves (often referring to fruit preserves) and here it was basically a tasty minced mishmash of unmentionable pig offal. For those of you from the mid-Atlantic region, think of the texture and color of uncooked Scrapple, but tastier. There's definitely a hint of funk to it that indicates that organ meat is involved but the flavor is fairly benign, as the fatty bits expand the flavor canvas to be more broad than deep. No one flavor dominates and I found it delightful. The onion soup came with a massive amount of cheese covering the soup and crouton. I typically avoid French onion soup in the US since it tends to be way too salty (I speculate that it's partially because the soup tends to sit for an extended period of time over heat, with the expected consequence of evaporative concentration). No problem with that here, as the soup had the right level of seasoning though there were very few pieces of actual onion present. Not mind-blowing, but better than most of what I've found in the States.

One naturally has high expectations for random cooked pig parts at a restaurant named "Pig's Foot". We started with the ear, which is just cartilaginous support structure on a base of muscle. The ear had been deep-fried to very nearly a crisp which is just cheating, as everyone knows that everything tastes good when deep-fried. The ear cartilage takes some chewing to get through and carries very little flavor by itself, but the batter, seasonings, and fried-ness make it a tasty treat. It's quite approachable, as there's no funk factor to the flavor, just the textural dissonance of chewy/crunchy cartilage and a little grease of uncertain provenance (is it frying oil or rendered collagen?). The meat at the base is a little more interesting, though a bit fattier than it looks.

The shank was next. This was probably the least unusual of the pig parts, as most Americans have probably seen shank on a menu even if they didn't really think about the fact that it's the ankle (and sometimes the shin as well) of a quadruped. There are coordinated wads of fat beneath the skin that sit above the meat, but the meat itself is surprisingly lean and quite flavorful (ossobuco is one of my favorite Italian dishes, and it's veal shank). I believe the shank was roasted since the skin was crisp in parts and had that rather sticky surface texture that indicates that a meat product has had a productive and delicious rendezvous with high heat. Scraping away the fat nodules and eating the underlying meat with the well-herbed crispy pork skin made for excellent eats. I also note that pork raised outside of the US tastes quite different, "porkier" for lack of a better descriptor. It's not that the flavors are different, they're just more intense. The industrialization of meat farming in the US is a triumph of science and process (many don't realize that in the early 20th century, chicken was afforded only by the well-to-do), but "the other white meat" tends to end up as a rather bland product in the interests of consistency and mass production. I'll take super-porky any day of the week.

The small piece of snout was also very deep-fried and the cartilage was cooked into softness, leading to a very creamy sort of mouthfeel with lots of oily textures swishing around. The ear had more of a snap/crunch but the snout was more like a dense, deep-fried gelatin. Not earth-shattering so we'll move on.

The tail was like a smaller version of oxtail, with long striations of meat bracketing separable vertebrae. There was more fat than meat on the tail and the meat required some effort to remove from the bones (usually having to lever the bones apart), but the meat was very tasty. Muscles that are used frequently tend to be tough, but if cooked slowly into tenderness (by braising, barbecuing, etc.) yield real flavor and deliciousness. A small tureen of water with a slice of lemon floating on top was provided with the dish for rinsing one's fingers if they get greasy, but I managed to deconstruct the items sufficiently with fork and knife. In retrospect, I wonder if I missed out on something by not grabbing everything and gnawing my way into pork-bliss. The meal ended with meringue baked in a shape vaguely reminiscent of a pig. Awesome.









We walked about 1.5 miles to the Gare de l'Est (map here) at 3am, on one block passing by a number of women in doorways significantly underdressed for the weather. We made it to the station unmolested and hopped on the bus (which runs every 30 or 60 minutes, depending on the line and the time) after waiting for less than 10 minutes. We noted that although the bus is technically 1.60 Euros (we have a 5-day Paris Visite pass that gets us everywhere, including on this bus) no one was bothering to pay or show any passes. I think this is a good call on behalf of the city leadership; what's the cost of not collecting a fare versus leaving people stranded late at night without Metro service? Sound economic reasoning.

Coming up: An Alsatian dinner then a visit to a dance club ranked in the top 30 in the world. And it's on a boat on the Seine.

Time difference in hours between the Eastern timezone and Paris: 6
Days during this trip without experiencing rain: 0
1.5L bottles of water consumed at the apartment so far: 9
Number of food items that my buddy has refused to try: 0

Disappointment and Redemption

Yesterday was not particularly notable. We headed to the 6th arrondissement and grabbed sandwiches on the run for lunch. Mine had paper-thin slices of salami with a few small pickled gherkins and many intact pats of butter on a piece of hard, very chewy bread 16" long and 2" across at its widest point. I'm not a big fan of butter, but the sandwich was delicious. The salami's salty, meaty fattiness was enhanced by the butter but moderated with the sweet/salty/sour of the pickled gherkins. You can find these sandwiches being sold on the street from enclosed glass displays in front of almost every boulangerie (bakery) and snack shop in the city. A closeup of my buddy's ham sandwich follows, as I was a bit too enthusiastic with my sandwich to bother taking a picture.



We walked around Cour Saint-Émilion (map here) in the 12th arrondissement, a neighborhood that has a village-like feel and a designated street of restaurants and shopping. There's a small park on top of the Metro station with plenty of standing water for ducks to play in and a wicker facsimile of the Eiffel Tower.







Dinner was rather disappointing. We were looking to eat at a crêperie and located 2 that were close to each other: the first looked like a cozy sit-down restaurant run by locals, while the second was quite brightly lit and almost certainly part of a chain. It was raining, we had walked a bit of a distance from the first restaurant to the second restaurant, and the second restaurant had a greater variety of savory crêpe options (another great thing about restaurants in France is that they all post their menus out front so you can check out their offerings before going inside), so we went ahead and ate at the second, chain-y restaurant. The food wasn't terrible, but wasn't particularly memorable. I had a chorizo and Swiss cheese crêpe that had generous amounts of both but somehow muted all of the flavors down to a greasy muck. My buddy's crêpe had beef carpaccio, olive oil, parmesan cheese, black olives, and pesto, and still managed to be quite blah. Lesson learned and agreed-to: no more eating at chain-y places if a homier or more unique option exists.





Today ended up being quite a bit more fun. After getting off at Gare du Nord (map here) to ensure that we'll be ready when rushing for our early morning train to Amsterdam next week, we headed south towards the Seine. After walking and wandering for a couple of hours, we stopped by the Île Saint-Louis (map here) to find an excellent ice cream shop that my buddy remembered from his time in Paris. The island is quite small so we found Glacier Berthillon before too long. We considered simply noting its presence and heading off to dinner without trying some ice cream, but fortunately thought better of that plan. We each had a single scoop cone (simple in French) of coffee ice cream with crème Chantilly (whipped cream) on top. The whipped cream was dispensed from a large industrial machine -- like soft serve ice cream -- but was seriously delicious. It was airy but really coated the tongue and filled the mouth with flavor that persisted; I'd say it's slightly but noticeably denser than most whipped creams. The flavor was very sweet but not overly so, and definitely brought the richness of serious, high-butterfat dairy along with very clean notes of vanilla bean. Also importantly, it was not very cold, so the taste buds were able to function fully and appreciate the flavor (cold foods dull the taste buds; if you ever taste melted ice cream, it's sweet beyond measure because it needs to compensate for being served so cold). I have never had better whipped cream and doubt I ever will; I commented to my buddy that I could just go with a cone of the whipped cream and be terribly happy. And the coffee ice cream was fantastically good as well; I don't drink coffee but I do enjoy coffee ice cream. This ice cream was more intense than any coffee ice cream I've had before, with a focused burst of coffee essence -- including a measured but insistent note of bitterness -- that was supported by the rich unctuousness of the ice cream itself. The coffee flavor is the first flavor defined by the tongue after the initial sensation of sweet/cold/creamy; that flavor then expands in complexity for a short time, then the bitterness follows and kind of cleans the palate, making one ready and able to eat an unending amount of the ice cream without flavor fatigue. Even better, the cone came with a tiny spoon so that the whipped cream and ice cream could be enjoyed together, rather than having to consume them separately. I think some wars could be stopped if both sides were given massive quantities of these ice cream cones.







Dinner later on was quite good but the late night eating was even more interesting. This post is already long enough so I'll save descriptions of those meals for the next update.

Approximate number of miles walked today: 8
Number of metallic paint-clad robot-simulating street artists seen: 0
Number of channels available on Free.fr ADSL TV in the apartment: 300
Number of channels worth watching: 1 (Clubbing.tv has excellent dance music videos)

Arrival and Walkabout

Our first 12 hours in Paris passed by quite pleasantly, as there were no snags in getting to and occupying the apartment we rented for the week (though we secured it less than 48 hours before arriving), finding the nearest supermarket (Monoprix, of which there are 2 within 0.5 miles), and having a couple of enjoyable meals.

The apartment is situated in the neighborhood of Alésia, less than 2 blocks from the nearest subway station. The one-bedroom pied-à-terre is quite small -- as one would expect -- but tidy. I was initially surprised to see that the kitchen is equipped with only a half-height refrigerator as one would expect to see in a dorm room, but my current theory is that it's actually typical of the French style of living; since they're accustomed to buying food every day, there's no need to store large amounts of perishable goods. There are open-air markets selling fresh produce within easy walking distance of everyone, and almost everyone walks to the supermarket so people don't generally purchase massive quantities of groceries on a single visit.

The keys for the front door of the apartment are quite old school: about 3 inches long and one needs to turn the key 2.5 full rotations to open/close the lock. I'd be grateful if someone could identify what the heck the thing on the wall of the apartment is (it's about a yard long). Click on the picture for a larger image:





Lunch was at a pizzeria/creperie around the corner at an intersection of 3 large streets. I'm not a big pizza guy; I'll eat it without complaint but I never select it when there are other options. Pizza has loaded connotations for me, as I equate it with late nights from early in my consulting career when I'd order pizza for my team several times a week so we could crank out work without interruption. Regardless, I do appreciate good pizza and French pizza has never disappointed me. After starting with a charcuterie plate that included some excellent prosciutto (the texture was truly melt-in-your mouth with none of the inedible stringy bits that one sometimes gets), we each ordered a pizza. I will note here that French pizza appears to all be of the thin crust variety. I went with a simple merguez (spicy Moroccan lamb sausage), cheese, and egg pizza while my buddy got one with prosciutto and cheese. Keep in mind that getting an egg on one's pizza here means a barely-cooked sunny-side-up egg in the middle of the pizza. The pizzas had very little sauce -- almost undetectable -- so the cheese actually bonded with the supporting dough, unlike typical American fast food pizza. Not heavily herbed, the pizzas had a thicker cheese layer than I expected but had been cooked in a sufficiently hot oven, as the cheese and crust both sported a good number of char marks. The dough underneath the heart of the pizza was rather soggy, apparently due to oil leakage from the cheese, so it's fortunate that pizza in France is a knife-and-fork sort of thing. The merguez pizza was good overall; there was a nice spice and kick from the merguez and it was not a chore to get through the cheese and crust. The prosciutto pizza was not as delicious as I had hoped; it wasn't bad but I love prosciutto and had rather high expectations. It appears that quality prosciutto does not benefit from the application of heat, as there were no new flavors generated and the delicate salty, porky essence that makes prosciutto so delicious was actually compromised. A nice cheese pizza with uncooked prosciutto might be pretty good, but I think just having prosciutto by itself is the way to go.





Bars, brasseries, and restaurants abound in this neighborhood so we set out for dinner without a specific destination in mind. We found a street that was particularly dense in eating establishments and walked around noting interesting places until we found one that we both agreed was intriguing. While not a foolproof strategy, a restaurant full of locals who all look like they're relaxed and having a great time out with friends is rarely a bad choice. When we first passed by Le Bistrot des Pingouins (yep, "Bistro of Penguins") in the middle of the food walk, we pretty much knew we'd be eating there that night, even though we walked for another 10-15 minutes and passed by at least a score of other restaurants. We started with pâté de foie gras de canard (duck liver pâté) -- no pictures, as we were famished by this point in the evening -- served with soft toast, very caramelized onions, sea salt, a criss-cross drizzle on the side of thick balsamic vinegar, and large cracked peppercorns. The rim of the serving plate was lightly dusted with curry powder. It was tremendous, with the smooth, rich fattiness of the pâté both enhanced and balanced out by the addition of the salty/sweet/sour/sharp tastes of the other ingredients. My memories of pâté involve rather hard toast, so having bread that was toasted but very soft really made this special for me. I ordered 3 varieties of beef tartare -- the waitress asked twice if I understood that it was cru (French for raw) -- one standard, one topped with what tasted like tapenade, and one topped with 2 pieces of grilled soft cheese that I'd guess was brie, though a bit stronger-tasting. Quite good, and the only countries where I'd eat raw beef prepared by strangers are France and Korea. My buddy ordered rumpsteak cooked medium in French, and you can see from the picture below that the French don't like to overcook their meat. I believe saignant means rare, medium means medium rare, bien is medium, and bien cuit is medium-well. All in all, a mighty fine meal to have as the first dinner of the trip.





Time (in seconds) spent going through both Passport Control and Customs at the airport: 30
Typical October Paris high temperature (in degrees Fahrenheit): 59
High temperature today: 71
Coin flips for who sleeps in the bedroom vs. on the sofa lost: 1