Category: France

mer-vay-YUH  /  french confection

There’s not a lot new in French pastries, which is OK — when you’re in Paris, you want to eat croissants and pains aux chocolate and tartes aux pommes and all the other buttery stuff that comes out of a patisserie. But I do think these are pretty contemporary, an invention of one little shop that specializes in them — Aux Merveilleux de Fred. Basically they’re layer cakes where the layers are made up of meringues and flavored whipped cream, with some more crumbled meringue around the outside. You can get big ones, but we opted for a sampler pack of minis so we could try all the flavors.

eel sai(n) loo-EE  /  an island in the seine river

The Seine river divides the city of Paris, and I think most people know that there’s at least one island in the middle of it — Île de la Cité, the biggest of the three and the one that Notre Dame is built on. The island also is the home of the Saint Chapelle with its huge stained glass interior, as well as the Palais de Justice. It also has a bunch of touristy cafés and souvenir shops.

Directly behind Notre Dame and to the east is Île Saint-Louis, a more residential island with a single market street down the center. it’s a favorite destination for us because of two things: one, the Saint Regis, a cocktail bar and cafe that overlooks the bridge between the two islands and the back of Notre Dame, that is a great place to sit and have a drink; and second, Aux Anysetiers du Roy, a tiny bistro where I was scolded by the grand-mere who owns the restaurant to clean my plate, and we always return to check in on her. (The right play here is always to order something French countryside; the steaks are fine but the cassoulet and the boeuf bourguignon are very very good.)

gah-let / savory crepe from Brittany

Checked out of the hotel room and there’s nothing to do until our flight at (checks) jeez TEN PM so we’re just hanging out around the hotel. I imagine we could go into the airport at any time? But we won’t be able to check our bags until this evening, and we can at least stash our suitcases here at the front desk until it’s time to go, so we’re just enjoying the richly-appointed hotel lounge. Probably will end up drinking $22 amaretto sours at some point. If nothing else, it’ll make sleeping on the flight pretty easy.

One of the options in the hotel food court is a crêpe place, and since I don’t ever want to see a hotel hot dog again after last night, we opted to get lunch there. And this publication doesn’t need to only focus on one spot! It’s called THE WORLD after all, and maybe Brad wants to go to Paris? I bet French girls would love to be asked …

Avez-vous rencontré Brad?

We got savory crêpes which are called galettes in actual France. They’re made with a different batter, more hearty and less thin-pancake-y than the ones that come with bananas and Nutella. The de facto place to get a galette is Café Breizh in Le Marais (although there are a few around Paris – including one on Rue Montorgueil, right by our apartment this trip), which makes traditional jambon cru but also has stuff Russ might like like artichoke and wakame seaweed.