Paris: Day 3

And then our third day in Paris came along. A good friend of mine from high school and also Gwenyth Paltrow's blog recommended "Mariage Freres." I knew that Mariage Freres is quite famous, but despite the very French sounding name, I always just assumed that all the famous tea brands are from the UK. 

We chose to come here for lunch mainly because.. well, dinner is not available here. The decor was absolutely flawless and it was quite a cozy and personal space. 

It was also just fun to watch how many ways they could incorporate tea into the restaurant. As you can see, there was a bottle of sesame seeds that was infused with green tea. And there was matcha salt as well.

When the waiter took our order, he had this very strange face on when I said that I don't want tea (to be fair, the tea was quite expensive and I thought the tea elements would be already integrated into the things that I ordered). With the terrified face of the waiter over my head, I decided to order a tea called Morning in Paris. It was a classic and simple black tea that was just what i wanted. I believe Sami ordered a tea called Swan Lake?

Then came the biggest surprise. I ordered a chicken dish mainly because there was a green lentil component but the dish came out to be a lot more than I expected. The chicken breast with spices around it was quite succulent. I didn't realize that I could love chicken so much. Then the veggies were just perfectly cooked and seasoned. The vinagrette with an element of earl grey in it was refreshing and also brought the entire dish together. And the lentils that I looked forward to so much did not let me down. They were just perfectly cooked. Plump. Flavorful. Smokey. (You can't see the lentils in the picture below because it's hidden under the pile of food)

Sami ordered a smoked salmon dish, which came with the smoked salmon, salmon caviar.. 

Some baby potatoes, matcha infused bread, and a sauce.

After our scrumptious meal, we just had to order dessert. Seeing as how I am a sucker for choux pastry, I ordered a GIANT choux with many elements of strawberries--dried, fresh, compote, spicy strawberry strip thing. The cream filling also had earl grey in it, which made it stand out from the rest of the choux.

And Sami had a creme brulee. Beauuutiful presentation!

After walking around in the cold, rainy weather, all we wanted was a heart-warming soup. So we decided to go to "Au Pied de Cochon" since David Leibovitz recommended this place. 


To be completely honest, this was unlike ANY french onion soup I have had. It was extremely cheesy and there was barely any taste of onions. I am still a little bit uncertain as to how I feel about this soup.

Then, just as the name of the restaurant suggests, we ordered fried pig feet as our main course. I wanted to be adventurous and I thought it wouldn't make sense to order anything else when the restaurant is called as such and the door knobs were all in the shape of pig's feet. 


Result? Call me a weakling, but the pig's feet were too rich for me and I could not finish it for the life of me. The fries and the wine were quite delicious though! 


My favorite part about this meal was this old french couple that sat right next to us. They offered to take pictures of me and Sami together and they also gave us some extra wine at the end of their meal. Also, it was impressive how they were able to DOMINATE their fried pork dishes so fast. They are true French people.

Below is the rich sauce that was served with the fried pig's feet. I think it had some mustard element, but it was also quite rich so I didn't eat too much of the pig's feet with the sauce. I mainly depended on my glass of red wine.

The dessert was absolutely delicious! We had rose ice cream with strawberries and also fresh whipped cream on top!

Talk about a day full of richness!

Paris: Day 2

I'm sorry it has been quite a while since my last post. My Brown email system and the blogspot thing has been crashing for quite a while and I didn't realize that it could be solved simply by logging out of my Brown account until... today. Yes, I am a bright one with technology.

Anyways, I'm picking up exactly where I left off and am going to retell all the things I ate in Paris! 

After climbing the Eiffel Tower to the tippy-top, Sami and I were staaaaaarving and so we headed over to an Eric Kayser cafe and chowed down a sandwich recommended to me by a friend of mine. 

It was served on a multigrain bread and on the inside, there was succulent chicken breast, tart sundried tomatoes, mayo, and lettuce. Even though I am usually not a fan of mayo, this sandwich was absolutely scrumptious.

Seeing as how we were in Paris, I could not skip on the dessert. I had mini eclairs pictured below. I had two chocolate eclairs, one coffee eclair and one pistacchio eclair along with a cappuccino (illy! Italy pride!). The eclairs were a bit disappointing seeing as they weren't super flavorful and they were a bit soggy, but it still made me happy.

Sami and I decided to try Moroccan food for the first time, and we figured that Paris would be the right place to try it out (other than Morocco itself as Sami has rightly pointed out). We went to L'Atlas, recommended by David Leibovitz in his book "My Sweet Life in Paris." He did not let us down!


As soon as we sat down, we were welcomes with little munchies. Spiced olives and also delicious potatoes and carrots!

We also ordered some Moroccan wine to accompany our meal. In my humble opinion (granted, I don't know too much about wine) the wine was a bit watery but that could have been just me.

Then, for appetizers, we had some grilled prawns with avocados. Since both Sami and I have been seafood-deprived, this was the perfect appetizer. It was flavorful, light and refreshing.

Since it was my first Moroccan food experience, I decided to stick with the dish that I recognized on the menu. I ordered a lamb tagine with prunes and almonds. The result? Absolutely delicious! It wasn't as sweet as I expected (in a good way) and it had so many layers of flavors as you can see just from looking at the picture below. I did not get sick of it at all throughout the entire meal and just writing this paragraph makes my mouth water a bit.

Sami ordered lamb tagine as well but with figs and walnuts. I think she was quiiiiite satisfied with her dish as well! Meaning, neither of us had any scraps left at the end of the meal.

I also had THE fluffiest cous cous of my life in this restaurant. I don't know what they did but this cous cous was just magical.

For other people, they would stop eating after such a big meal at L'Atlas. Sami and I were different, however. We decided that we needed a grand finale to the second night in Paris. So we decided to head over to Cafe de Flore for a quintessential Parisian experience. We have decided in the end that this is probably deemed as the quintessential Parisian experience by others since a. it's extremely expensive b. it's fantastic for people watching. Despite the exorbitant price tag, we had two great drinks. 


Sami was classy and went for the Whiskey. (if I remember correctly) Me, being a girly-girl, ordered a cocktail with the base of champagne and some raspberries. I can't recall all the ingredients off the top of my head, but I remember it being sweet and delicious. Also, the color is just absolutely beautiful.

I then realized that David Leibovitz wrote that there is the city's best hot chocolate at this cafe so I just had to go for it. Verdict? Very good, smooth, not stingingly sweet hot chocolate.

And that was ACTUALLY the last thing that I had for the day. That marked the end of our second epic day in Paris!

First night in Paris!

Oh yes, I just had to go to Paris during my semester abroad. How could I resist? It's just a short plane ride away and it is just so incredibly cheap to get there! (Thank you Ryan Air!)

I got in around lunch time, so I went to a simple somewhat hole in the wall Japanese restaurant for a quick bite. I did miss Asian food terribly and I thought Japanese food would do its job. I ordered salmon chirashi. It was exactly what I was looking for. The rice was cooked well, well seasoned, the salmon was fresh. Simple, straight-forward and filling.

Afterwards, I wandered around some French department stores, trying out macarons at Pierre Herme and just breathing in the Parisian air.

Here are a couple pictures that I snagged of Pierre Herme. I will probably go on more about this later, but I do think that his is my favorite macaron place of the three that I have tried. (And boy, all three are deemed epic by many people)

                              

Then, I headed over to the hostel to meet up with Sami who I haven't seen in TOO LONG. Only then could my trip to Paris truly begin!

We headed over to Cinq-Mars, recommended to us by Gwenyth Paltrow's blog, for our first French fair. And boy, was the food amazing! 

Sami's first foie gras experience! 

My appetizer-scallop carpaccio. It was perfect--fresh, sweet, with a bit of acid from the lime!

Sami's main course: TUNA!

My main course: veal ribs with mushroom cream sauce on a bed of veggies. Yes, my scallop carpaccio was good. But this dish, my friends, was unbelievable. The veal was the most tender veal I have had in my life time. The mushroom cream sauce was just to die for and the veggies were roasted perfectly. It was a rustic meal that was elevated into perfection. Of course, a glass of Rose didn't hurt either!

After getting food-drunk (we were quite giddy from the delicious food and just the fact that we were in Paris) we headed to our hostel and fell fast asleep!

Eating in Verona

There was an organized trip to Verona by our program and not only was the city beautiful, but the food was absolutely amazing! I would definitely love to go back to explore more of the city.. AND to eat more!

 First course: risotto (I think this was my favorite part of the meal)

 Second course: Pasta with Ragu' (I forget the name of this fat kind)

 Third course: Pork with roasted potatoes 

Dessert: Semifreddo!

Making of Fresh Pasta!

Brown set up a session where we could learn how to make fresh pasta and fresh tortelloni with a local cook! Here are some photos!

Spinach, egg, ricotta cheese, parmegian for tortelloni stuffing

fresh yellow egg pasta!

Beautiful tortelloni! (made with spinach dough of course!)

Tagliatelle

Dish 1: Pasta with peas, pancetta and mushrooms

Dish 2: Tortelloni with butter sage sauce

Dish 3: Tagliatelle with Ragu'! (apparently we are not supposed to call it bolognese sauce. Oops for calling it that beforehand on this blog already!)