Off to Paris - Part 10: French Food

January 2012, Off to Paris - Part 10: French Food.

La Madeleine.

For the past few days, breakfast had been a simple routine: we went downstairs to the "Good Morning" fast-food shop in the metro station, bought sandwiches, and brought them back to the hotel.

Every morning we bought sandwiches from the breakfast shop inside the metro station.

Pastries and bread at the breakfast shop.

Honestly, their sandwiches -- long French baguettes stuffed full of cheese and ham -- plus donuts and raisin bread were really good.

Especially when the temperature every morning was around zero degrees Celsius, eating that with a cup of coffee milk, or café latte, felt too good to describe with just one word. ^.^

But buying enough for a family of four cost 12 euros. Converted to Taiwan dollars, that was almost NT$500 for one breakfast. ~.~'"

Later, one afternoon on Île Saint-Louis, we found a small and elegant Italian restaurant and had a cheap but very good lunch. ^.^

A small, charming Italian restaurant on Ile Saint-Louis.

The shop was not large, but it was arranged with a lot of care.

The restaurant was small but carefully decorated.

We ordered a vegetable pasta and a classic mushroom-and-ham pizza set. It was only 23 euros. ^.^

On our last day in Paris, we arranged to meet my cousin, who was studying here.

At first, I thought it would be nice enough to find a pretty restaurant somewhere on the Champs-Élysées and have a meal there.

After we met, my cousin said she had reserved a well-known private-kitchen-style restaurant near La Madeleine.

La Madeleine was visible right outside the restaurant window.

When she said "nearby," she really meant right next door. Looking out from the window, there was the church. ^.^

In Paris, expensive French food is not necessarily good, and good French food is not necessarily expensive.

Good and not-expensive French food is usually passed around by word of mouth. It does not have a fancy entrance, and if you do not have a reservation, you cannot get in.

The restaurant we came to today was in a high-end area right in the city center, but it was hidden upstairs above a luxurious restaurant.

And when I say upstairs, I really mean above someone else's restaurant. You had to enter through that restaurant's front door, then go up the internal stairs. ~.~'"

Entrance to a private dining spot hidden above a fancy restaurant.

After listening to the server's introduction, we learned that this restaurant did not have a menu.

Tonight's meal would be served randomly from 12 dishes selected by the chef. Whatever came out was what we ate. ~.~'"

First dish: pumpkin soup. Even guessing, you could tell what this was.

Second dish: appetizer. After my cousin asked about it for us, the answer we got was: as long as you think it tastes good, you probably do not want to know what it is made of. ~.~'"