Paris Spring Excursion

Close your eyes and imagine. Imagine Paris in the spring: cool sunny morning , speaking French everywhere you turn, the beautiful buildings, the smell of butter in the air, the busy metro, the accordion player, the little poodles, the corner cafés, the boulevards and the alleys. Now imagine being there already with a detailed plan to guide you to the best local culinary experience that you can possibly have for this vacation.

Imagine waking up in the morning, walking to one of the selected patisseries to get the perfect chocolate-pistachio escargot pastry, then walking the 11th district streets until a definite scent of onion soup reaches your nose. “It must be around this corner”. Sitting down to have this soup together with a glass of white chilled wine that smell like passion-fruit and mango but then taste light and flowery. After the pulse of the city sets, you feel like a part of it. You only need few hours to feel that you can stay here forever. Then going to dinner in a Japanese little place, a place you would never have seen or noticed otherwise. Tasting three types of Saké together with the perfect bite of Tataki beef followed by seven additional dishes. Not a bad start, you giggle following  your partner to a midnight walk in the Latin quarter and finally, exhausted, going to sleep.

Waking up the next day for a second day of breathing and living food. Starting with an exquisite world renown restaurant, with only 8 tables, reservations must be done at least a month ahead! You have a table here. The menu says “surprise” and nothing more. There’s a tender miso marinated Mackerel with buckwheat crust with fresh leaves that taste like oysters and thirteen other surprises one after another. After almost four hours of lunch you’re on your way, going to have an extra pastry and a sensational Pâte de fruits and getting ready for dinner. The place is so chic and crowded but you manage to get a sit by the bar, watching all the action. A scoop of a smooth yellowish butter from a huge butter-barrel with warm slices of bread, crunchy crust and perfectly soft flesh that smells of sourdough. Without understanding what’s going on, having a six course meal while watching the chef preparing it all in front of you. The first course has Asparagus ice-cream in it, the dessert has avocado foam with strawberry. A bit drunk but so happy ending another amazing day in Paris.

The next day is starting with the ripe little goat cheese you selected from the fromagerie yesterday. Then, after a roll of the most surprising white chocolate bread, going to have lunch in a real Indian restaurant. Stepping outside the metro the streets smell from curry. You’re having some South Indian specialties, watching an Indian family of six just besides you eating the same thing with their hands. Then, pretty bloated, going for some chocolates, caramels and macarons shopping. After shopping, it’s happy-hour, taking an hour to relax and have a Sangria near Odéon. The late dinner is Asian-French fusion this time, with the seasonal combination of white and green asparagus and morel mushrooms served with pink sous-vide chicken with the perfect crusty skin. Drunk and full again, this night you sleep tight.

Next day, late in the morning, you already appear at one of the most beautiful of Paris’ passages going to lunch (yes, if it’s noon it’s already lunch). A glass of chilled champagne as a start of a beautiful meal. One of the dishes is Parmesan egg mimosa served on a stone-like warmed plate with some huge white asparagus. At that point your piss smells of asparagus. Finishing the thirteen little dishes of the tasting menu you’re headed to a 5 point patisserie-chocolaterie route in the 6th district. You only make it to three but get to taste the house specialty in each of them. This has certainly opened up your appetite again. You go to a most unique dinner in a culinary school restaurant where all the cooks and waiters are learning to be professionals. You eat a Sea-bream tartar with coconut ice-cream, citrus-mango salsa and vanilla oil together with seven other dishes and a bottle of nice Bordeaux.

Next day is shopping day, but before that you have to get some lunch. You get to the best Michelin star lunch deal for only 39 euro for a four course menu. Everything is astonishingly fantastic, especially the Squid dish with artichokes, artichokes cream, olives and tomato coulis. After few hours of exhausting shopping (don’t forget to buy at least ten types of cheese to take home!), you get ready for dinner in one of the most chic wine bars in town. While snacking on a Young bok-choy leaves with shiitake mushrooms and a bottle of wine, you see the place filling up to 150% capacity, letting down anyone who comes in asking for a table. You finish the night by having some Pizza and Beer at a cool pizza place and getting to bed wondering how will turn out the last day in the city.

Next morning, going to the daily market to get some fresh oysters, lemon, white wine, bread and butter. This is the best meal, if you haven’t tried it before. Cracking open these oysters yourself, sipping on the wine and enjoying a shot of the ocean until it’s too much to handle. Now it’s time to get going back home, but on the way, at the airport, not forgetting a quick stop for a case of the famous Ladurée macarons. “What makes them so special?” you ask but shortly find out with the first bite. Big pleasure.

Goodbye Paris,  à la prochiane!

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