Paris! (Act Two)

I gave up on my foodie expectations in Paris just after day two. The meals we had was just to eat so that we wouldn't faint from hunger. Since we were going to the touristy bits, we didn't find anywhere that served good food. Eating just to survive is not fun, I don't understand how other people can stand eating something that they don't enjoy. The one highlight of our otherwise forgettable meals was going to Eric Kayser. It was by far the best bread that I've ever had. Yes, it's a big claim, but one that I'm sure a lot of Parisiens will back up. The shop was empty when we arrived. While we were deciding which ones to get, I turn around to join the queue and realize that there were people lining up all the way to the street. And they kept on coming. And I know why. The bread had a crunchy crust, but the inside was moist and chewy, the flavor was bread, but a lot better. You felt all the love that went into choosing the ingredients, the slow and precise kneading to get the right consistency of the dough, the timing of the prooving, and the selection of the temperature for the baking. It was P-E-R-F-E-C-T. And I don't like bread. And I'm now a bread convert, if only for Eric Kayser. This man understands bread. Ok, I'm wiping the drool... We went back after a couple of days and got the croissant filled with cheese, basically a cheese sandwich. It was good. It was pissing, and all bread in the shop was bought to go, so we had to take shelter under some awning to eat. It was one of the highlights of our trip. That was the best ham and cheese sandwich that I ever had. The croissant was buttery, soft, chewy, crispy, salty, sweet, warm, not too hot, melted cheese...mmmm. We also got the lemon tart and it was perfect too, just the right amount of sweet and sour. I don't like lemon tarts too, but I love this one. My whole food experience in Paris was subpar, but the trip was sustained by our two jaunts to Eric Kayser. If you are in Paris, you must go.

Le Halles however was okaaaay. I expected something more from the place where the 700 year old market once stood, but I guess you only need one fishmonger, one butcher, and one produce stand. They had the most amazing seafood (compared to London, not compared to Asia). I saw prawns that were as big as bananas. It was a delight to see sea urchin sold amongst the regular selection of fish. We have to make a special order from our non existent fishmonger just to get that, and the price we'd have to pay would be extortionate. It's not hard to eat good in Paris if you have your own kitchen. The area was just smaller than I expected. There could have been more food stalls in the market, but I guess I'm spoilt for choice in Asia. One of the stops we made in the area was to ASimon, a kitchen supply store that I read in my book. We got two average sized chefs knives for Mike. I remembered that I had them in my bag as we were passing through Customs on our way back to London. Maybe I should have thought more about what I was going to say instead of "I have two knives in my bag." The guy at check in suddenly looked up from his desk and looked at me like I just confessed to a murder. "I'm a chef! I'm a chef!" worked and he relaxed. Next time, I'm just going to show them the knives. Or maybe not. All in all, it was a bad day to go to market since piggy got soaked from the rain. They're not kidding over there when they say it's going to rain. It rained the whole day from sun-up to sundown. Good thing it only rained one day while we were there.

I wanted to see all the usual sites so I made a timeline for each day that we were going out. Mike was not impressed. I thought I did a pretty good job of color coding the tourist sites, arranged according to each stop on the Metro. I even color coded the routes along our map. Alas, things did not work out as planned. I've learned that when Mike says to go one way, I should really go the other way. We got lost in every place we went to and spent hours just walking around aimlessly. On the other hand, it's not a bad way to see the city. I now know where police headquarters are and where the tourist center is. Oh, and did I mention the dog poop? I've now seen more than my fair share of different sized dog poop, from the freshly squeezed to the air dried kind. It was an unusual way to see the city, but in the end we really enjoyed ourselves (minus le poop). We ended up in Notradame twice (again don't hand my husband the map). I only went there to see the gargoyles (natch!)

Things you see when you get lost in Paris:

I wash trying to take a shot of the metro sign from across the road and there was a guy crossing the street. He smiled at us ever so sweetly and very kindly ducked so I could take my picture. As we were walking away we heard his lady friend say "You... stopped... in... the... middle... of... the... road... while... I... was... behind... you!" She said it very s..l..o..w..l..y while her eyes were spitting fire and with snakes coming out of her ears. She was scary.