2 hrs shopping/eating at CDG
 

I have less than two hours to spend at CDG Terminal 1. What are the unique shops I should visit? I'd like to buy something (food or gift) that I won't easily get in the States.

That is not a lot of time. Just go to the duty free. There are cheese shops, foie gras, candy, and anything else you might want.

Ter. 1,
Galeries LAFAYETTE,

No one has mentioned it but CDG Terminal 1 probably one of the worlds uglist and worst terminals in all of Europe. The exterior look like a big cement drum and the interior isn't much better. There are a few gourmet shops and some other places but its not a big shopping terminal.

2 hours will pass quickly because of unboarding and boarding times. Be careful not to buy and meat or fruit products because it's illegal to bring most meat product back into the states, if you get caught at US customs, you're screwed. They always have those cute little sniffing dogs there.

Have a croissant and relax....

There isn't that big an area that you can't look around and decide for yourself by what looks good. To be honest, you can get virtually anything easily in the US that I have seen in the terminal shops--price might be different, it depends not sure. Most of those shops are even online now (like Maxim's). I'd buy something that appealed to me and I really liked. Last time I bought a couple small tins of foie gras. I'm sure you can get those in the US, but they were priced fairly well, I thought. You can bring that in if it is in tin cans. I declared it and showed it to the agriculture people, and they thought it was fine. The guy in the shop at CDG told me that I might want to buy some other kind that had some special label saying it met USDA standards or something (he said some agents will require that, and that my airport was particularly difficult, washington DC), but it was 2-3 times larger and more expensive than I wanted, so I just got the small tins. I had no trouble.

There was a guy next to me who was getting into trouble because he was trying to bring in, undeclared, some kind of flower or natural product -- some dried thing. Of course, those dogs did sniff that out, and then he was trying to claim he "forgot" it was in there. This was some really weird looking thing, dried peppers or something at least a foot long, and had obviously been hidden and not declared. The agent was not buying his story and while the guy looked at my stuff and declaration and waved me through in about one minute, that guy was in deep doo-doo.

You've received some good info. but w/ less than 2 hours don't count on having much time to shop. Just getting on the air bus to the terminal and going to your departure gate will eat up much of your "free" time.