Eating Our Way Through Paris...Again! Trip Report
 

After a very challenging year, I decided we had to go back to Paris to have a real vacation. This was my 6th time to Paris in the last 9 years and I still love the city and crave being there, especially in May. It was wonderful, as always, and per usual, we ate our way around the city and loved every moment of it.

After a couple of stays in hotels, we started to rent apartments and have never looked back. We love having the space to spread out and having a kitchen has allowed us to really make use of the markets and do some cooking, although this time we didn't do much of that.

After multiple apartments in the Montparnasse area and one stay even further out in the 15th, we decided to try a new neighborhood and booked this apartment in the 11th: http://www.vrbo.com/574051
We've had great luck with VRBO and this apartment turned out to be very comfortable and we liked the location but there were definitely some issues and I wouldn't stay here again or in any of the apartments owned or run by the people we dealt with. The guy was rather unpleasant and very unfriendly, the apartment wasn't stocked to receive us (no toilet paper, I mean NONE, all the towels were wet, no coffee filters, etc.) and there turned out to be a homeless man living in the vestibule of the apartment building.

But we were in Paris and ready to enjoy all the city had to offer.

Homeless Man or not, that's still a beautiful looking apartment! But I'm sorry you had to deal with some snarkiness with the Owner. Looking forward to vicariously dining through your report :)

This is why I want to use an apartment service....I hope the rest of the trip went welll.

ARRIVAL DAY: We arrived at CDG (direct flight from Boston) without sleeping (purposefully) on the overnight flight and were picked up by a friend who immediately whisked us off to Pâtisserie Gilles Marchal (9 rue Ravignan, 75018) a tiny jewel box of a shop in Monmartre where we bought numerous treats. I was exhausted and not feeling so great but I still couldn't help but totally swoon over the cream filled chouquettes. Just phenomenal and worth the shlep just to eat these.

It was pouring rain when we arrived but within an hour the sky cleared and we had gorgeous weather, partly sunny and in the high 60's-low 70's every day for the rest of the time we were there. After a brief walk in the Luxembourg Gardens, to marvel at the height and color of the foxgloves, we were dropped at our apartment where we met up with the very taciturn man who let us in, gave us keys, and left us with wet towels and no toilet paper. Oh well. The apartment was lovely and quite comfortable and the 3 flights of steep spiral staircase helped us to work off all the fine eating we did!

After some unpacking and hanging the towels all around the apartment to dry, we headed out to get the know the neighborhood a bit and to hunt down the makings of a casual dinner. Knowing we would be too exhausted to enjoy a restaurant, we usually plan an apartment picnic our first night and we had a great one this time.

Our apartment was a short walk to R Oberkampf, a bustling area full of great little shops and restaurants and we bought a fresh, warm baguette from Boulangerie Gana , some fantastic Pate Campagne from Boucherie Oberkamp, Richard Renier, and fresh eggs, butter, and some great cheese from Le Jardin Fromager. A quick stop at the Monoprix (just up the street from us) for toilet paper, coffee and coffee filters and we were ready to have a delicious dinner and crash for the night. We were asleep by 8:00 PM, and woke up at 9:00 the next morning fresh, no jet lag, and ready to go.

Denisea - Do you know any good apartment services? I'm always on the hunt for reliable ones...

I like the start! -- a good old fashioned picnic. No better place to do it than Paris! :)

Love the title of your report. We will be eating our way through Paris in September, so very eager to see your restaurant and food choices.

Too bad the apartment manager was such a downer. I love that location and what a nice-looking apartment (though of course nowadays you wonder about the legality/illegality of such arrangements). Hope it doesn't affect your trip much.

Can I read a more food-intensive version on Chowhound or will we get it all here? I need the deets!

Oooohhhh can't wait for more. No toilet paper is unacceptable. I see the owner answered you on VRBO

As to the reply from the owner, the guy who met us was the same person we had been emailing with from the beginning, not a one day fill in. If you read the other reviews, someone else mentions the unfriendly manager as well as the homeless guy but I missed that mention when I read the reviews. And I doubt very much anything is happening about that homeless guy. It was obvious he'd been there for a very long time and that everyone who lives in the building just accepts it. After a while when you see how many homeless people are living in doorways and on the street all over Paris, you begin to feel glad that someone has found an indoor space that works for them, especially once you are clear that they're not dangerous. At least we did.

Leely2: I'll include all the food here, I promise!

DAY 2: We woke to bright sunshine and I knew our first order of business to was to eat a Napolean from Cafe Pushkine. Pouchkine’s Napolean is my favorite pastry in the whole world. Not to be confused with the millefeuille, this is a rich, intensely vanilla pastry cream folded with whipped cream enclosed inside layers of croissant like dough, moist and chewy in the center, light and flaky crisp outside, with fresh fruit on top.

Last time, we had gone to the lovely Cafe Pouchkine in Printempts multiple times and although everything looked amazing, I ordered the Napolean 3 times. This time I had read that Cafe Pouchkine had opened a new place right next to Place de Vogue so we walked there only to discover that it's a dark uninviting little place so we hopped the metro and went back to the original in Printempts and had pastry and coffee. Of course I had the Napolean again and DH had The Bostock, which is a moist cake with a financier type crumb with almond paste and blueberries baked into the center. Niether pastry was too sweet, both delicious but the Napolean is to die for IMO. We each had a coffee and that was brunch!

We spent the afternoon wandering around Paris. We've done all the regular tourist things on past trips but I never feel as if I'm really in Paris until I see Notre Dame and take a long walk along the river so we did that. I was surprised to see such a huge long line of people waiting to enter Notre Dame (not to climb, just to go in!) and was glad we didn't feel the need to visit the inside, having been many times before. Then we heard some wonderful street music and hung out and people watched in the plaza in front of hotel du Ville.

We had charged our Pass Navigos so it was great to be able to jump on the metro or a bus any time we wanted to be in a different part of Paris or if we felt tired at any point. We wandered far and wide this first day and by the time we got back to our apartment we were ready for a rest before a dinner I was very much looking forward to: Bistro Belhara.

Bistrot Belhara (23 Rue Duvivier, 7th): We loved this place. It's fairly new and wasn't yet "discovered" by hordes of tourists although I expect that that is changing as we speak. We were the only non-French people in the place the night we went. This bistro is very small, very packed, and the food and the service were excellent.

They have a 38E 3 course menu with some specials and some supplements for certain choices. We had:

entrees: pate de canard au foie gras en croute with a salad of fresh lettuces and herbs dressed with hazelnut oil (6E supplement), potage au broccoli w/smoked shrimp, ham, asparagus both completely delicious.

Plate: gigot d'agneau de lait des Pyrénées, pommes de terre grenaille, onion marmalade, basque ham for 2 (9E supplement) cooked perfectly dark pink, juicy and tender, carved off the bone and presented with the bone (oh how I wished I had a dog!) Too much for us to finish, knowing dessert was coming, but we did a pretty good job trying!

Dessert: Passion fruit soufflé: Light, flavorful, very fruity with very little sugar, a standout. And tart au citron the only disappointment of the meal; the crust was a tad too thick and hard and the lemon curd just a bit too sweet for my taste.

Hot out of the oven madelaines brought at the end of the meal were divine.
With 2 glasses of excellent Bordeaux and a bottle of water 125E. I highly recommend putting this one on your list.

After dinner we took a long walk as we usually do, making our way home, arriving around 12:30AM. What a surprise to punch in the code to the front door of the building, head towards the stairs and discover a person in a sleeping bag lying in the vestibule near the base of the stairs. It was very disconcerting but we stepped around him and walked our 3 flights up in silence, not wanting to disturb his sleep.

We were to see him several times over the course of our time there, although he tried his best to be gone during the day. He washed up in the garbage room, which had a small sink, and he left his bed roll tucked behind a small chair that was stacked with his neatly folded bedding and a few articles of clothing. He was clearly well settled in and had been there for some time. I did email the manager and he replied a few days later saying they knew about the "problem of the homeless" and he said the owner was "working on it." As I said, after our initial concern about our safety and the security of our apartment, we got used to his presence and I started to feel glad that he had at least found a place to rest his head.

I enjoyed your "live" reports on Chowhound, so I am most definitely signing up for your trip report! I agree that no toilet paper and wet towels are unacceptable, but the apartment looks lovely. What a great location. Great start, looking forward to more.

Full of good ideas already, looking forward to reading more.

Thank you, please continue!

DAY 3: We decided to try to find the closest bakery that would have excellent viennoiserie (breakfast pastries)to buy and bring back to the apartment and have with our own coffee in the apartment. There was a small boulangerie directly across the street from the apartment that we had high hopes for before we arrived but one look in the window told me that we'd find nothing special there and when I'm in Paris, I'm on the hunt for everything extra delicious.

I had done a lot of homework and had a long list of the best boulangeries and patisseries in the city (and had tried many of them on past trips) but we were looking for something in our neighborhood where we hadn't been on previous trips so we headed to Maison Landemaine (41 rue Oberkampf)an 8 minute walk from the apartment.

Be bought an almond croissant, a small bag of chouquettes, and a butter croissant and took them home with anticipation. The butter croissant was excellent, shatteringly crisp and many many layers of rich buttery dough but the almond croissant was a big disappointment, somehow being soggy and dry at the same time with almost no almond paste or flavor to be found. The chouquettes were unfilled and a nice light and crunchy treat but nothing worth going back for. Maison Landemaine would not be "our" bakery for at home breakfasts.

A quick note on chouquettes: These are little choux puffs with crunchy sugar on them and almost every boulangerie makes them. They're served by the bag, usually 6 or 8 for a small bag, and they make a lovely light snack when done well. But please believe me when I say, shlep to Gilles Marchal in Monmartre and try his cream filled ones! These were truly heavenly and I wish we had gone back to get them again!

After breakfast we decided today was the day to go to Basilique St. Denis. This had been on our list for the last couple of trip and it never happened so off we went.

We arrived to find that the Basilique was under renovation with lots of scaffolding hiding much of the magnificent external structure. That was a little disappointing but the inside is very impressive and it was worth the trip, which is an easy metro ride. We skipped paying 12E to see the royal tombs and decided to explore the area a bit.

Without planning it, we were there on a Friday when there is the enormous St. Denis market, which was totally packed with a huge, multicultural population of mostly locals. This was really fun and a little insane in terms of the crowd. Apparently, on Sundays,there are even more vendors and it's even more crowded, which is hard to imagine!

Eventually, we found our way back to the metro and headed back into Paris. I was craving greens but didn't want to eat a real lunch as it was mid afternoon and we had a big dinner planned so we stopped into a little non-descript place for a salad to go.

We had gotten off the metro from St. Denis a few stops away from Madelaine so after lunch we decided to walk there. Even though I've been to Paris many times I had never visited this building. DH and I were simply awed by the size and grandeur of this church. The massive steps in front were covered with boxes of flowers making quite a beautiful spectacle, with an amazing view of the obelisque and of Invalide. The inside of the church just blew us away. What an architectural and artistic wonder! We noted that there would be an organ concert here on Sunday afternoon and immediately agreed we would attend.

After spending and hour at Le Madelaine, we headed back to the apartment for a shower and a rest before dinner.

Next: Dinner at Hexagone!

Almond croissants are almost always made with yesterday's croissants, so that makes them extremely variable -- sometimes dry, sometimes soggy, sometimes wonderful. There is absolutely no way to know just by looking at them.

Enjoying your report!

Kerouac, that is so true. Looks mean nothing and even a wonderful one one day is less than stellar from the same place the next. We did have a different almond pastry elsewhere that was like a spiral of dough with some almond paste inside and almonds on top. I can't at all recall what this was called. Any ideas?

Rertaurant Hexagone: (85 Avenue Keibler, 16th)This is also a fairly new restaurant but with a very elegant feel, Michelin star quality food and service but not taking themselves too seriously. We felt totally pampered here and the food was gorgeous and delicious.

There is a choice of a 4 course menu, your choice of anything off the carte (125E), a 6 course chefs tasting (175E) or you can go a la carte. They also have a 3 course lunch for 49E.

We went for the 4 course menu and my husband asked them to do wine pairings for him. He gave them a budget of 75E the sommelier made wonderful, generous choices to match his food.

Here's what we ate:

Amuses: asparagus mousse on crisp melba toast, tomato gazpacho w/ herbed crème fresh.
Fantastic bread with amazngly delicious Breton butter. Entrees: tempura shrimp AND sea bass ceviche.
Fish course: sole in croute w/ morels, asparagus, w/ sauce vin juane AND lotte w/mushroom duxelle, white asparagus, lemon confit in shallot butter sauce.
Meat: Bressan pigeon with carrot confit, glace royal, smoked potato puree AND veal sweetbreads w/tarragon emulsion, sauce diable.
Dessert: pistachio financier AND strawberry vacherin Mignardises lemon glazed madelaines.

Everything was spot on. Gorgeous to look at, totally balanced flavors and textures, subtle yet distinct use of seasonings, herbs and spices. Desserts were barely sweet in the best way, letting the flavors of the pistachios and the strawberries in each respective dessert really shine.

Perfectly designed serving sizes for 4 courses so we felt totally satisfied but not grossly stuffed at the end of the meal. Service was exceptional, warm, professional, welcoming. and The bill for two 4 course menus, 3 glasses of superb wine and 1 bottle of water was 350E. Worth every penny and I’d definitely return.

Plafield, it sounds like you're describing an escargot pastry.

Thanks for sharing your. I'm really enjoying your food & dining report.

DAY 4: Most of the day centered around a trip to Jacques Genin (133 Rue de Turenne, 75003) one of our favorite places in Paris. We met up with some friends for coffee and chat in the late morning and then headed to Genin around 12:30 to beat the rush. This place gets very crowded with a long wait for tables between 2:00-5:00.

We snagged a table and I was so very excited to hear that he had made the Paris Brest that day. The shop is always fully stocked with his amazing chocolates an caramels and he makes a small, rotating array of incredible pastries but you can't know when he'll have what. He always has his famous millfuelle (which we've had both the vanilla and the chocolate ad they are sublime) but I had regretted not trying the Paris Brest last time it was available so I immediately went for that. DH ordered the Carmalized vanilla choux puff.

What can I say. Just perfection. This Paris Brest was the best I’ve ever had and far surpassed the one from Patisserie des Reves that so many think is the best in Paris. And caramelized cream puff was also beyond delicious. We ordered coffees after the pastry and they came with 4 of his sublime chocolates and a house made marshmallow. What a treat!

We spent the rest of the afternoon just walking around the area, the upper Marais to Republique and then down toward Bastille and home. By 5:30 or so we were ready for a rest and then dinner at Tintilou.

You will always be able to say you had the best Brest in Paris.

My thought when I saw the title was 'oh goody'. Now I am sad that although Bistro Belhara and Hexagone were on the list for our trip in March there just wasn't enough time to get there. Ah well we will eventually get back to Paris. Can't wait for the rest of the report. Thanks for taking the time to write.

Tintilou (37 Rue de Montreuil 11th) Very funky little bistro de quartier. Excellent food with friendly, if a bit haphazard, service. We were the only non-French speakers in the place.

This was a great for a Saturday night when many of the best restaurants are closed, especially if it’s in your quartier (which it was for us.)

They have a38E menu with 2 choices for each course or you can order from the carte or do the 48E chef’s surprise 4 course menu. We opted for the 3 course menu. They forgot to bring us the amuse, which we saw other tables receive so I can’t tell you what it was. The menu descriptions weren’t particularly accurate to the food but it was all quite tasty.

Entrees were vegetable ravioli w/pti pois puree AND eggs cocotte which the menu said “espuma de poivron rouge” but instaed of red pepper sauce were instead in a parmesan cream sauce. Both delicious.

Plates were stewed lamb shoulder with asparagus, fresh peas, jus served with excellent mashed potatoes AND merlu (hake) over beef confit, diced mixed veggies with baby spelt. Both plates were comforting if a little wintery for May but delicious. Everything needed just a bit of salt to hit optimum flavor but they were happy to provide the salt grinder.

Desserts were both terrific, again not particularly matching the descriptions. A “Tartelette inverse, fruits rouge” turned out to be a kind of deconstructed vacherin: a dish of strawberries and blueberries in juice with lemon sorbet topped with a lovely, crisp meringue, barely sweet and perfect. The other dessert was chocolate ganache with passion fruit custard served with an excellent madeleine. Rich and satisfying.

With 2 glasses of very nice Cote de Rhone and a bottle of water the bill was $92E. A very fine value. I wouldn’t trot across town to eat here but if it’s convenient for you to get to, it’s definitely a great Saturday night choice.

plafield, just found this and have enjoyed reading about the food [as well as the rest of your trip of course] almost as much as you must have enjoyed eating it!

leaving the apartment on move side, would you recommend this as an area to stay in? I like moving around to get to know different parts of the city, especially for longer stays, and this is an area that we haven't stayed in so far.

Lamb, peas and asparagus--my favorite combo! Tintilou would likely be a hit with me, and I very much enjoy that quartier.

I really like Papillon on rue de Bagnolet in the outer reaches of Paris (although it is right next door to the famous Mama Shelter and the Flèche d'Or music venue). It has a superb all inclusive menu that includes the apéritif, the starter, the main dish, the wine, the dessert plus coffee or tea for only 33.90€. I frankly do not know of any other menu in Paris that includes six different things for that price.

http://www.cafelepapillon.com/fr/menus-carte/

Enjoy your food descriptions

Annhig, yes we really liked this area. Lot's of great restaurants and the whole area between Republique and Bastille is very lively.

I am behind on reading but pleased to see chouquettes!! We love them and were bummed it took us so long to discover them!

Boston Blondie - we have always used Paris Perfect. I also hear great things about Guest Apartment Services and Haven in Paris and we may rent from one of these services next trip.

DAY 5: The day started with a trip to Pain du Sucre (14 Rue Rambuteau, 75003) a place I had been wanting to try for a while. It was about a 20 minute walk from our apartment so we were thrilled to get there and find that the patisserie serves coffee and has a few tables right outside. They have 2 separate tiny store fronts next door to each other, a boulangerie with fantastic looking viennoiseries and the other a patisserie with gorgeous fancy pastries. Of course we had to try something from each!

From the boulangerie, we had an excellent croissant, a spectacular pain au raisin, and from the patisserie, the very best tart au citron I've had in Paris. The lemon tart was the perfect balance of tart and sweet, the crust crisp, light and buttery. And the pain au raisin was filled with an eggy cream and so delicious. I had never been a particular fan of this pastry but this morning I was converted!

We sat and enjoyed our pastries and coffee while people watching on R Rambuteau and then decided to walk to Place de Voges near by.

Sunday in Le Marias is quite the scene and making our way through the hordes of tourists was a fun challenge but when we finally reached the park there was barely a place to sit it was so mobbed with people. A great place for people watching but not particularly relaxing so after a while we moved on and decided to jump the metro to head to a different part of town.

As usual, we spent most of the day just walking in various neighborhoods of Paris. At one point, we stopped at a cafe (I don't remember the name) and had a salad, a lovely melty camambert, and delicious baguette for lunch and eventually headed to Le Madelaine for the late afternoon organ concert.

What a treat this was (other than the torturous straight backed little wooden chairs!)To hear Bach reverberating inside that amazing church! The acoustics were just amazing and the setting so overwhelmingly beautiful. It was just an incredible opportunity. About half way through the concert they passed a basket for free will donations but there was no pressure to pay anything if you didn't want to donate. But we were happy to give something for this wonderful experience of such great music in this amazing setting!

After the concert, we spent some time just sitting on the majestic steps of Le Madelaine, soaking up the sun as it headed down and the view of Concorde and Invalide in the distance. Then we headed home for a rest before meeting up with a friend for dinner at Restaurant Amarante.

Restaurant Amarante (4, rue Biscornet Paris 75012)This is the restaurant owned and cheffed by Christophe Phillippe who had previously owned Christophe, a place in the Latin Quarter where we had eaten many years ago and loved. When I read he was opening a new place, I knew we had to go.

Amarante is a tiny place with maybe 16 covers, no special décor but friendly and comfortable. Here we found impeccably sourced, top quality food simply and perfectly prepared with not a bell or whistle anywhere in sight. 3 of us dined and had entrees of veal tongue with house mayo, escargot in garlic parsley butter, and a rich and simple pate de foie gras. All just excellent.

For plats, 2 had the duck and I had the sole, a gorgeous piece of fish, simply fried in butter, un-boned with the skin alone on the plate. Truly the most delicious piece of fish I have ever eaten. This truly didn't need any accompaniments at all although there was a big bowl of chickpea fries for us all to share and these were deliciously light and crispy.

The duck was a breast and thigh, tender and richly flavored with crisp skin served with a simple duck jus. This is not fancy food but it’s great food. This is not the place if you’re looking for pretty presentation or special sides and/or sauces but if you want simple comfort food of the best quality and perfect preparation, you’ll find it here.

For dessert we had intensely dark chocolate mousse, a very tart bruleed lemon custard, and roasted caramelized pineapple. All simply delicious. With 2 glasses of wine and 2 bottles of water the bill was 154E for 3. I’d go again for sure.

Drooling over your descriptions!!!

DAY 6: We started the day with a walk back to Pain Du Sucre where we bought pastry and brought it back to the apartment to have with our own coffee. We had another pain au raisin, a butter croissant, a cheese and chive biscuit and the best chocolate eclair I've had in Paris, and that's saying something. From someone who has eaten A LOT of pastry all around Paris, if you are looking for the very best chocolate eclair and/or tart au citron, Pain du Sucre is the place.

Stuffed with pastry it was time to set off on our daily adventures. It was yet another perfect, partly sunny, 70 degree day. We headed to the Pont Alexander III bridge where we enjoyed the fabulous view of the Eiffel tower and on the way, we came upon a big celebration of some sort happening on the green in front of Invalide. It was for Whit Monday and there was singing and drumming and lots of shouting. Very lively.

After enjoying our walk across the bridge we decided to go to the Grand Palais to see the Valequez show. There was a very long line but there as a fabulous clarinet player providing music during the wait. The Valesquez show was great but we were disappointed that it wasn't in the part of the building that allowed us to see the actual interior of the Palace.

Next it was time for our afternoon snack. We headed to Julien, where I hoped to have one of my favorite millfuelles, but sadly, we found them closed for Whit Monday. We bought a ham and cheese croissant and a pistachio eclair from Gosselin, right up the street from Julien on R St Honore. We took our treats to the new park next to Les Halles and the croissant was delicious, filled with bachamel and good ham, topped with melted cheese, but the eclair was just awful and after one bite each, we tossed it. Oh well. Better to save our appetite for dinner.

After the snack, we decided to revisit St. Eustache church, one of my favorites in Paris and then, we walked back to our apartment to take a rest for before dinner at Pirouette.

Pirouette (5 Rue Mondétour, 75001) This is a little spot in the middle of the crazy mess next to the Les Halles project. Very pretty, well thought out food in a casual atmosphere with a chalkboard menu in French and English, definitely well discovered by tourists looking for good modern French cooking.

We did the 3 course menu for 42E with some upcharges. First there was a nice little amuse of fried pork skin (think pork rinds!) topped with herbed cream cheese that was quite yummy. Entrees were squid with pine nut pesto, pomelo, red cabbage that was ok but didn’t wow and a rabbit terrine with horseradish cream, turnip, grilled endive (+2E) which was very tasty.

Plats were both seriously spectacular. Dandieu volaille and foie gras with barley and corn was totally worth the 4E upcharge and one of the most delicious things I ate on this trip. The veal cheeks with smoked anchovies, artichoke hearts and poivrade was also delectable.

Desserts were a fairly simple ris au lait with a drizzle of caramel and some candied nuts that was just fine but better was a white chocolate and cardamom tart with a cilantro brulee served with intense strawberry glace and some fresh berries. With 2 glasses of wine and a bottle of water the bill was 114E.

The plats made this meal worth the trip but while they were extremely delicious and all the dishes were beautifully presented, the entrees and desserts lacked any real wow factor and somehow the whole experience was missing some essence of heart that makes a meal in its totality great for me. But do try it for yourself as the quality of the food was a real value for the price.

<i>a fairly simple ris au lait with a drizzle of caramel</i>

:-) I did a double take reading that, thinking for an instant that you had veal sweetbreads with caramel sauce instead of <b>riz</b> au lait.

Oops. Spell check just doesn't catch the French mistakes! My bad. :)

A really good, not-too-sweet dessert often makes me forget about earlier, less-than-stellar courses.

Still following along and enjoying your report. Thanks!