To me, this is the best of Fodors! Bravo for the Muskateers, meeting on Fodors and turning e-pals into lifelong friendships. Having been fortunate enough to have my own Fodorite trip a few years ago, I think this is great! Thank you all for posting your reports.

When I go to markets, I do what you did in that I walk through once to see what looks best and then walk back through to go to individual vendors to make purchases. Some of the colors of fruits and vegetables are so vivid that I think the displays themselves should be framed art work!

Brava! I'm still loving what I'm reading on all three reports of this trip!

Thank you,
BC

The combination of these trip reports has been one of the MOST interesting and entertaining reads! Thank you!

Would it be rude or presumptuous of me to ask about that tatin d’artichaut recipe (if you are successful in reproducing)? It sounds to die for.

I really appreciate your summary of the markets. I have been to some, but not all, but plan to add yours to my trip in September.

Chez L’Ami Jean (Metro – Invalides) cigalechanta was interested in going to Chez L’Ami Jean. So we submitted gracefully and arranged for lunch on Tuesday. We arrived 20 minutes late for our reservation but the staff was warm and welcoming. As with the dinner for 5 at Le Régalade my memory of lunch is sketchy. Tomas and Mimi started with a raw tuna which Tomas thinks came with scallions and olive oil. Delicate is how he described it. My asparagus were delicious with some porky products. I followed with scallops which I thought were wonderful but don’t remember the details. Mimi had a magret de canard which came with the skin on and she thought was delicious but fatty. It also came with a marrow bone. Tomas was in heaven with a saddle of lamb with the kidneys. The plats came with their amazing pureed potatoes. One was garlic potatoes. Mimi and I had a vacherin with raspberries –two meringue cookies sandwiched with crème fraiche and amazing raspberries. Tomas had something chocolate. Both he and Mimi indulged in Armagnac. We were the last to stagger out the door. Poor Mimi’s foot! We walked back to the hotel. With a bottle of wine and the Armagnac the tab was 184€.

Breizh Café (Metro - St-Sébastien – Froissart) After reading David Lebovitz’s description of the buckwheat crepes at this Cafe we just had to try them. We weren’t the far away on Wednesday afternoon so we popped in. Tomas had a smoked salmon crepe and I had artichoke and ham which came with a fried egg. The egg was a little strange to me but it was delicious. We also had a pitcher of their cider which was fabulous. We split a caramelized apple crepe with vanilla ice cream for dessert. Lunch came to about 38€.

crefloors-there is still a stand in the market with the framed purple metro carnets. I wonder if the artist has been hording them since the new carnets are white. It is a nice memento to have.

Bookchick, one of Tomas' favorite subjects to photograph is the produce in the market. Some day maybe we will print, frame them and hang them in the kitchen.

paris1953-if I come up with a recipe I will be sure to post it here. I will be looking for your trip report and information on markets I haven't been to yet. Have you seen the book 'Markets of Paris' by Dixon and Ruthanne Long?

What we ate and where (con't)

Itinéraires (Metro - Maubert Mutualité) I had two new restaurants on my list and was vacillating between them. I don’t know why I chose to have lunch on Thursday at Itinéraires but we were glad I did. It helped to hear that JulieVikmanis and her husband enjoyed it when we met them at the GTG. The staff was very warm and welcoming especially as I walked in gave our name and had a coughing fit. The waitress seated us and rushed me a glass of water. They had a printed menu and a blackboard with essential specials of the day. You could mix and match. We started with an asparagus salad with white and green asparagus which was good but didn’t hold a candle against a carpaccio of scallops with foie gras dotted with pomegranates on a bed of shredded celery root. We went with wines by the glass and they have some amazing wines. One was a Gewürztraminer which was golden in color and wonderful with the scallops and asparagus. The plats were a rabbit saddle with a mustard sauce, cabbage and bacon and a magret de canard with beets and raspberries. The combination of beets and raspberries was something we were a little leery of but it worked so well with duck that we will try it at home. The duck and the scallops were voted the best dishes of the week. Desserts were a strawberry soup which wasn’t really soupy and pears poached in different mediums-chocolate, wine and something else. I highly recommend this restaurant. We were one of the few Americans there and were treated very well. The pre fixe menu was 36€ per person.

Abby, what was your favorite meal?

What we ate and where (con't)

Le Comptoir Du Relais (Metro – Odeon) One of the benefits of staying at the Relais St Germain is the ability to get a table at Le Comptoir on weeknights. Mimi expressed an interest (ok, she demanded we go) so all five of us gathered for Tomas’ last night in Paris. We started with a bottle of Champagne and reviewed the menu. Contrary to other dinners at Le Comptoir on this night there were choices (with some pretty hefty supplements). Each night the menu is printed on a post card with the saint’s name. Friday March 27 was Saint Habib. The menu was:

Coque d’étrilles en gelée légèrement safranées Champignon de paris chips et mousseline (Soft shell crabshells stuffed with a mousseline of saffroned crab)

Asperges vertes du Perthuis et mousseline Boutargue et caviars de hareng fume
(Asparagus with a mousseline garnished with smoked herring roe)

Tomas and I substituted an order of Morilles de Turquie a la crème which were wonderful.

Carré de cochon de lait des Pyrénées rôti, Endive braisé á l’orange, jus lier tapenade (saddle of pork with braised endives in orange and a jus with tapenade)

I substituted Ris de veau de Corrèze au verjus (Sweetbreads in verjus). I love sweetbreads and jump at the chance to have them each time they are presented.

Fromages affinés par la maison Boursault (The famous cheese board that get placed on your table and removed when you have eaten your fill)

Meringue coco, fraise gariguettes Chantilly, crème glace <<lait fraise>> (Meringues with strawberries and ice cream)

It was a very good meal and they actually moved us to the sitting room off the lobby to finish Armagnac and champagnes. The menu is 50€ per person.

What we ate and where (con't)

Le Comptoir Up until 5PM weekdays and all day Saturday and Sunday Le Comptoir serves a bistro menu.

Tomas and I stopped in for a late lunch/snack on our first Sunday in Paris. The reigning staff person judged that for that we had to sit on the sidewalk while the tables inside were reserved for full meals. (I do miss our favorite waitress Livia. I wonder where she is.) We ordered a Planche du Cochonnaille. I found this description of it online ‘a pork lover’s dream of a final repast before heading off to the great sty in the sky. Imagine a thick slab of wood, two jagged edges artfully left asunder, topped with delicious homemade charcuterie from the Camdeborde family’s larder. I dive right into the unctuous boudin noir, a lightly spiced blood sausage so soft and velvety that it almost melts in my mouth. I love the paper-thin, fatty slices of sweet ham and the salami studded with big black peppercorns, but most of all, I adore the graillons de porc, chunks of pork fat fried until crisp and golden—junk food of the gods. To go with it all, there are tangy cornichons, bread from Eric Kayser and sweet butter.’ It was all that and went really well with two glasses of Chateauneuf-du-Pape

On Sunday night (our last night in Paris) gomiki, Dick, cigalechanta and I had dinner at Le Comptoir. Dick and Mimi started with Absinthe, Miki had champagne and I had a Muscat. We reviewed the menu and made our choices. Dick and I had the artichoke soup with foie gras and Japanese pearls (tapioca), Mimi ordered the same Planche du Cochonnaille Tomas and I had split the prior Sunday. Miki abstained. For plats Miki and I had the magret de canard, Dick had a stew I think and Mimi had the Brandade de Morue. This time she said it was as good as her grandfather’s. I had raspberry and pineapple sorbets for dessert but the hit of the night was nougat glace with ice cream. Dinner with wine and drinks was 50€ per person.

What we ate and where (con't)

Dinner Chez ‘The Threesome!’
On Wednesday evening we cooked dinner at gomiki, D & cigalechanta’s apartment. Tomas and I shopped for vegetables at the market that morning. We got various mushrooms, potatoes, garlic, leeks, thyme, asparagus and French breakfast radishes. Dick, Tomas and I made a run to the Marché St Germain and picked up some fish, oysters, cheese and bread. On the way back we picked up some wine as well. While we all prepared dinner we munched on the radishes and bread. Then Dick opened the oysters which we had with the red wine vinegar mignonette. We sautéed the leeks, mushrooms, thyme and garlic and baked the fish with it. We also roasted potatoes and the asparagus. It was a pretty good meal. We finished with cheeses. I meant to get some pastries but Gerard Mulot is closed on Wednesday.

In my list of museums I forgot this one:

Musée de la Musique (Metro – Porte de Pantin) We tried to go to this museum last time we were in Paris but unfortunately didn’t read the guide book and showed up on Monday when it is closed. It was a fascinating place. When you arrive they give you headphones and an audio guide. There are about one thousand instruments in the museum. There are descriptions of the instruments on the audio guides. For several of the instruments there are also snippets of the instruments being played. There are harpsichords, clavichords, trumpets, didgeridoos and other exotic instruments. If you are a music lover this is the museum for you. Museum Pass

I wish I had thought of it and taken you to a shop on the rue de Mule while we were in the Marais. I had read about this man who deals with rare instruments in the NYTimes a few years ago so when I went to Paris a few years later I visited him and he played one of his weird instruments for me,

Travel tools:

We are techies so we are always on the lookout for things to assist our travels. I have a PDA-a Dell Axim- onto which we loaded the Paris Metro program. (http://nanika.net/Metro) With this program you enter the place you are starting and where you are going and it will tell you how to get there, how many metro stop there are and approximately how long it will take. I used it a lot!

We also loaded LingvoSoft English French dictionary which was very helpful. It also has a phase book which the Axim will pronounce out load. It is good to hear how it is supposed to be pronounced but my mouth doesn’t work that way unfortunately. Tomas has good pronunciation but his vocabulary is limited. When he lacks the French word he puts a French accent on the English word. I have had years of French as well as Spanish, Latin, Italian and some German. When I need a word it does not always appear in the language I am trying to speak.

I don’t remember who Donna Kittredge is but she once sent me her French Food Glossary. It is a word document of 12 pages of French food terms. It starts with “abats organ meats” and ends with “zewelwai onion & cream tart from Alsace”. I loaded it onto my Axim and at many restaurants it saved me from something like a chicken gizzard pizza. The only problem with it is that it takes a lot of memory and a long time to open. I plan to sit down one day and load all twelve pages of translations into the LingvoSoft program.

We bought a phone for this trip. Since we were trying to keep in touch with gomiki, Dick and cigalechanta it made sense. Also I have been traveling overseas for work and it is nice to be able to call and talk to Tomas on my schedule not work’s. The sim card had some number of minutes but we don’t know if we exceeded that number. I guess they will let us know.

Mimi, it is hard to decide which was my favorite meal. For the food definitely Itinéraires. But this trip was more about friendships so I would say my favorite meal was the night at Le Comptoir!

"We are techies so we are always on the lookout for things to assist our travels. I have a PDA-a Dell Axim- onto which we loaded the Paris Metro program. (http://nanika.net/Metro) With this program you enter the place you are starting and where you are going and it will tell you how to get there, how many metro stop there are and approximately how long it will take. I used it a lot!"

I used my free Metro map :D. And counted the stops. I used it a LOT being the Metro rat that I am. (Said in good spirit as a complete non-techie :) )

Waaaaaaaaa!!!!!!! I am utterly, absolutely and definitely beyond containing my jealous now!! WAAAAAAAA!

BC, stranded in midwestern America and uncertain about returning to Europe any time soon

LOL!! Awwwwww bookie, hang in there. You never know what can happen. That's how this trip happened....out of the blue!

What fun! Very interesting to see the same trip from several perspectives.

I would have had some of that chicken gizzard pizza if you ended up ordering it by mistake. But the stuff you did get sounds even better.

Nikki, not sure about the gizzards (too chewy) but if you put on the hearts and liver, I'm in!

>>When asked if I speak French I always say I speak menu.<<

LOL! I always tell people my SO speaks French but I speak food so we are always fine!

This has been a wonderful report (I still need to read the others) and I'm going to print it out for our upcoming trip! Thanks, Abby!