Where do you eat in Paris? What do you cook in Paris? Where do you learn how to cook in Paris? Oh la la... this is going to be a long section.
French food is amazing and world famous from the baguettes and pastries, to the fresh soulful vegetables and seafood Paris has so much to offer the traveling foodie. Paris is a great city to experience the fine cuisine. However, Paris is also one of the biggest tourist cities in the world. So there are a lot of crappy places that are over priced and claiming to be authentic french.
Starting off with where to eat in Paris. This depends on your wallet. Paris is one of the best cities in the world, as well as one of the most expensive cities in the world. If you want a cute cafe and some good food head over to montmartre. The street Rue des Abbesses is a perfect spot for some mid prices lunches 15-30euros per person you can find great Charcuterie et fromage for appetizers or sit down and have a nice french lunch. My favorite place to get a really good meal in montmarte is Nanou Bar 59 Rue d'Orsel, 75018 Paris, France. This is a french tapas and restaurant. I found this place when my mother came to visit. We had been at Versaille all day and when walking back to my apartment we were hungry and could smell the most amazing smell. The owner didn't speak english and my mom pointed to her nose and mouth. The french woman pointed at us to sit down and brought us food. This restaurant is perfect for a full meal, just get the special that they cooked that day or you cant go wrong with their homemade sangria and meat and cheese plate if you aren't very hungry.
Paris is trendy, you can find some crazy expensive restaurants with molecular gastronomy and spend your entire budget on one meal, but after eating at l'atelier de joel robuchon in Saint Germain it's definitely worth it every now and then. Even if you just stop in for a glass of champagne the seared foie gras and the salmon cerviche were two of the most amazing dishes I have ever eaten in my life.
So you have an idea on where to eat in paris, more than eating out I absolutely love taking cooking lessons. Le Cordon Bleu has a campus in Paris and they offer some really technical classes. Their class on the sauces is really cool. The five classic french sauces are Béchamel, Velouté, Espagnole, Tomat and Hollandaise. It's a great class to take for a more technical approach and learning the mother sauces of french cuisine.
I stumbled upon this gem, le foodist. It is a cooking school that you can take all different kinds of classes. The schools mission is to teach you french culture through its food. You can take classes making macarons, croissants, eclaires or you can take a class cooking an entire meal from appetizer to desert, you even go to the market to pick out the seasonal ingredients. I took all of the classes at le foodist. I loved every one of them.
The croissant class I loved. The croissant is like a princess she likes to be brushed, massaged, and pampered. It is a very long process and after a disturbing amount of butter one of the most delicious things you can ever put into your mouth.
Macarons were FUN. The macaron is not to be confused with the macaroon. The macaroon is an italian coconut dessert which is very good, but a macaron is a delicate precious cookie. Macarons are flourless and made with an eggwhite meringue folded into an almond powder paste. Each cookie is colored then has its own filling. My favorites were the pistachio and chocolat ganache.
The class I took at le foodist that was my favorite was the full course meal. It basically taught you the perfect date night menu. Starting off with salmon tar tar on a soy poached turnip. A lot of classic french dishes get a japanese spin on them. You aren't a trendy restaurant if YOU aren't cooking with YUZU. It's a Japanese citrus fruit and it tastes amazing with the salmon.
The main course was the classic coq au vin. Chicken and wine... I am pretty sure everyone likes chicken and wine. Served with delicious potatoes, carrots, and turnips. This dish is a filling, elegant, perfect, classic french dish.
For dessert, Poire belle helene. A tea poached pear with homeade vanilla icecream, chocolate sauce and almonds. It was so good.
At the end of the day in Paris, you can eat at cute cafes and love it , you can splurge in a 5 star haute cuisine restaurant and love it, you can learn to cook like a true french chef and love it, but you can also do my favorite of all.... stop by the boulangerie pick up a fresh baguette, then stop at the fromagerie and get some fromage a la truffe. (cheese with truffles) a bottle of wine and enjoy eating perfection at the park. It doesn't get any better than that.
Date
Dating in Paris has been hilarious. I have some stories I will never forget. Here are a few to give you an idea of Parisian men.
Le Wolf of Wall street:
So I go on a date with this guy who is in finance. He is like the wolf of wall street frenchman. He takes me to a really awesome bar and restaurant. This restaurant was so cool and this guy is so nice to me. The only problem is I am 99.9999999% sure that he is gay. Anyways, we are having great conversation and he seems fun! I was kind of needing to get out because I work so much and he seemed like a really nice, fun person. So we are at the restaurant and he asks me what I would like to drink. I say red wine (until I moved to Paris this was my default answer, I have always liked red wine so that's usually what I order. He looks at me and politely smiles and then tells me in Paris woman don't order red wine unless it was late and to go with their meal. He tells me I should get chardonnay or rose. I am really put off by this because he orders red wine and he is more feminine than I am. The bar tender interrupts and gives me a glass of red wine. I am happy and the wine is great but then all the french girls start coming in, they are dressed like it is fashion week and all I see is chardonnay and rose. I am thinking shit. I look like an idiot now, I probably have red wine teeth too!. After this, We get menus, we decide to just share some appetizers. He is asking what I want and since its obvious he comes her often, I tell him to pick for me. He thinks I am saying... "You pay?" not "you pick?" So he is put off by the tacky girl drinking red wine asking him if he will pay for my appetizer. Language barrier disaster. He assures me he will pay after looking disgusted then I clear up what I meant and we both laugh. He picks and the food arrives. OMG the food is amazing. All foreign dishes I never have tasted before. I did not want to be pigging out while fashion week girls are not eating and sipping Chardonnay, so I pick pieces here and there and figure that after a few glasses of wine we will finish. Then after 10 min and 3/4 of all the delicious appetizers remaining the waiter takes our food. I say pardon we are still working on it. The server snaps at me.... "Our food isn't meant to be eaten cold". I look at my date... he says "it really isn't". After that he walks me home. I give him a hug bye and say thank you. He looks at me and laughs... he says, "You are soooooo American... JUST A HUG?????". Well at this point I still think he is gay, and I also think that we were not really compatible. So I guess tonight I am going to have to be the lame hugging american.
Mr. Mimosa:
I met this guy and he spoke perfect english. It was a few weeks after I moved to Paris and it was kind of refreshing and I thought he could help me learn french. We had been talking for a few days and he asked me what I missed about America. I said, "brunch". He had no idea what this was. I tell him so brunch is when you sleep in Sunday then wake up and hang out at a restaurant and eat and of course drink MIMOSAS! He had no idea what a mimosa was. So I get the grand idea of inviting him over Sunday to have mimosas on the terrace. He comes over at 11 am. I have a bottle of champagne, my baguette, my cheese and oh yes.. the jus d'orange. He sits down and I pop open the champagne, He is a little uneasy and kind of says soooo in America you drink in the morning... interesting. I tell him, noooo only on Sundays as I giggle... we call it Sunday Funday. He says ok so do people go to mass? or church there? I say um yes we do. He shrugs and takes his glass of champagne I say, no wait. I feel like I did a slow motion orange juice pour in his champagne and his face turns white. He looks at me, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" I stop pouring and mumble... " errr....I am making a mimosa." He looks at me and says..."why would anyone pour orange juice into champagne?". I just shrug and say well its just what we do on sundays.... I don't know why I keep telling him all Americans drink on Sundays, I probably go to brunch once a month and in summer only. Then He looks at me and says so you are telling me other people in America pour orange juice in our champagne????
After this we just drink the champagne by itself... eat the bread and cheese and call it a day .
Some things I have learned about Parisian men
1. Dress Code is discussed prior to going out, unless you are going jogging together, dress like you fell off of a runway.
2. They do not like change and like the proper way of doing things, don't be a weirdo just sip Chardonnay.
3. A Parisian will never be late, but expects you to be as timely as they are.
4. Parisians are great to have an intelligent conversation with and will genuinely listen to all of your opinions.
5. The accent is SEXY
Rosé
I love love love rosé. Please do not confuse my rosé with whatever 1970's sugared white zinfandel or sugared pink andre stuff people drink. Old world rosé is dry, crisp, acidic and delicious. Perfect for any hot sunny day. Perfect for a girls lunch. It's just perfect. I love a dry wine and I love french wine. I also love that pink salmon color. I especially love that rosé is from Provence. Provence is so beautiful... At the end of the day there is always time for rosé!
