Below ground dining at La Petite Cour, Paris 6th

I met a friend here for lunch recently and can say that I will definitely return. I made reservations for a table on their expansive terrace - highly advised in the warmer seasons. La Petite Cour is in the 6th Arrondissement, on a sub-terrain level of the city - one of the many hidden gems of the Paris dining scene.
The food was excellent. Starters of scallops served in their shell with a vinaigrette dressing, fresh asparagus with a poached egg, followed by a grilled cabillaud on a bed of greens - all very light and healthy, until we finished off the meal with a cafe gourmand and a caramel and chocolate tart.

Lunch in the neighbourhood - Le Saint Ferdinand, Paris 17th

The pleasure of a short stroll around the neighbourhood and a late afternoon family lunch over the weekend. As much as the advice to anyone who wants a decent meal in the very many Paris restaurants is to make reservations - there are still some places, especially the neighbourhood bistros, which can always accommodate the hungry flâneur - stroller. One such place was Le Saint Ferdinand recently. We walked for a while, came across a fairly secluded but animated square with three restaurants within a 50m radius, made a choice and sat for lunch.

Musée Picasso, Paris

I had friends from South Africa visiting Paris two weeks ago, and it was during our moments visiting the tourist spots and walking around Paris, that I felt that thrill I once did before I moved here. The old adage that living in a place is a far different reality from visiting it still holds true. I have become somewhat jaded in my perception of Paris, but since last week I have a renewed appreciation for all things Parisian. Wanting to not lose even a moment of that renewed curiosity about the city, I planned a Sunday outing with my children - something we used to do often before our blasé attitude towards Paris and its many monuments became the norm. The Musée National Picasso was our art and culture excursion yesterday.

Touring Chinatown, Belleville

A guided walking tour of Belleville a couple of weeks ago revealed a world I would otherwise not have stumbled upon. Belleville straddles the 13th and 20th arrondissements. I have only been as far as the Père Lachaise cemetery and the Hotel and Bar Mama Shelter. This tour revealed an entirely different side to the Belleville I know.

A walk around is a sensory feast - from the open air markets selling everything from the 'Made in China' plastic ware to heaps of dragon fruit  to the supermarkets with their shelves lined with products both exotic and unfamiliar;  the working ladies - seemingly incongruous- plying their trade in the middle of the day right next to the école maternelles and children's parks, on the leafy tree-lined boulevards.

Eating at Les Chouettes in the Marais

Having read several reviews for Les Chouettes - which I thought to be the adjective, meaning fantastic or terrific , but when I saw the logo realised they meant the noun, meaning owl. Either way, it is a relatively new hip and cool addition to the Marais dining scene. I made reservations for a Saturday lunch and we ventured out for a family lunch. One thing I absolutely loved was the set-up of the restaurant. From the outside, it is fairly nondescript - nothing about the exterior warns of the nautical feel within. Once inside it looks like you're on a cruise liner. It has three levels: the ground floor has the main restaurant with its own bar, the first floor has another bar and more seating, on the third floor are quite reading corners and couches. I could definitely see it as a perfect place for a meet-up for drinks with friends.

On being a shoplifter

"Browsing bookshops then buying online is a 'genteel form of shoplifting'", this according to David Nicholls, in an article in The Guardian from some weeks ago. He was speaking at the London Book Fair and bringing attention to the disappearance of bookstores, on how their numbers are dwindling more and more in neighbourhoods as the convenience and cost-effectiveness of e-reading has taken on. A bit of a harsh statement, I thought, feeling guilty.  In my defence, my browsing more often than not, always results in buying -  then in the further browsing of the books which I go on to download on my Kindle.

Even as a big offender when it comes to this form of 'shoplifting',  I will choose paper over electronic in a heartbeat. I love bookstores and libraries - always have. I can browse for hours in bookstores, wishing it were possible to be locked up in them with copious amounts of coffee and food, and just me and the books. Nothing thrills me more than the purchase of a new book in paper form - but the reality is that I cannot buy more books in paper form anymore - not as many as I would like to anyway. I no longer have the space in my house and the near-nomadic life I have does not lend itself to moving with boxes filled with books. So I have reluctantly fallen in love with my Kindle and the ease with which I can have my personal library in my hand without ever having to worry about leaving all those books that I buy behind.

Even with the convenience of e-books, there is a certain pleasure to be found in browsing. It is in seeing a title that immediately pulls; in running your fingers over the cover; and in skimming to a random page to determine whether the writing draws as much as the appearance, well that is something that Amazon and its click-of-a-mouse ease of purchasing cannot offer, but it is what we will eventually be left with. That thought leaves me feeling sad. I really wish there could be a common ground found between publishers and writers; between the behemoth-sized bookstores and the smaller independent booksellers, to allow for book lovers to indulge their passion without the guilt of knowing that they are not only pirating writers' incomes but are also contributing to the demise of bookstores.