The Taste of Paris retrospectively

Building up to last month's Taste of Paris event, the organisers of which  had gone to great lengths in advertising on billboards, television and other social media platforms, I pre-booked tickets online and tried not to get too caught up in the  hype. Day one of the event was fairly lacklustre in attendance, and I dare say, in the offerings. There was an enormous champagne bar, courtesy of Laurent Perrier - and only one other drinks stand - which was really more like a corner café when compared to the LP stand. The only other places where you could have wine was the wine tasting stands, or the whisky stand if that was your thing. That alone should have been an indicator that the event had been pitched at a more wealthy audience, and touting more haute cuisine than simple good food.

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.

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.

Traditional Easter lunch at La Societé, St.Germain-des-Prés

Not quite a traditional Easter Sunday lunch, but it was for us in that coming here has become something of a tradition.
My family is fairly loyal to restaurants that are consistent in their quality of food and service.  Four years later, and one of our favourite restaurants still remains La Societé in St. Germain-des-Prés. It is by the brothers Costes and has the exactly same menu, and clientèle as L'Avenue on avenue Montaigne. For drinks we are equally faithful to Bar Costes in Hotel Costes on rue St. Honoré.
You'd probably walk past La Societé in winter- when the only indicator that there may be a restaurant hidden away in the random building is the valet parking sign. It's discreetly tucked away in what I think is a law office building. During the week, the crowd is the fairly staid and serious type, and over the weekend it's the hip and fashionable. But is is always laid back and unpretentious.
Decor is dark and austere perhaps - dark wood and leather chairs, but the service is always friendly, the staff young and energetic, and the food does not disappoint. We love it for that. Today, not in any mood to rustle up a traditional Easter lunch we went for lunch, and I realised that in all the years we have been in France, it's one of the restaurants which I really like that I have not yet written about.

Snapshots of Lisbon, a city steeped in maritime history

Monument of Discoveries, Belém

I have been sitting on this write up for a while now, just trying to workout how I felt about Lisboa before I put it down. My first impression was that the financial crisis has hit Portugal harder than it has some of the smaller European countries  - and this is after a visit to Greece. It seemed a bit rundown, or perhaps I came with high expectations. However when I mentioned this to a friend of mine, she also had the same opinion - when she compared it to her native Italy, and her husband's native Spain. Patriotic sentiment aside, I have since learnt that Portugal is often referred to as the 'poor cousin' of the western European countries.

Overall it was an enjoyable four-day family getaway - The foodie in me especially loved the food. I learnt a great deal about the city's maritime roots as the point of departure for many an explorer, and as a port city during the more robust trading years towards the end of the Middle Ages. I have definitely learnt that not all European cities are created equal. Lisbon left me with an impression of wanting to see more of what the country has to offer though. I would like to return to Portugal one day, but this time to visit its northern city Porto, or to see some of its beaches in the Algarve or make a trip to Sintra, Evora and Aveiro to name a few.

Gastronomy: "Le Frank" at Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris

I finally got to see the recently opened Frank Gehry-designed glass monument that is the Fondation Louis Vuitton. It truly is a marvel to behold. There is an entire story behind how the lobbying for its construction went as high as the highest echelons of the National Assembly.

We finally went today. I took the initiative of ordering the tickets online, hoping to avoid any long queues, but we still queued for about thirty minutes - by which time my children were no longer keen on the idea of museum first, then lunch after. So we joined the queue for Le Frank - the Fondation's restaurant which has been named after the architect.

Wheeling it through Prague.

We decided that exploring other slightly off-the-tourist-trail paths was required during our stay. So we succumbed to the sales pitch of the Segway guide and booked a tour for early Saturday morning. He arrived at out hotel before 11am - gave us our ten-minute tutorial, ran through the safety guidelines, and we were good to go. My son, who is eight and had has his fill with 'walking' Prague was overjoyed.
 It was the first time I has tried the Segday rides, and I would most definitely recommend them for any city that allows it. It took us away from the sites we had already seen, and added an entirely different perspective to our sight-seeing. We started with the John Lennon wall in Lesser Town; moved on to get a viewpoint from high above the city up Petrin Hill, one of Prague's greenest spaces; through the Rose Garden; past the Stefanik Observatory, named after Milan Rotislav Stefanik - astrologer and pilot. Then made our way to Strahov Monastic Brewery where we sampled the local beer. We then made our way down again after a highly interesting tour with a very enthusiastic guide.

Gastronomy in Prague: Ginger & Fred

Having recently written about Frank Gehry's newest architectural marvel in Paris, I was eager to see the building he has designed for the city of Prague, and as it so happened, the restaurant we had chosen for lunch is located in a building designed by him.  I have decided that the next exhibit I see will have to be at the Pompidou Centre where there's a current exhibition on Frank Gehry. I may as well take it all in while there's still all this attention on him.

Ginger & Fred is on the seventh floor of this Gehry building in Old Town. Oddly, no signs reveal its location. The charming young lady at the reception asked where we were headed before directing us to the seventh floor. Oddly mysterious. Very spy movie-like, given that we were in a city where most spy movies seem to be set.

The restaurant was a lovely surprise given the austere building and its minimalistic interior decor of the grey, beige and white colour palette.

Exploring Old Town, Prague - A Photo Tour

Exploring Prague's Old Town was a morning filled with the sights and sounds of a truly vibrant city. Armed with our list of places to visit, we headed out early to avoid other tourists. We walked along the famous Charles Bridge, so named because it was commissioned by King Charles IV in 1357. It is a cobble-stoned pedestrian bridge that spans the Vltava River and is a very important part of Prague's history. A sighting of the Astronomical Clock at the Old Town Square saw us competing with the hordes of people also out to do the same thing: view the hourly chiming of the clock with its moving figures, a marvel really, given that the mechanism dates back 600 years.

On Prague Castle, the Changing of the Guard and...Starbucks

Fuelled on a huge breakfast, we decided to walk through the city and make our way towards Prague Castle, loftily situated up a winding road, and overlooking the city.
First off though, we spent an inordinate amount of time inside St. Nicholas Church - with some of the most impressive interiors of any church I have ever seen. From the frescoes to the statues, we took our time taking it all in. Who knew that spending time in a church would hold everyone's attention that much. The church is still used for masses, and the solemnity within probably explains why we didn't rush the visit.

A contemporary Eurasian feast in an old European city

Service: Excellent
Food: Excellent
Though admittedly the ambience could have been warmer, the impeccable service and scrumptious food more than made up for it. Dinner with the family last night, as we plotted what the rest of the weekend in Prague would entail, was a feast. Essensia at the Mandarin Oriental was a true delight.

Wine pairing at the Brasserie Les 110 de Taillevent

On a random walkabout on Sunday, my husband and I, sans les infants, decided to detour for lunch to one of our favourite places, the brasserie of Les 110 de Taillevent.  Note: The restaurant of Les 110 is on rue Lamennais and serves more haute cuisine, with an ambiance more suitable for a more formal dining experience. The brasserie worked well on our casual detour for Sunday lunch. 

The 110 is the number of wines they have available on their menu - all for your pleasure. Theirs is an ingenious way of selling their products, their truly sublime food and their many and varied wines.

I enjoy going to restaurants that pair their food with wine, but it can be extremely overwhelming for an amateur wine lover when faced with too wide a variety. Les 110's concept makes the wine pairing experience a truly affordable and enjoyable experience.

Gastronomy: The River Café - Issy-les-Moulineaux

La Rentrée is almost upon us yet again, which means the restaurants are reopening, the local boulangeries are reverting to their normal hours, and the streets are once again bustling as people prepare for their start of yet another year post their summer holidays.
It has been a pleasure during the last couple of weeks being able to just turn up at restaurants - for those that remained open - and get a table. The River Café was one such treat. We made reservations, but on arrival it was clear that there was no real need to have bothered. The restaurant was nearly empty when we arrived but but the time we left, the tables had filled up substantially.
It's out of the way - it was my first foray into Issy-les-Moulineaux - but well worth the trip out there.

Places: Parc Zoologique de Paris

After renovations that lasted four years, the Paris Zoo finally re-opened its doors again last month. I took my son and a friend last Friday.
We had pre-booked our tickets online to avoid long queues but it was a surprisingly quiet day.
The zoo has undergone a €164 million overhaul which has turned it into a theme park-like space that's been sub-divided into five biozones: Madagascar, Amazon-Guyana, Europe, Patagonia and the Sahel-Sudan - the single largest area in the zoo, and home to the animals of the African Savannah. We saw all of the big cats but missed out on the white rhino though - which was of particular interest to the boys because of it endangered status.
The zoo has been completely rebuilt and now looks less like your average zoo, and more "like Jurassic Park", as my son put it.

Hidden delights at Le Kaïku, St Jean-de-Luz, France

I made reservations early and we apparently got the last table for four. Who would have thought that St. Jean-de-Luz, a small fishing town would require advance booking for their restaurants. It is a 15 minute drive from Biarritz, and like the other small towns in the region - St. Jean-de-Luz also had its own charm.
We walked around the bustling, cobbled streets, and slowly made our way to Le Kaïku. It is hidden away - a step or two below the pedestrian path, with a small sign and menu board outside, which is so obscure you'd probably walk past it.
Again, not a huge restaurant - but one with an open kitchen and a clientele that ranged from young couples, to more mature couples and young families in between. The restaurant only serves one seating at lunch - and I cannot count the number of people that were turned away.

Sundowners at Le Comptoir du Foie Gras, Biarritz France

One of the things we delighted in was the local custom of saving those few hours before the sun sets for tapas and sundowners. Around 7pm, the tables outside most restaurants came out onto terraces, or pavements and were quickly populated with people.  Le Comptoir du Foie Gras served up foie gras with its perfectly chilled bottles of rosé.
'A hole in the wall' my husband called it. A bit, but not quite. The tables are barrels that have been placed randomly around the bar counter.

Les Rosiers, Biarritz France

As if the Basque region had not been a gourmande's delight all on its own, we found yet another gem in Biarritz where we had one of the finest meals at  Les Rosiers.
It is not on the tourist trail in the city, it was a bit of a drive from our hotel. Hidden away in the residential non-descript part of Biarritz, this was a gem of a place. Small, with an approximate seating for twenty. The service was excellent, the food was excellent, and en plus, the chef - whose feet I was ready to kiss after our meal - came out and made the tour around the restaurant meeting the patrons. It was a great evening, served up with genuine smiles and bonhomie. 

Exploring Espelette & tasting Basque cuisine, France

We hired a car and decided to explore a bit further beyond Biarritz. I have always been curious about the the town Espelette - a curiosity fed by references to the spice produced in that area: piment d'Espelette. The spice is not fiery as one would expect from a chilli product - but has the mildness of cayenne pepper.
The town is a 30 minute scenic scenic drive from Biarritz, and has built its entire tourism around the production of its peppers, which are harvested, hung up to dry outside houses and celebrated in a festival d'Espelette in October. We walked around the town, bought the local produce which comes in the form of dried spice, salt flakes, jam, jelly and every condiment from mustard to olive oil. The signs in Espelette, as in many of the small town around this region are in the Basque language, and you will spot the Basque cross on everything from the linen, to the ubiquitous souvenir merchandise, as well as the green, red and white of the Basque flag.