Dinner

The other day we had a deliciousss dinner. Nicolas (the best man from our wedding) is getting married this summer. We're not able to attend the wedding (since it's in the middle of the summer and we purchased our Miami tickets already) so we treated them for dinner when they were in town last weekend.

It was a trendy looking place in Le Marais that we found online. We had a set menu where we had no clue what we were receiving....it was completely up to the chef. The menu included an amuse-bouche, 2 appetizers, a fish entree, a meat entree and 2 desserts! None of them were very big so it ended up being a good amount of food.

The Amuse-Bouche: A small verrine of lentil soup with a slice of toasted bread

This was pretty good. Well seasoned and not too heavy. "Amuse bouche" literally translates to amuse the mouth. So it is a small amount of food to trigger your senses and get your mouth ready for the meal.

Appetizer #1: Rabbit pate with mustard mousse, home baked bread and a slice of peach

I'm a big fan of pate and things like that anyways.....So I definitely enjoyed this dish. The bread was surprising good and not as dry as I expected it to be. The mustard packed a little too much heat for me, but everyone else at the table licked the bowl clean. And the peach, it was probably my favoite part. I don't remember what it was marinated in....

Appetizer #2: Foie gras ravioli with mushroom foam, crispy noodles and alfalfa sprouts

Mmmm this was yummy. As you know, I'm a huge fan of foie gras and mushrooms to begin with. The mushroom foam was not really foamy to me, but more like a soup with a layer of foam on top. It was delish! And the foie gras wrapped in a sheet of pasta was soft and silk which was perfectly balanced by the crunch of the crispy noodles and alfalfa sprouts.

Fish Entree: Salmon wrapped with bacon over a bed of cauliflowers and a pickled vegetables with a side of thai soup

This was probably not my favorite dish of the night, but it was still good. The salmon was cooked to a perfect medium. There was a nutty flavor somewhere in the dish....couldn't really pinpoint it tho. The soup was like a curry soup. It was good, but nothing too special.

Meat Entree: Moussaka with a slice of deep fried rice cake and soy bean salad

This was not your typical moussaka, but it was perfectly seasoned and I enjoyed it quite a bit. It took me a while to figure out what the fried slice was, you can't really tell that it's rice, but anything fried is good. =P

Dessert #1: Baked pear over Philadelphia cheesecake foam, Philadelphia cheesecake icecream over caramelized walnuts and a citrus sauce

I really enjoyed the first two elements....especially the icecream. Cream cheese icecream....it works! However, I'm not a huge fan of citrus desserts (or even adding citrus to entrees, like fish) so I didn't enjoy the last element too much....too sour for me.

Dessert #2: Carrot meringue over a bed of rice pudding and a scope of citrus sorbet

We had to crack the meringue globe before eating so all the different elements could be mixed together. I enjoyed the meringue, surprisingly. And with the rice pudding it worked. However, once again, when I reached the citrus sorbet, it was a little much for me. Still, if you like citrus, it was pretty good.

This place was definitely on the pricier end of a weekly meal out, but it really wasn't that bad! We booked the reservation on a website that gave us a discount so it was 20% off. And it was the early wedding gift to Nicolas and Frederique, so it was worth it (a present where we get to eat too!) We will probably have to treat ourselves to this again before leaving Paris!

Fontainebleau (More pictures!)

The other day we decided to take a break from the craziness of the city and take a mini trip right outside the city. We took the train right outside the city to the castle of Fontainbleau. Kings would go to the castle in the summer to go hunting in the woods. It's a place we've been to already, so we didn't visit inside the castle, but we walked around in the gardens and in the woods. The sky was rainy and gray, but we were lucky....we didn't get rained on, really, while out in the woods.

Enjoy!

In the gardens of the castle

"quak"

Swan taking off

Arch created by the flowers

The castle of Fontainebleau

In the gardens

It's a swan nesting!

In the woods of the Fontainebleau

Even in the woods......haha

Beetle

View over the lake

Le Crillon - un palais

The other night, we were invited to visit the Crillon. It is consider a "palace" or a really fancy, highly ranked, extremely expensive, 5-star hotel. They are selling everything inside and completely remodeling the place. And since Germain and his class of notaraires are future rich people, they were invited to go visit the place and potentially auction on some of the furniture and art pieces. I tagged along =P

I didn't take many pictures, but here is a glimpse of the inside of this palace:

View of the American Embassy from a guest room

Pretty chandelier....in a guest room

Cocktail room

Here are some pictures from the guy who was incharge of taking pictures that night.....just to give you an idea of how the place looks. It's a little much for me, personally, but I can understand why movie stars would want to stay in a place like this. It really resembles a palace in which French kings would live in.

This is the common room in a guest suite! Yes, that's a piano....

One of the bedrooms

In the lounge

This was also in a guest room.....

Garden (Lots of pictures!)

Yesterday was a beautiful day! We had relatively warm weather and the sun was shining bright. We took advantage of that and visited a garden right outside of Paris. I've been wanting to go to this garden for a while. According to reviews, it is a nice walk and it has one of the nicest views of cherry blossoms. As I mentioned in the last post, it's been pretty cold so there hasn't been a lot of blooms, and the garden wasn't as flowery as it normally is, but it was still a very nice walk and we were still able to see some pretty scenery.

This garden (Jardin Albert Kahn) was strongly influenced by the Japanese style. They had several Japanese inspired (if not really from there) sculptures, bridges and buildings. Many of the shrubbery reminded me of something you would see in a Japanese garden.

field of wild flowers

Pretty

Cherry Blossoms

Food Trucks!

Food trucks are mobile restaurants that travel, cook and sell food from the back of their trucks. It has been a rising trend in the US for the past couple of years. It is most popular in big cities such as New York and Los Angeles. In the past year or so, a couple of people have tried to bring that trend over to Paris. It's actually a very smart way to do business tho. Because they are selling from their truck, they don't have to pay rent for a restaurant space. I don't think these people are even paying for electricity (I saw a big cord hooked up to the city outlet) They have 5 people working, they're actually more expensive than fast food and they sell out almost every day!

Yesterday we went to a burger truck. I heard American English! Germain believe they're from LA. The burgers were pretty good and the fries were fresh and home made. The only problem was that it was freezing outside so my fingers were about to break off =P Definitely don't think we'll go again while it's cold.

But it was good. A big juicy burger....yummm.

Easter weeken in Cannes

For Easter, Germain got a extra day off of school so we went to Cannes for the holiday. Unfortunately the weather was cold and rainy most of our stay, but on Sunday, we had absolutely wonderful weather. We didn't do much over the break. I feel like all we did was eat! I guess that's the holidays. On Sunday, we went to the house of a friend of Germain's parents. She has a beautiful garden where we walked around a little.

Calla Lily

Pretty Garden

Reminds me of Florida

When we came back to Paris on Tuesday and it was still cold =( It was sunny out on Wednesday afternoon so I went out for a walk with a mission to catch some spring blossoms. Unfortunately tho, the spring is very cold, so not many trees have bloomed yet. I was only able to find a couple. Hopefully, it'll get warmer in the next couple of weeks and I'll be able to see some new bloom.

Almond Blossoms

Magnolia

I think this is a Cherry Blossom, I couldn't get closer

It's Spring!!

....not that it's much warmer =P It it slowly making it's way to the mid 40's tho. And that's considered warmer.

However, we took a walk the other day and saw tiny first signs of spring. The flowers were very few and the skies were still gray, but this means there will be more soon!