Paris - Post 4

Back to my favorite topic of food, I think one of my French colleagues may be correct when she made the claim that you can never go wrong eating at whatever restaurant is associated with a given museum in Paris.

Here's the menu at 104 arts center/museum restaurant, where I had the oddest but delicious cucumber gazpacho "milkshake" looking thing. I have no idea what the cream topping was, it wasn't sweet at all. The swizzle stick is sesame.

Also from 104, the best chocolate mousse ever--so incredibly light while rich with flavor (the smaller cup held caramel brittle and cream), and trifle à la mûre (the pink potted thing), which had some pop-rocks style speckles in it that crackled in my mouth. Both fantastic.

My other favorite desserts from Paris were any "Pâtisseries orientales", particularly Algerian pastries that I found at Bague de Kenza near Rue Oberkampf.

Typically when I've had Middle Eastern style pastries, they all sort of taste the same even if they look different--honey, rosewater, pistachio, and some combination thereof. These Algerian pastries each had their own distinct flavor (coffee, chocolate, pine nut, and lemon are the ones I recognized).

I managed to cobble together a phrase in French that I think meant "I would like a mix of 10 things, please." as the Algerian shop was too complicated to point at items and had no labels. Success!

Thanks to work related events, I got to eat at some very frou-frou-to-me French restaurants. This is the dining room at Mini Palais, where I had some extremely expensive soup that tasted like dirt had been sprinkled on top (but I kind of say that in a good way, it was a weird but good dirt taste). Overall it wasn't a bad place, but not my favorite of the frou-frous.

The best upscale place was out in the 'burbs called Archibald (in Issy Les Moulineaux), just really well executed food. The worst was Cinq Mars where you paid a lot for really poorly done food.

Photo credit: HungryForParis.SquareSpace.com

The most authentically French meal I had was petit sale' aux lentilles at a place of the same name, Le Petit Sale', out by the Meridien hotel in the 'burbs. It's salted pork, lentils, and carrots with some herbs. Simple and super tasty.

Photo credit: JamesWalshBlog.Blogspot.com

The other authentically Parisian food thing I had everywhere was Cafe' Gourmand--which is simply an espresso with a sampling of desserts (typically 2 to 3 desserts). This is perfect if you're s a sugar freak like me and always want to try out multiple desserts.

Photo credit: www.o-chateau.com