All about Paris

Travelogue 360 Paris is an I SPY – like game that has you hunting for clues in Paris neighborhoods. The graphics are beautiful and the life-like scenes will remind you more of a gritty Paris experience than images scraped off a postcard.  I haven’t tried it yet with the kids, but I’m sure our 7-year old will love it.  You can try a 60-minute demo at Macgamestore.  Versions exist for both Mac and PC.

Funny to come across some of MY confidential list of favorite neighborhood places printed up in the Bon Appetit magazine. This is only for friends who truly appreciate these little finds. So, friends, here is my current list. But please, keep it to yourselves. C’est confidentiel.

SUPERB SPECIALTY SHOPS

Pâtisserie Sadaharu Aoki (literally a stone throw from our apartment
Sadaharu Aoki’s talent is huge, but his pristine white shop is the size of a cream puff (he has two other locations in Paris; this is my favorite branch). Sada, a hero in his native Japan, is one of the most creative pastry chefs working in Paris, where he was trained. While his black sesame éclairs rightly have a cult following, I can’t get enough of the Bamboo, a slender chocolate cake with a green tea filling. Ditto the Brooklyn, an über-classy cheesecake.
35 rue de Vaugirard, 6th; 011-33-1-45-44-48-90; sadaharuaoki.com

Da Rosa Épicerie-Cantine
When José Da Rosa set up shop five years ago, I couldn’t believe my luck. At last, we ordinary mortals could buy the same Spanish hams, mustards, and fine oils that Michelin chefs trusted him to supply. Now life is even sweeter — there’s the cantine, where we can nibble foie gras, great cheeses, a few hot dishes (try the risotto), and wines, too. And don’t leave without a sack of chocolate-coated Sauternes-soaked raisins. I’d call them Raisinets, but they’re in their own universe of wonderfulness.
62 rue de Seine, 6th; 011-33-1-40-51-00-09

Pierre Hermé
Pierre Hermé is widely considered the greatest pastry chef in the world, and has some of the most interesting chocolate in town. Mostly, his shoe box jewel of a store on Rue Bonaparte is exquisite and has people lined up around the corner at all hours. His chocolate provoke, and though his provocations don’t always hit the mark, his work is always interesting. The combination of lavender and Chinese tea, chocolate with yuzu, the fragrant Japanese citrus, make it always an interesting event to experience his brand of gourmandise.
72, rue de Bonaparte, 6th; 011-33-1-43-54-47-77, www.pierreherme.com

Christian Constant
37 rue d’Assas, 6th; 011-33-1-53-63-15-15
Another place in the neighborhood, and not to be confused with the chef of Violon d’Ingres. This is the chocolate shop. Opened in 1970, Christian Constant sells some of Paris’s most delectable chocolates by the kilo. Each is a blend of ingredients from Ecuador, Colombia, or Venezuela, usually mingled with scents of spices and flowers like orange blossoms, jasmine, the Asian blossom ylang, and vetiver and verveine (herbs usually used to brew tea).

Mariage Freres Salon de Thé
13, Rue Grands Augustins, 6th; 011-33-1-40-51-82-50
My all time favourite place to spend time in the neighborhood. Actually, in Paris. Sitting and sipping tea at this jewel box of a tea salon, along with a Comptoir du Thé where its virtually a museum to the art of tea. It’s hidden in an alley way, tucked in a wonderful section of our neighborhood. This elegant salon de thé serves 500 kinds of tea, along with delicious tarts and cakes. In the upstairs salon, you’re transported back to a Chinese pagoda environ, with waiters dressed in elegant Chinoise uniform with beautiful Mandarin chairs and decor. On the main floor, one feels like you’ve stepped into a Chinese tea master’s apothecary with floor to ceiling tea cans and glass cases showcasing the most beautiful iron teapots and accoutrements for sale. They have another Salon in the Marais. www.mariagefreres.com

LADURÉE
21 rue Bonaparte, Paris, 6th; 33 (0)1 44 07 64 87
They say the history of Parisian tea salons is intimately tied to the history of the Ladurée family. Well, this Salon was reinvented in 1997, though you think it’s been there for centuries. This is my daughter’s favorite afternoon treat. The place is so special. They invented macaroons. Pistachio, Rose, Orange Blossoms, Lemon, Mint, in addition to the traditional Chocolate, Vanilla, Raspberry and so forth. The menu goes on for 24 pages with Petit Dejeuner, Salades, Les Viennoiserie, et al. The salon is exquisitely decorated to transport you back to some kinds of an exotic, exquisite luxurious, Oriental tent atmosphere, with requisite tromp l’oeil paintings of wild animals and flora. www.laduree.fr

STLYISH BARS, PERFECT BISTROS, GORGEOUS RESTAURANT

The Restaurant at L’Hotel
L’Hotel, where Oscar Wilde died “above his means,” is one of the coziest settings in Paris. Enter, walk past the small sitting room and the intimate bar, and you’ll reach the restaurant, formerly known as Le Bélier, which is like a luxurious salon, with silks, swags, sofas, and throw pillows, a setting so relaxing it clears your mind of everything but thoughts of a fine meal — which you’ll get here. The food is modern, refined, and beautifully presented (you must have the chocolate dessert plate), and the service cossets as much as all those pillows.
13 rue des Beaux-Arts, 6th; 011-33-1-44-41-99-00; l-hotel.com

Technorati Tags: food, Restaurants

What do you know? Sometime it’s a month, but this time by a year. Sophie, owner of Parisianflat.com, who manages our apartment for us, took me to lunch at Huitererie Regis to meet her friend last June. She mostly wanted to patronize and support neighborhood restaurant as it is located half from her own place and our place in the 6th arr. For me, it was a chance to indulge in seafood… Here is the review in the NY Times and the location.

By MARK BITTMAN
Published: June 24, 2007

A one-dish restaurant as fun and unusual as Huîtrerie Régis is rare, so it figures you’d find it in Paris, but only if you’re steered there. (I was escorted by my friend, the food writer Dorie Greenspan, who divides her time between Paris and New York.) The tiny place — maybe 20 people could crowd in — is in the Sixth Arrondissement, just off Boulevard St.-Germain.

A huîtrerie is an oyster bar, and Paris is a town that loves its huîtres; most of them come from not-too-far-away Brittany. That’s what you get in this white, clean, pleasantly lighted place: fresh-shucked raw oysters. (Poached shrimp is on the menu as well, but no one goes there for shrimp; it’s on the menu, I would guess, for non-oyster eaters who are dragged along by friends.) The oysters are served with appropriate wines: Sancerre, Muscadet, Pouilly-Fumé, Chablis, a couple of rosés and light reds and more. There is real service, real silverware, plenty of ice (and seaweed), dark bread with very good butter and mignonette sauce.

The sauce is overkill; even lemon is more than enough because the oysters have so much flavor. There are usually two or three sizes of four varieties, one of which is the increasingly rare belon (and expensive, too; these top out at 30 euros a dozen, almost $3.50 each at $1.36 to the euro). They are coppery tasting (really), large and flat. The remaining oysters, on my visit, were classified as fines de claires, spéciales de claires and pousse en claires, whose names describe the amount of time each spends growing out in a cleansing pond and the amount of space each is given.

Fines de claires, the least expensive (as little as 10 euros a dozen), spend about a month in the pond, with 20 oysters per square meter (about 11 square feet), which sounds pretty roomy to me; but the pousse en claires can be limited to three per square meter and continue to grow for up to six months. These are so good that for the first time in my life the belons were not my favorite oysters on the table.

To specialize, Huîtrerie Régis really must sell the best oysters possible and charge whatever makes sense, assuming people will bear the cost. And they do. The place is often packed. And the oysters are spectacular.

Huîtrerie Régis, 3 rue de Montfaucon; (33-1) 44-41-10-07.

Technorati Tags: food, Restaurants