The Girl Who Ate Everything

Blogging about food and whatever since 2004.

running in Paris with a towel on my head

raining...
raining

"Would you like my towel?" asked Daniel while we stood in a recessed doorway out of the drizzling rain on Saturday night. Naturally, the day I decided to not bring an umbrella would be the day I would actually need it. We waited in hopes the rain would stop or at least lighten up. Of course, neither happened.

"Yeeeaah, that'd be nice, thanks." Daniel pulled a towel out of his damp luggage, which he had been dragging around with him all day up and down countless metro stations since it was safer than leaving it at his hostel.

"It's clean," he assured as he handed me the medium sized blue striped towel.

"Well, I didn't think you'd bring a unclean towel with you." I plopped the towel on my head, trying to find the best position for my new stylin' headdress. "I'm not sure what to do with my Fauchon bag..."

"Here, take down this strap." I dropped a handbag strap off my shoulder and gave Daniel my Fauchon bag. He strung the outer strap of my handbag through the Fauchon bag's handles so it would be secure when I brought the outer strap back up to my shoulder.

"...God I feel stupid," I mumbled.

We ran down rue Theresa—feeling my shoes slap against wet pavement, hearing Daniel's luggage wheels click-clack on the sidewalk, clutching onto my towel in a fruitless attempt to stay dry and keep the towel from flying out of my hand—and around the corner of ave de l'Opera to the Pyramides metro. The total distance was short, but I like knowing that I can recall an atypical night in Paris involving running through dark street with a towel on my head. It's a nice ending to an interesting story.

Thanks, Daniel. And rain clouds.

oh yeah, the rest of the day

SANDWICHE pretty cakes!
mm, baked things

After passing a boulangerie/patissier, I met Daniel outside La Musardine. ...No, not randomly. That'd be kind of weird. We had initially met through flickr (my chocolate show photos roped him into the foodie madness of my narrowly focused photostream) and from there exchanged emails. When he found out he'd be staying in Paris for the weekend (as it's only a short flight from his home in Germany), he suggested fooding. Could I resist such a proposal? HELLS NO. It wasn't my idea to use the erotic bookstore as a meeting point (read Daniel's profile for more info about his interest), but I figured I would use the opportunity to go somewhere I wouldn't go on my own free will. Erotic bookstore definitely wasn't on my list of "Places to Visit in Paris". (If you want a better explanation behind the meeting point, Daniel wanted to visit the shop during his weekend stay, but since it was closed on Sunday and he only had time to meet me on Saturday he had to combine meeting me with visiting the bookstore.)

I'll admit that it initially felt odd to meet someone I had never met before (real life tends to be a little different than online, of course) while being bombarded with more sex-related books—many emblazoned with naked women in various positions that I will aim to not reproduce—than I ever knew existed. But they're just...books! A wide variety of books that have a common theme. Harmless. Um. Yes. I would've preferred the common theme of "food", but hey, I try to be open-minded. It's much easier to get used to if you have a tour guide such as Daniel to point out the good photographers and interesting topics to you, thus showing a clear delineation between erotic art and straight out porn in case it wasn't apparent to you beforehand.

"Oh, this photographer is very interesting, looks at this lighting...this photographer specializes in black and white...here's a famous Japanese photographer...these photos are from the 20s...see how the style of photography changes over the decades?...and this book is about finding the g-spot, but you can't understand it since it's in French."

I don't think I'd understand it even if it were in English, but I decided to keep that comment to myself.

After perusing the small, neatly organized bookstore, we headed to Fauchon.

Fauchon pretty cakes
Fauchon

Fauchon is a ridiculously upscale food shop whose white, black and hot pink interior looks more appropriate for selling jewelry and makeup than for macarons and cured ham. That's part of why the experience can feel so odd; the uncharacteristic food environment throws off your senses. I felt awkward taking photos (besides that I thought that one of the black suited employees may smack me with a gold-plated whip if she saw me stealing the souls of Fauchon's precious foodstuffs), so you'll have to visit it to see for yourself. Their deli-patissier-prepared foods section (which is separate from the not-as-perishable food shop around the corner) is where you can buy macarons, beautifully crafted cakes and pastries, breakfasty goods like croissants and pain au chocolat, produce (god knows who goes to Fauchon to buy lychees), terrines, sandwiches, and probably other things that I didn't get a good look at because I was intensely focused on the macaron and cake section. They're the Mona Lisa of the Louvre equivalent of a gourmet food shop, yes? Something like that.

To buy things at Fauchon you take your white receipt of whatever you ordered at the counter to one of the caissiers (cashier) and bring back your "paid for" pink receipt back to the counter to get your bag of goodies. I guess this keeps the food packaging process moving and the money in less places? Now you'll know what process you'll be faced with before you attempt to buy fancy baked goods. I spent 5.18€ on four little macarons (72€/kg) and 4€ on an éclair au chocolat praliné.

pretty eclair innarrrdsss
éclair time

As someone who doesn't especially like éclairs, but got one because of the prettiness and Fauchon factor, I can't say the experience was worth my 4€. Obviously, if you like éclairs then you should try it. If you don't really care for them, Fauchon isn't going to change that. My éclair was surprisingly still as pretty when I first saw it in the shop after carrying it around for 6 hours in a bag subjected to much jostling (diagonally, it fit perfectly in the box). Choux pastry filled with a light chocolate mousse, covered with a strip of glossy, slightly sweet dark chocolate and topped with some pop-ish candies (like pop rocks, but less head-explodee action) and crushed nuts. It held together beautifully and was easy to consume while grasped in its cardboard sleeve, but overall I don't really care much for éclairs. So sad.

chocolate milk
CANDY UP!...is that like a power up?

After Fauchon we went to Monoprix so that Daniel could buy chocolate milk. You know how some people need coffee or tea to get their day going? Daniel's choice stimulant is chocolate milk. Nothing wrong with that, of course. I'm not one to object to the idea of consuming chocolate in a liquid form (although I'd skip this "CANDY UP" since Daniel didn't seem to like it that much).

cute wrapper pain au lait
pain au lait

We roamed around in search of a place where we could comfortably consume our goodies. On the way we stopped at a bakery at my request, where I got a small pain au lait (milk bread) as I didn't have a craving for anything in particular and it sounded promising. Around the corner from the bakery was a creperie. Dammit, if only I had seen that first!

creeammm it
creaaam it

The smiling man took one crepe off the top of his pre-made stack and re-heated it on the buttered crepe griddle. After letting the large, flat, slightly browned crepe sufficiently sizzle, he spread a few spoonfuls of chestnut cream onto the once-folded crepe. In exchange for my 2.50€, he handed me a warm, rolled up crême de marron crepe tucked into a paper holder wrapped in a few napkins.

yum!
innards!
before and after

We sat in a nearby park and I chomped down on my fresh crepe (I don't think the pre-made stack had been sitting there for too long) as soon as I had managed to take a photo of it with my greasy fingers. Since it was my first crepe-eating experience in Paris, I don't have anything to compare it to. Don't worry—after finishing the thin, chewy, sweet, surprisingly filling crepe with thick chestnut creme splodging out of its folds, I'm sure I'll eat more of them.

croissant innards
croissant innards

I finished off Daniel's Fauchon croissant since after taking one bite he decided he didn't like it, the problem for him being that it was too flavorful. I found that to be the best part; it tasted of sweet, sweet butter (not doubly sweet, but "taste sensation" sweet and "slang word for awesome" sweet). However, I found the inner texture too fluffy and the outer layer not crusty enough to deem the croissant awesome as a whole. Butter? Awesome. Croissant? Okay. In other words, go to Poujauran if you want a croissant that is warm and crusty with the love of a homey neighborhood bakery. Or the heat of ovens. I'm sure love and oven heat are both very important factors in the creation of awesome croissants.

More roaming around brought us to a hostel where Daniel could secure a bed for the night and to another erotic bookstore, Les Larmes d'Éros. Yes, there's two of em and Daniel had to visit both. According to him, there aren't many erotic bookstores in general (such as in the entire continent), but two major ones happen to be in Paris. I found Les Larmes d'Éros more interesting than the other one since it was a used bookstore and had more random stuff. ...Such as decades old slides of Japanese women bathing in hot springs. Huhwuh? I guess someone out there will want them.

We headed to rue St. Anne, also known as the street of Japanese food, for...well, Japanese food. The first restaurant we went to was Naniwa-Ya, but after seeing the ramen-less menu Daniel asked a young French guy huddling with us out of the rain right beside the restaurant's door where to get ramen. He directed us to Kunitoraya, which we found out didn't have ramen either. Perhaps the guy just lumped all noodly things together—Kunitoraya is known for udon.

stones un carafe d'eau another room
Kunitoraya (basement)

Past the open kitchen on the first floor that looked like a scene out of Tampopo (except with udon instead of ramen), we descended into a domed cellar with walls of malformed stones that looked like it hadn't changed in a century, . We were seated next to a Japanese man and woman that Daniel had briefly spoken to when we were waiting outside and the four of us ended up chatting throughout our dinner. The man, who was in his late 50s and spoke very good English, had attented FIT. The woman was less talkative, but despite that she said she was just starting to learn English, I thought her pronounciation was very good. However, I stupidly spoke too quickly for her to understand most of what I was saying. As someone who can only speak one freakin' language and French to a fraction-of-a-miniscule (also known as "pathetic") extent, I should keep my speaking speed in mind.

While giving our life histories (Daniel, 32 year old German professional translator who speaks German, English, French, Italian, Spanish, a bit of Russian and is starting to learn Japanese and Chinese and maybe a language that hasn't been invented yet; and me, 21 year old college student from NYC), the man asked us how we met each other. And thus began the explanation of how people can meet one another on the Internet and know perfectly well that the other person is not a rapist.

"We both use this photo community site called flickr..." started Daniel.

"...Community site?"

"It's an online website where people upload photos and other people can comment on them..."

"Oh...what's the name again?"

I let Daniel explain the website and its structure while I talked to the woman. If you're reading this it's highly possible that you're already semi-versed in meeting online contacts in real life (or if you're like neotokyotimes and have realized, to your horror, that meeting people through blogs is akin to meeting them online), so I'm not going to explain that bit. I'll just say that from the first time I started communicating with Daniel and after spending a day with him (or subjecting him to a day with me) I knew he was a cool guy I felt comfortable hanging out with.

Oh, food! That's what my blog is about, yeah? Yeah.

tempura udon
tempura udon

Udon, those hearty fat, pencil-thick, slippery, soft and chewy ivory-colored wheat noodles, is something I've been eating since I could walk. I'm quite content with buying a plastic-wrapped pack of pre-cooked udon at the Japanese supermarket and plopping it into a bowl of salty broth (hey, my tastebuds don't care); this was one of the few times I had ever eaten it at a restaurant. My tempura udon came with a long fried piece of shrimp whose first bite tasted surprisingly fresh and sea-like compared to any other shrimp tempura I've eaten. Whether the shrimp was actually exceptionally fresh I have no idea, but either my tastebuds played a trick on me or it was just a really good piece of shrimp. Little round bits of the lumpy batter broke off from the mother shrimp and mingled with the chopped green onions in my soup in between the mass of noodley white ropes. I ate it all.

beef udon
beef udon

Trailing behind me due to his chatting with the man next to him (exchanging business cards, Daniel testing out his Japanese, etc), Daniel eventually finished off his beef udon after our neighboring friends had left behind their empty bowls. He lifted the bowl to his face to finish off every last drop of soup.

As we were finishing up, two Japanese women, whose tagged luggage told me that they came directly from the airport, filled the neighboring table. Not to reinforce Japanese stereoptypes (if the following words seem like that), but they were...adorable. In nearly whispering tones they wished each other a good meal and slightly bowed to each other before they ate. It's more than just wishing your partner "bon appetit", you know? It seems more serious than that, but still playful. Or maybe I'm getting it all wrong. I AM AMERICAN, RAWR RAWR RAWR. (Yes, Americans are like dinosaurs. That's meee!)

We were disappointed to see that it was still raining when we left the restaurant, thus bringing the entry back to the beginning. When I got home (of course, when I emerged out of the metro, the rain had stopped), I felt like my Saturday had far been more productive than going to school or doing any kind of work. Spending time with someone new and interesting, sharing strange stories (I didn't talk as much since I disappointingly have very few stories to tell) and gaining new perspectives on life is something I rarely get to experience. If it happened more often it may not feel as special...or maybe I'd just be a more well-rounded person (in the psychological sense; I have the physical sense down—HAR HAR HAR, I made a funny).

Something abuot that last paragraph sounded too thoughtful. BACK TO FOOD!

(I am open to meeting more German-Italians over Japanese food who are as cool as Daniel, but maybe that's an isolated event.)

other stuff I ate

Annnd to sum up the rest of the week! Photo splodge is coming at ya.

Jean-Paul Hevin
Jean-Paul Hevin

When I found out that chocolatier Jean-Paul Hévin was mere steps away from my campus, I couldn't figure out why my internal chocolate and macaron radar hadn't alarmed earlier. Despite writing down the address, I actually walked right by the storefont. WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY RADAR? Needs new batteries? In the form of macaron fuel? Uh. Sure, I'll go with that. After hovering in front of the store for a while trying to summon whatever French skills I had (almost none), I successfully bought four small macarons from the friendly woman in charge of distributing chocolatey goodness. (I'd like to note that ever since my first few days of being here, all the shop employees I've encountered have been nice, or at least not sneering and scary).

croissant sammiches!
croissants and sammiches

After passing a display of baked goods and stacked sandwiches at a supermarket on the corner of ave de la Motte-Piquet and ave Bosquet (and buying a croissant and beignet for lunch, ahem), I...

view from the grass
puppy's eye view

...took my foodstuffs to the nearby lawn in front of the Eiffel Tower (ye can't miss it) and sat down to some solitary chomping. A part of me had the intense desire to roll around the grass, which was barely touched by humans at the time, but I think that would've made me stand out too much. Maybe I'll let my inner puppy out later. When no one is around.

croissant innards beignet beignet
chomp chomp

My 0.50€ croissant and 0.75€ fruit jelly-filled beignet tasted about as good as you would expect anything that cheap to taste. Not bad, nor good enough for me to want to eat again unless I happened to only have a few cents in my pockets. The croissant had the kind of crispy, flakey exterior that I like, but it didn't have much buttery taste. The oily beignet didn't have much flavor either, except for the sweet, gloppy apple jelly inside. I still ate them in their entirety though, as I am piggish and like to test the limits of my metabolism.

bag o stuff
bag-o-macs

Grass is a nice backdrop for a pouch of macarons, oui?

MACARONS!
macarons!

Ahhh, look at the little family of macarons all snug in the bag, later to be snug in my belly.

market
market time

From the Eiffel Tower (past the gypsies and hawkers, oh well) I walked to a market on ave du Président Wilson (runs from ave d'Iéna to ave Marceau, I think). I didn't actually buy anything, so here's some more photos splodging:

fruit fruit! veggies frog thighs? dude making stuff lapins!
lots of stuff, mainly edible

I passed many produce stands, fresh seafood spread upon crushed ice, mountains of pink flesh (like bunnies, ooh), and non-food things that I can't recall because I have a one-track mind. The longest lines were for stands offering prepared food, like crepes and sandwiches.

chocolate passion fruit chompy chocolate vanilla chomp
JPH macarons

Like the good blogger I am, I dutifully recorded the whole unchomped/chomped macaron process without resorting to making a stop-animation movie of the macarons being nibbled into my stomach. All the macarons from Jean-Paul Hévin are chocolate tinted by another flavor, which you probably could've figured out from everything being brown colored and that JPH is a chocolate shop. I expected stronger non-chocolate flavors, but they're quite subtle. It took me a while to realize that the top macaron was passion fruit flavored. The bottom macaron is chocolat vanilla flavored, although I realized that more because I recall butchering the word "vanille" (I BUTCHER ALL FRENCH WORDS) when I bought it in the shop than from the meager power of my tastebuds.

macarons
stacking means I don't have to take as many photos

My preference is that I'd rather eat a a singularly flavored macaron than a chocolat + [something else] macaron, but I'm all for biting into a delicate, crisp outer shell that melds into soft, moist innards that further moosh into a creamy, flavorful center. I think the textural layers are apparent in the top half-chomped chocolate caramel macaron. :) The bottom one was hazelnut flavored, although I don't think that was the exact name. Since they have a lot of flavors, figured I'd just pick four random ones this time and go back later for the rest of my macaronic victims. Macarons are so light, I think I could shove ten in my mouth at once.

...[strokes chin]...oh man, can you imagine a macaron eating contest? That would be ridiculous.

...[strokes chin some more]...

Ah well, we can all dream.

baguette time

baguette traditional blurb on the back
baguette!

It's going to take me to get through Steingarten's list of recommended places to get baguettes, but lookie, I knocked off one boulangerie (my assumption being that the Julien on rue St. Dominique is the same as the one he lists on rue St. Honore)! I asked for the same thing the guy in front of me ordered (un baguette traditional), prompting the young woman behind the counter to pull a long baguette out of a huge woven basket on the floor. My crusty magic wand of carbness cost 1.05€; I'm almost positive that the cost-to-happiness ratio of a baguette surpasses that of all other foodstuffs. By the end of the day after much butter slathering, my baguette was gone. Because I ate it. And swallowed every last encrusted chewy dough bit.

addresses

Fauchon
30, place de la Madeleine, 8th
Metro: Madeleine (8, 12, 14)

Kunitoraya
39, rue Ste Anne, 8th
Metro: Pyramides (8, 14)

Jean-Paul Hévin
23 bis, ave de la Motte-Picquet, 7th
Metro: Ecole Militaire (8)

Market near my apartment (there are lots of markets!), open on Wednesday, Saturday, and maybe other days (yes, I am vague) until around 1 PM
ave du Président Wilson
Metro: Iéna (9)

Julien
somewhere on rue St. Dominique near rue Jean Nicot (damn, why can't I find the exact address?)
Metro: la Tour-Maubourg (8)

last bits

Did you know about the Le Meilleur Macaron de Paris (the best macaron of Paris)? HOLY SHIZZ! That's so awesome. Except that the website is in flash and could've been easily done in good ol' HTML, which I would prefer. BUT WHATEVER, THEY'RE MACARONS!

me + pete
this is how we roll

John just uploaded that photo of me gracefully chomping into a upside-down burger and Pete not gracefully chomping into a upside-down burger at Rush Hour last month. Ah, memories. GOOD TIMES.

Comments

Emily / September 24, 2006 4:41 PM

I am so so enjoying your blog - and I realized last time I left note of my favorite restaurant in Paris (Fountaine Gaillon) I gave you no background - your thoughts about meeting friends from on-line are very true - some people don't get the strong connection you can forge from written words. . . . anyway - I just wanted to tell you to please visit what I know is the very best bakery in all of Paris - Miss' Manon (Yes - they have that funny little apostrophe on the sign) in the 3rd on Rue de Rivoli just a few blocks up from the St. Paul metro stop. There is always a line there starting at 7 when they open in the morning and this tells you something. Also right down the street toward the river is a charming English bookstore called The Red Wheelbarrow and the lovely propietaire there is willing to chat in English and give great book advice.
I mention this bakery because it is so overwhelmingly fantastic that I actually ended up renting an apartment up the street for a month just to be nearbye and to indulge in their crossants daily . . . just several months after returning to the States found I am gluten intolerant - so the big last orgasm of eating wheat (which I can never eat again) was in Paris - maybe why I am enjoying your blog so vicariously.
Wandering around Paris sampling the food is about as wonderful a thing as life can offer so thank you for letting us enjoy it with you!
(I am an artist/writer in New Jersey and I was there last summer working on a novel and taking pictures, riding the bateaubus, and trying to figure out how to stay forever . . . ) Now I get to return via your blog!

Natalia / September 24, 2006 5:06 PM

I love that picture of the Eiffel Tower! It's awesome, and it's not even of food.

But back to the important stuff – food. I have never seen a baguette like that before. It looks so perfect in every way. How is the butter in Paris? I've heard they have all sorts of specialty butters. You have to try some of those!

Daisy / September 24, 2006 11:25 PM

Oh man, that picture of the Eiffel tower with the lawn really rocks. :D

I agree about preferring a macaron with only one flavor.I don't know... maybe it's easier to concentrate on the food? lol.

Glad you made a new friend over there. The internet does do funny things. One of my high school chums met her boyfriend on the internet, lol. Oh well, happy fooding, studying (cause there has to be a little of it, unfortunately), and home-staying to you! Did that make sense? :)

jane / September 25, 2006 12:25 AM

I am SO glad to read a new entry!! my compulsive chking has FINALLY BEEN REWARDED!! thank you!! hehe :)

Marvo / September 25, 2006 12:35 AM

Hmm...You would think the Japanese people would want to eat French food in France. I'm sure they could get Japanese food when they're at home...in Japan. Unless Japanese food in France is really good, which could be the case because my brother had the best Chinese food EVER in Japan.

roboppy / September 25, 2006 4:00 AM

Natalia: Thanks! A non-food photo can be awesome, yess.

There are lots of baguettes that look the same, I think. I Mean, the same as in they're uniformly ununiform? Mmmm. I am so tempted to get another one today. (scratches head) But I should go to a different place each time, eh? Ooh.

I haven't tried much butter or seen the specialty stuff yet. Whatever I'm using tastes pretty good! Comes in a blue wrapping...yup, that description isn't very helpful.

Gordon: Thanks! I can make the Eiffel Tower visit a weekly thing, along with the baked goods eating...ehehe...not sure if that's a good idea.

Daisy: I think one flavor does make it easier to concentrate! Maybe that's why I tend to like plain chocolate, not ones with a bunch of flavors in em. Except hazelnut...I love hazelnut and chocolate.

I stayed up so late doing homework last night! :( Serves me right, considering I did almost none over the week and weekend...

Adalmin: Maybe I've never had a very good eclair? The choux pastry just doesn't have any taste to me...meeh.

Jane: Oh god, don't check compulsively! I don't update enough, hehe. And I think it'll be another week until my next one because...man, that entry took way too long to write. I think it's a combination of writing and editing photos. Ahh!

Marvo: Maybe a lot of Japanese tourists also go to French restaurants, hehe. Or maybe the Japanese food is really good. I'll do more "research", aheemmm.

Fauchon Junkie / September 25, 2006 9:19 AM

Robyn:

There is an article in this week's NYTimes magazine that I think you will enjoy:

http://travel2.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/travel/tmagazine/24coppola.html?pagewanted=1&ref=tmagazine

Apparently Sofia Coppola also spontaneously cries in Paris. Maybe its Paris. Also included her food and non-food picks of the city.

And I am so with you on eclairs. I had a Payard chocolate eclair this weekend. Missable. It was good, but the interior had the consistence of pudding and there are other yummier Payard treats. Definitely not worth debiting the calorie bank.

Do let us know if you start experiencing the weird Parisien weight loss. When I go, I eat rediculously large amounts of food and manage to lose about 3-5 lbs in 7-10 days. Really weird, because stuff like that doesn't happen to me.

And finally, my own note on being a cloddish American in Paris: Winsome Charm. Only petite females can pull this off, but trust me, It's like kryptonite to Parisiens. Based on your pix, you can. You also look thinner (see above paragraph). Anyway, parisiens will start randomly hugging you and calling you cherie. Or petite choux. Which means small cabbage, but my french cousin assures me it is a term of endearment. I can't help but have flashbacks to my Big Fat Greek Wedding when she says this.

Happy hunting
FJ


khai / September 25, 2006 2:34 PM

tres mignon. is that right?
you take awesome pics (i really like the grass ones in this post!) but that picture of you about to bite into an upside down burger was too cute and impelled me to comment.

:)

Aesis / September 25, 2006 4:46 PM

That picture of Paris in the rain is too perfect! It evokes such a great mood - how'd you improve your photography so much in such a short amount of time??
I am in awe...

Liz / September 25, 2006 10:32 PM

That's so very "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy".

Love the market photos (fall in Paris, you luck devil!) and the dwindling macaroons. Looks like you're finally having some fun and feeling at home- your pictures are capturing a new warm and familiarity of late.

Take care! Have fun :)

roboppy / September 26, 2006 9:59 AM

FJ: Ah, you know me too well and were just a little too late, as I read that article shortly before seeing your comment. Thanks for thinking about me though. :D

I think the last time I had an eclair before Fauchon was from Bouchon Bakery. It was ...eh. I have the unfortunate timing of eating eclairs that aren't at their freshest, but I dunno if doing so would make much of a difference.

Err I can assure you that I'm not LOSING weight. However, I don't seem to be gaining much (but perhaps a little) either after being here for more than three weeks. That's definitely a good/surprising thing. ;) Or is it possible that I'm not eating as much as I thought I was? (...HAHAHA!)

"Winsome Charm"™, I seeeee. ...Do I have any? I'm not very charming in real life, unfortunately. I want a random hug! I need human contact! I NEED THE...FRENCH...TOUCH...

...wait that sounds weird. But then so does "small cabbage."

khai: "Tres mignon"...hey, I learned something new! Thanks. ;)

The upside-down burger thing is a rare photo of me in that I'm with other humans and it's not just my face chomping into something.

Aesis: Digital SLR = awesome-ness! ;) I was told that taking a lot of photos would make me a better photographer, but I thinkmy default I would have some better photos because I take so many of them. HAHAHA. That's my method!

Liz: This is probably evil of me, but I've never read HGTTG in its entirety. :( Saw the movie, read a little of the book, but never the whole thing. Don't know why!

I'm having fun, yup! But I run into mental roadblocks all the time. Like whether I should go into a bakery when I know I don't need to eat another pastry and would rather avoid having to speak broken French. That happened a few times today. (sigh) At least I go to walk a lot from one bakery to the other.

mona / September 26, 2006 12:57 PM

ok, this is not a place to go when hungry.

everything looks good.. everything!
even the udon and i'm EXTREMELY picky about my Japanese food ;)

roboppy / September 26, 2006 4:04 PM

Dubya: It is quite nice. Are you banned from Paris? :|

eternal: Big camera. I haven't taken photos with my small camera in a looong time. I brought it with me just in case, but I'd rather lug the big one around since it's a gazillion times better.

mona: Have you ever had bad udon? It's always tasty when I've had it! ;) But then I find most Japanese food tasty. (Non tasty = NATTO...to my tastebuds at least.)

Jx / September 26, 2006 4:13 PM

Dear Robyn,
I suspect most of us are now calling you "litle cabbage" in our hearts. What great stories from Paris. But why no pix of the intriguing Daniel, one wonders?

You warned us not to entice you with far-flung Eurottractions but do you know that the 2006 Terra Madre Slow Foods International conference is happening in Torino, Italy in the last week of October? I am coming over from California and then staying on a week to see how much trouble I can find. I think the conference would be an amazing, academically justifiable experience for a Food Science scholar and foodie. Let me know if you would like URL and schedule.
Jx

Nicole / September 26, 2006 4:51 PM

If you can find it, my mother and I ate at a lovely and adorable little restaurant in Paris called "The Devil and Thyme". That's the english translation. It was WONDERFUL.

Nicole

Vanessa in Jakarta / September 27, 2006 4:15 AM

Robyn, holy moly, i love your blog!!! I was checking out the parisdailyphoto website and he wrote that he was interviewed by the "TheyBlog" website.... Went there and discovered YOU!!! And now I am totally addicted....
Your blog is even more emotional to me since I lived in Paris from 1997 till 2002.... and am at a moment in my life where i HORRIBLY miss Paris!!!! So thank you, thank you, thank you for sharing your experiences... and I'll definitely be waiting impatiently for new entries from you!!

Oh yeah, I know you're more in food, but you HAVE to try this fab hot chocolate.
It's in a Patisserie Viennoise, rue de l'Ecole de Medecine, next to Gibert Jeune (Boulevard Saint Michel). When you go from Gibert Jeune in teh direction od the netro Odeon, it'll be on your right hand side.....
Their hot chocolate is so pure.... and the milk ultra fabulous.... it's as if it was just taken from a cow that morning!!

Anyway, enjoy.... and "read" you soon!

Daisy / September 27, 2006 1:16 PM

hey I like that new thing you put in your blog with the posts being cut and going to another page to read them in full. it makes looking at the blog entries you've written neater. :)

roboppy / September 27, 2006 1:24 PM

Jx: AWESOME, I like my new nickname.

Ahh yeah, my photo of Daniel didn't really fit into the entry, but I will show you one that I took just for funs:

photo of someone taking a photo

Squatting! Uh..huh. Well. In the standing position, he is very tall.

I didn't know about the conference! Eek! Sounds awesome! I found the website and I'm going to be in Rome during that time, hehe. Shall do my own food education, yesm? In the form of gelato or something? :) I'd love to know how the conference goes!

Nicole: Thanks for the rec! I found a restaurant with that name online, but not in Paris I think...er, I'll take another lookie.

Vanessa: I'm glad my website can fill the empty Paris hole in your heart. :D

Whoa whoa I LOVE HOT CHOCOLATE! Definitely one of the best liquids out there. I shall look for this magic hot chocolate you speak of. Thanks for the red!

Daisy: Ahh yes, I did that at the request of PB. :D I had thought of doing it before, but no one asked me, soo..I went on my merry/lazy way, hehe. Now the page is less sluggish, I hope.

Rose / September 28, 2006 5:27 AM

hey there, good to see that you're running around Paris enough to work up an appetite for several people!

I'm very jealous :-) My current roomates both lived in Paris extensively and reminiesce about Parisian baguettes and sweet pastries all the time!

All is good on this side of the Pacific Ocean. I have no internet service right now, so you can imagine blogging is a bit difficult--I have been a very very bad blogger. I'll be getting back to it hopefully by next weekend (that's when the DSL company SAYS they're going to show up--whether the actually do, who knows).

I have been eating up a storm here in Taipei. I have tried just about anything I can see. Not exactly good for my diet, but my mouth can't seem to get enough.

Enjoy your semester and hope to see more posts soon!

mona / September 28, 2006 9:54 PM

I am with you allll the way when it comes to natto. If it's hidden in a handroll or sweet I can SORTA eat it (sweet natto beans are yumm, there's none of that webby nastiness --almost like jelly beans. well not really but kinda) but when natto is dumped on top of rice I just want to throw up.

Oh ya, I've had nasty udon. They're mushy and are as slimy as slugs EW

Julia / September 29, 2006 8:57 AM

I just love your site(!)
you're living my dream =) haha
Paris, and all its fantastic places...ah, you take lovely pictures of everything and I love the way you describe your adventures...
in 27 days (I’m counting!) I’m going as well (finally!) for a short trip to Paris and reading all this really gets me (even more!) in the mood…haha, and now I know a bit more places in Paris than laduree, fauchon, lafayette and maison du chocolat! =)

roboppy / September 29, 2006 12:00 PM

Rose: You are alive, yee! When you get the Internet up and running I must hear more about this storm-eating ...ness. You're jealous of me? Welll, HELLO MISS "I AM EATING EVERYTHING IN TAIPEI"! ;)

Mona: Whoaa I do not know if this SWEET NATTO. It doesn't sound too puke-inducing! The webby stuff freaks me out, man. Nothing can save it.

Mushy slimy slugs..holy crap, that's horrible. :(

Julia: Thanks for reading! I hope in 27 days I may have more recommendations for you. You'll wanna plan well for a short trip. I feel like I need to (or can afford to, at least) spread everything out over a few months. One of my months here is almost over though...egaaad...

metamommi / October 30, 2006 11:57 PM

I love, love your food photos!!! They make me want to immediately go out and eat! Fantastic job, really. You have a great talent and a career doing this if you wished.

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