Paris, France
Paris at night is wonderful! It gets dark around 5 pm (better than London, which got dark at 4). We headed out for a walk around town last night and it was so beautiful. Seriously, there is some grand old building on every corner and just regular stuff like water fountains and apartment buildings look like works of art. I’m the one who went picture taking crazy yesterday.
We walked for about a mile and saw some of the sights we’ll be seeing on today’s tour at night. I’ll post pictures of these tonight. The real purpose of this morning’s post is to talk about dinner last night! Oh my goodness! It was amazing!
Our hotel is in the Latin Quarter and there are lots of little cobblestone alleyways all around. We just kind of wandered about until we saw a restaurant that looked good. There were a lot of tourist trap places but we kept going until we saw this place that had some tourists, but also French people inside, as well.
Most of the places here have a one price menu and then you get served (or get to pick) an Entree (what we call and appetizer), a Plat (what we call the main course) and then Dessert. Everything here looked, and was, delicious! I took pictures of all the courses.
For the entree, Josh had a Granulated Onion Soup and an entire basket of Baguettes. It was a pretty big bowl and had stringy goat cheese on top. It wasn’t as salty as the French onion soup at home usually is and it had a lighter color and was a little thicker, too.
For my entree, I had Warm Goat Cheese Salad. It was delicious – this was not your Costco 2-pack kind of goat cheese, we’re talking about here. It came slightly melted on a crouton type piece of toast over a bed of lettuce and tiny beet cubes with an oil and vinegar dressing.
Next, for Josh’s plat, he had Burgundy Beef. It came with rice, carrots and roasted potatoes in a wine-gravy sauce. It tasted a lot like pot roast, but you could definitely taste the wine it had cooked in. Josh really liked it and even wants to learn how to cook it, now.
My plat was Leg of Lamb. It came covered in a light brown sauce with herbs and onions. The lamb was served with roasted potatoes and a small salad (just lettuce and light vinegar dressing). Mine was pretty good, too. I had never had lamb before, but I started feeling sad for the baby lamb about halfway through and couldn’t eat anymore. Josh was of no help with his poor baby lamb comments between bites of his full grown cow. Out of all of the food, we agreed the potatoes were the best part. I have no idea what made them so good, but they were the best potatoes I’ve ever had.
A note on French dining: we had read that dinner is a fairly long process in French restaurants. It was! We got there around 7:30 and didn’t leave until almost 10. They wait 20-30 minutes between each course and don’t rush anything.
So, by the time it was time for dessert, I was practically falling asleep at the table. Josh had the Creme Brule. It tasted the same as most creme brule at home, just better. I had never seen so much served at one time, though. In fact, all the portions were pretty big – which is not what I was expecting.
For my dessert, I had the Three Cheese Plate. It had pretty big slices of goat cheese, brie and blue cheese. It was enough for two people and I couldn’t finish it. The waiter was worried I didn’t like it, but I was really just too stuffed and tired to eat another bite. The cheese plate also came with a whole basket of baguettes.
Today we’re taking another free walking tour. This one is 3.5 hours and goes all over the city, so I’m preparing my feet now. The 2.5 hour one in London made my feet want to fall off. The Louvre is open late tonight and we’re thinking of going there after the tour if we aren’t too sore and tired.
Sorry for splitting up, moms! However, it was only for 30 minutes and Josh said if y’all and our dads had been stuck in that tiny London room for 4 days, you would fully understand the need for a few minutes apart haha.
Also, Josh wants to know how the fish are doing.
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