Paris Food Diary (in photos) Part 2

I joined my life wife in Paris for 4 nights to once again, do nothing but eat. If you have yet to see part one of my “Paris Food Diary” from 2015… Here is the link to Part 1

This post is going to focus on the food we ate, sights from our wanders to come in another post.

You could say we ate a few macarons. All Pierre Hermé (#pierreherméeveryday), with the exception of the heart-shaped raspberry macarons, from Bostani. We wanted to get these for Valentine’s Day. My two favourite macarons this time around: Jardin De Lima (lucuma and candied ginger) and Montebello (pistachio and raspberry).

We loved all of the Valentine’s displays around the city!

As always, we drank all the noisettes.

Stohrer — a must do when in Paris, every. single. time. Salted Caramel and Coffee eclairs.

God bless Eric Kayser for making the most gorgeous almond croissants!

When we were in Bostani, we only bought two heart-shaped macarons. The shop keeper loved us and gave us these DELICIOUS white chocolate, passion fruit filled chocolates and two chocolate truffles on the house and said “I like to see people get fat” and thanked us for our smiles.

Spotted under the stairs of a wine bar in Le Marais… words to live by. “You don’t get fat if you eat good.”

Falafel from L’as du Fallafel round one! Easily one of my favourite meals IN THE WORLD. I am convinced I could eat it endlessly.

Bonus:  our Airbnb was less than a 5 minute walk from Rue des Rosiers, meaning we could bring the falafel back to eat in peace (aka privately make a mess of our faces) every day!!

Falafel round 2 (extra ‘sexy sauce’ on this one): with pickles from Sacha Finkelsztajn (all 5 pickles for me, God bless)

Falafel round 3!

CANDELARIA – our favourite place! When we went in 2015, we thought it was so ridiculous that the two of us managed to spend €65 on tacos and margaritas. Well, we upped that this time… we spent €73.20!!! We had the best night. Three margaritas each, a bowl of their fabulous bean dip, two orders of chips and salsa, two tacos each, and a shot of THE most gorgeous, ‘soft’, smooth, high quality tequila we’ve ever had (Altos), on the house! We drank with the kind woman next to us (Carol, if you’re reading this… hi!!) and our waitress. She said it was a pleasure to have us… probably because we exuded joy with every bite and sip we took!

Please note the difference between the above and the below photos: the two of us finished the entire bottle of the homemade “super hot” habanero sauce!!

We also revisited Christian Constant’s Les Cocottes because we loved it so much the first time. We ordered the special starter of the day: poached egg with asparagus cooked in the most magical butter sauce we’ve ever tasted!

Sirloin

We had to get the caramelised potatoes stuffed with pig’s feet again!

The Fabulous Christian Constant Chocolate Tart… OMG. Notice how we ordered two this time. We still stand by the fact that this is one of our top two desserts we have EVER had around the world (#2 being Taco Taco/San Lorenzo’s nutella cheesecake in Dublin). This chocolate tart is EVERYTHING. It’s so shiny, we were singing “Mirrors” by Justin Timberlake to it. We are that much in love with it.

February is a wonderful time to enjoy French onion soup in Paris, served with red wine at lunch, of course! This time, we went to Les Philosophes and had a fabulous experience.

The fact that we had crêpes and galettes on Pancake Tuesday was a complete coincidence. We didn’t realise it was Pancake Tuesday when we made our reservation at Breizh Cafe in advance! Artichoke galette and apple crêpe with ice cream.

On Valentine’s Day, we decided to stay in and enjoy a wine and cheese night. We were absolutely stuffed with cheese!

Paris never disappoints. I am pretty sure I can never eat sugar again.

Paris Food Diary (in photos)

Less than one week ago, I was in Paris. I went to Paris for 5 nights to spend time with my best friend, who is in Paris for a few weeks doing research for her Ph.D. I went to belatedly celebrate my golden birthday with her since she was away for my actual birthday. Since we’ve both been to Paris before, we didn’t want to do any sightseeing – we simply wanted to thoroughly enjoy the food and wine! And that we did. Read on for many of the delicious things we ate…

I was welcomed at 12:30 a.m. with this lovely birthday celebration – a bottle of Kir Royale and a gorgeous little chocolate tarte. This is also when I was introduced to the best butter on earth – French butter with flecks of Normandy sea salt. I didn’t think I could possibly like any butter more than Irish butter, but I was wrong!

Picnic-ing in the Tuileries

Day 1: We went to multiple shops in Montmartre and bought food for a picnic in the Tuileries. It was the most gorgeous day imaginable.

Picnic view

Fresh baguette, goat cheese, Comté (our new favourite cheese!), figs (lovely paired with goat cheese!), cherry tomatoes, strawberries, and San Pellegrino

The most amazing produce shop I’ve ever seen. This wasn’t even half of it.

Not a bad picnic view

We went for a long, leisurely walk to the Eiffel Tower and ate the rest of our strawberries (and salted caramels) with this incredible view.

Charcuterie

Before dinner, we were starving and needed something to hold us over. We decided to go for some red wine and charcuterie, but we certainly weren’t expecting the platter to be this large!! I’ve never eaten so much cheese in one day.

Birthday dinner at La Part des Anges in Montmartre

Reblochon cheese salad with honey and cinnamon // Salade de reblochon au miel et à la cannel – @ La Part des Anges

Possibly the best salad I’ve ever had in my life.

Duck in cognac sauce // Magret de canard “bio” au cognac @ La Part des Anges

Lamb with herbs and ratatouille // Souris d’agneau confite aux aromates @ La Part des Anges

Birthday dessert @ La Part des Anges

This may not look like much, but it tasted like the best brownie batter I’ve ever had. This was also the first time I tried a noisette (espresso with milk froth) and I loved it.

Day 2:

Fancy yogurts in ceramic pots for breakfast

Pierre Hermé, the haute couture of macarons

K introduced me to the incredible Pierre Hermé and I simply can’t believe I didn’t discover this French wonder on my first trip to Paris. We went every day and I tried almost all of the flavours.

Pierre Hermé macarons

Pierre Hermé chocolates

Falafel round 1 (best falafel I’ve ever had, from Le Marais)

This is another thing I can’t believe I didn’t have on my first trip to Paris. Easily the best falafel I’ve ever had. Unfortunately, L’As Du Fallafel (known as the best falafel in Paris) was closed when I was there due to Rosh Hashanah. Thankfully other neighbouring shops were open and they didn’t disappoint.

L’Eclair de Genie

I’ve read about these eclairs and I’m sad to report, this one (salted caramel) was disappointing. The bread tasted stale. It looked pretty, though!

Noisette and macarons in Galleries Lafayette

Fish tacos and margaritas at Candelaria

Candelaria is a fab place, I highly recommend going here when in Paris. At the front is a casual taqueria bar and they serve small and basic but delicious tacos and a couple other dishes. Be warned: the price is per taco, not per 2 tacos (what we thought when we were ordering!) We ended up spending a small fortune, especially because we were really enjoying their small but delicious €7 margaritas – loved the chilli flakes around the rim!). If you walk through the back door, which doesn’t look like an entrance to anything, you’ll enter a whole new, wonderful world. This is their beautiful cocktail bar and is a really nice place that we very much enjoyed.

Day 3:

Breakfast: fresh baguette, pain au chocolat and pain au chocolat et pistache

Noisette on a rainy day with a view of Au Printemps

Tartine and a glass of red @ La Tartine

Enjoying people watching on Rue de Rivoli

Galette with egg, ham, Gruyere cheese and onion confit slow cooked in cider

Next up: Breizh Cafe for galettes, crepes and cider! This was my first time having a galette (savoury crepe) and I enjoyed every bite. I highly recommend making a reservation otherwise your chances of getting a table are slim-to-none. You can always go into their shop next door and order from the same menu if they don’t have any tables (which is what we had to do since they never answered their phone when we tried to make a reservation).

artichoke, ham and gruyere cheese galette

Salted caramel crepe with ice cream

Day 4:

It’s always nice to start your day with macarons!

Breakfast

Located on Rue Montorgueil

Supposedly the best cheese shop in Paris – I would have to agree based on my experience. It was very crowded when we went in and had a lovely atmosphere. I bought yet another slice of Comté.

The oldest pâtisserie in Paris, located on Rue Montorgueil. Do yourself a favour and GO HERE. They have incredible pastries and sweets but they also have savoury deli-style foods as well.

Inside Stohrer

One of my favourite photos I took while wandering from one meal to the next

I can now say I’ve never had French onion soup before this, because this was to die for.

Mango and passion fruit eclair from Stohrer

HIGHLY. RECOMMENDED. Explosion of flavour! A pastry I will never forget.

More macarons… and no, I didn’t photograph all of the many macarons I ate!

My last dinner in Paris at Les Cocottes de Christian Constant

Poached egg with crispy bacon and rocket salad // Œuf poché aux lardons croustillants, belle salade de roquette

Potatoes stuffed with pigs’ feet and caramelised //
Pommes de terre caramélisées farcies au pied de porc

Old fashioned shellfish bisque with combawa chantilly (served chilled) // Bisque de crustacés à l’ancienne, chantilly combawa

plat du jour: beef and potatoes with an herb vinaigrette

All of the dishes we got were delicious, but this was K’s main, and it was by far one of the best things I’ve ever tasted. Easily THE nicest beef meal I’ve tried. The herb vinaigrette was to die for – so good, I could drink it! If this happens to be the plat du jour when you’re there, ORDER IT!!!

The fabulous Christian Constant Chocolate Tart // La fabuleuse tarte au chocolat de Christian Constant

I’m probably starting to sound ridiculous, but this is, hands down, the BEST chocolate dessert in existence. I promise you. It was recommended to me by a friend. She told me she dreams about it at night and now I can see why. No other chocolate dessert could ever live up to it!

The view from nearby Les Cocottes

Breakfast on my last day in Paris at Eric Kayser

Noisette, pain au chocolat et pistache and a pastry for the plane journey later

Tip: Go into as many artisan boulangers as you possibly can. Artisan = made there!

Falafel round 2!

With picante sauce, as always.

I went into a Jewish bakery/deli in the Marais and was overjoyed when I saw kosher dill pickles. Dill pickles are my #1 favourite food in the world and this is something Ireland does not have (good ones, anyway). The woman laughed at me when I asked for just 2. I would have gotten more but was flying home in a few hours time. These pickles may have been the highlight of my time in Paris.

Rue Montorgueil – my favourite street in Paris

financier a la pistache

Until next time, Paris! I will constantly be dreaming of your cheese, wine, butter, bread, pastries, falafel and even pickles!