Obligatory photo in front of famous landmark, in which subjects are actually partially obscuring said landmark.
Marie took me to Paris a few weekends back. It was for my birthday, very nice.
Executive summary: I like Paris. A lot.
Our weekend got off to a slightly rushed start. However I am pleased to confirm that we can wake up 40 minutes before our Eurostar pulls out of St Pancras Station, and still make the train. And we hadn't packed, and were slightly hungover. Ahhhhh fun times. The Eurostar train was nice and shiny, and it went really fast. A couple of weeks beforehand I had been for a run north of our place under a shiny new rail bridge which was severely over engineered in comparison with the rickety bridges back home. And yes, the over engineered bridge was for the Eurostar trains so they can go 180 mph. Maybe not through inner London, but still impressive...
We went to Hidden Kitchen, and it was very good. Menu as follows:
Spicy carrot soup with sweet pea linguini
Fava beans with green goddess dressing and arzak egg- probably the highlight for me
Smoked trout with buttermilk greens and roasted beets
Sauteed mackerel with sunchoke puree, blood orange and green onion salad
Cleanser
Crispy carnitas with taco salad, shallot creme fraiche and caramelized onions
White salad with brioche croutons
Turkish coffee semi freddo with cinnamon doughnuts
Petits fours
After gorging ourselves there, we went on a bike ride the next day to even up our calorific footprint. Which I then abused with a quite nice dinner that evening, where Marie ordered a blue cheese salad so strong she had to swap for my foie gras.
The next morning I managed to get through an entire series of transactions at the patisserie without reverting to English. The fact that my french is pretty much limited to yes meant that I bought a lot of sweet treats. Dialogue as follows:
"Stream of uncomprehended french"
"Oui"
Mystery pastry item goes in bag
"Longer stream of uncomprehended french"
"Oui"
Mystery chocolate item goes in bag
Et cetera
I did have the best intentions to go to a bunch of museums, and see cultural things like Rodin's thinker. But Paris museums apparently all close on Mondays - my designated day of culture this trip- so I had to eat steak instead. Woe is me. And yes, this trip ended up being mostly about food.
I like this photo. That is all.
And, I saw a fantastic mullet couple outside the Louvre and tried to go in for a mullet touch. It was not to be.
