Tasty delights of Paris

So much for my thoughts of abstinence cos now looking back on the week, my food intake looks to have increased even more rather than decrease, oops! Luckily, am heading back across the Channel next weekend and hope to squeeze in a lesson of Pilates to help shed some fat :)

Wandered over to Carl Marletti again on Tuesday after school with my friend and bought not 1 but 2 pastries. Our server didn't realise how greedy this little piggy was cos he promptly forgot to serve my friend, thinking that the 2 pastries were for both of us.....how wrong he was! I plumped for the Marie Antoinette (macaroon with raspberries and rose flavoured pastry cream, inspired by Ispahan?) and one of CM's signature pastries, Censier (chocolate mousse quenelle on top of a rice crispie cake). The Marie Antoinette was very nice, not too sweet and well balanced, a good idea to use pastry cream rather than the usual butter cream as a filling. The Censier was a little too heavy for me (but that might have been due to the fact that I had scoffed down a cone of chocolate mousse from Chapon earlier on in the day!), the chocolate quenelle had a nice fudgey consistency and the rice crispie cake was a bit of a surprise when it started to crackle on my tongue (same sensation as the naff crackling candy we used to eat when we were kids), mmmm, sorry, just realised no pics of Censier :(

As we had restaurant service on Wednesday, we didn't have to arrive at school until the afternoon so my friend and I decided to go and try out the famed L'As du Fallafel for lunch. She sensibly ordered the falafel sandwich whilst I went all out and ordered the Assiette Complet Vegetarienne - essentially her sandwich on a plate except it was DOUBLE the size!!! Oh, and did I mention the portion of chips as well?? Pretty good and very friendly service but I think I actually prefer the falafel from Babylone from last week, my preference is for cumin-less falafel :)

As mentioned earlier, a few classmates and I headed to a chocolate shop called Chapon, which is near our school after class on Thursday for a spot of chocolate mousse. Ulla and I had wanted to go and try it out on Monday afternoon but unfortunately, the shop was closed. In the summer, Chapon makes a number of tubs of chocolate mousses which it serves to hungry customers ice cream style in a cute paper cornet. The mousses are categorised by whichever chocolate is used and each one has its own particular flavour. 3 of us went for the "Equateur" (we all resisted asking for Egg-Water tho!) and my friend went for the "Madagasgar" - both lovely but different in flavour, Equateur was more intense and a little bitter with Madagasgar a little sweeter on the palate.

Onto the weekend and yes, another marathon of eating since my friend from Uni was in town so had to show him all the nice foodie places in town. We tried out a small bistro near the Marais on Friday night called "Au Fil de Saisons" - lovely 3-course for 34 yoyos. I think its the type of place that people can only dream of finding......down a non-descript street, a plain-looking restaurant with no signage on the front, a cosy rustic dining room, freshly made still warm bread, tasty food and lovely service - whats not to love? My 3 courses were heavy on game starting with duck magret salad, followed by roast quail and ending with a yummy millefeuille with bergamot cream, plums and rhubarb. The only bummer of the evening was ordering the wrong dessert for my friend - we had wanted to try the trio of chocolate pots, the restaurant's signature dessert which is served in eggshells but got it confused with another choice on the menu - you want to order the chocolate pots which are served hot!

Saturday dinner was at Lao Lane Xang (had to take my friend for the best Asian food in town!) where we almost exploded by the unexpectedly spicy papaya salad that was served to us:

Uni friend: Is it (papaya salad) spicy?

Me: It has a kick to it.

Few minutes later....

Uni friend: Wow! You call that a kick??? Thats really spicy! (proceeds to turn a little red, trying to blow air into his mouth to cool it down as well as downing a load of water!!)

Me: Its not that bad?

Few minutes later....

Me: OK, I think I got to the spicy part........I see what you mean........OMG, thats hot!!

Luckily, the rest of the food wasn't up there in terms of chilli potency.....nems, lap neua and duck with chilli and basil sauce. We skipped on dessert to catch the Eiffel Tower "sparkling" but made up for it later by going for gelato at Pozzetto, an Italian ice cream place at my friend's new favourite district, the Marais! The gelato was amazing, I can safely say even better than Bac a Glaces (which I tried with Ulla) - creamy yet not heavy, must have something to do with the fact that Italians make their ice cream with milk but the (fatty!) French use cream.    

My final few fuel stops for the week were Al Taglio - a pizza place which I had read about in Figaroscope which serves pizza the Italian way, by the slice and by weight. After a final dose of culture at the Pompidou Centre with my Uni friend, I paid a sneaky visit to Al Taglio and scoffed a sublime slice of potato and truffle cream pizza (so good I almost didn't have time to take a pic mid-munch!!) before joining some chums for a 2nd dose of Bac a Glaces - Pozzetto is still the benchmark for me :)