Paris Part III: Food

I have to admit that I was a bit apprehensive about French food and I wasn’t quite sure I was ready for escargot and frog legs. But the French are world-renowned for their culinary skills, so I tried to reassure myself that I would be in good hands.

Hands down, the best part, culinary-wise, were the pastries and desserts. Oh my goodness. Can we just talk about the pastries? I think you could probably buy a three-day-old croissant at a dirty gas station and it would be the best thing you’ve ever eaten. My favorite are the pain au chocolat and I think I had one every morning for breakfast. I can’t believe that I didn’t take any photos of the sweets…but it’s probably because I ate them before I could get a picture. I was able to snatch up this cookbook, so hopefully I will be on my way to making my own croissants.

Croissant Cookbook

The one dessert that I was able to get a photo of was my box of macarons from the Biscuiterie de Montmartre. They were as delicious as they were beautiful.

Macarons

Most days for lunch, we went with a cheap, easy, and oh-so-French option: some variety on bread, cheese, and salad. A few times I chose a “cheese plate,” one of with came with a fuzzy piece of fromage!

Fuzzy Cheese

My favorite meal was at a restaurant called Ferdi, which is known for their comfort food including burgers and macaroni and cheese. (Yes, we went to a restaurant in Paris to have burgers and macaroni and cheese.) We haven’t really found any good burger places in Cologne, so we made up for it in Paris. Will and I both had the house cheeseburger and Andy decided to be adventurous and go with the salmon, which turned out to be a little more... rare than he had anticipated.

Ferdi Burger and Frites

Salmon

We had burgers a second time on the night that Germany was playing in the World Cup finale. Ever since I studied abroad in Québec, French Canada has held a special place in my heart. Many times when I go to a new city, I search online and see if there are any restaurants that serve poutine. A quick search led us to The Moose, a Canadian-themed restaurant in Paris. We ended up being the only Germany fans in a crowd of Argentina fans, but the burgers and poutine were very tasty.

Poutine in Paris

Germany wins!

Since we were staying in the artsy neighborhood of Montmartre, we wanted to try to find some non-touristy restaurants off of the beaten path. One night we ended up at Pizza Babalou, which was a mix between an Italian restaurant and your grandmother’s house. The owner was Brazilian and took great care of us since we were one of few tables, eating well before the normal French dinnertime.

Ricotta Pizza

Tiramisu and Limoncello Gelato

All in all, I enjoyed just about everything we had to eat in Paris. Hopefully I can start baking up some of my own Parisian croissants!