A WEEKEND IN "PARISSERIE"

*Warning* This post contains extreme dessert pictures so avoid if hungry or craving sugar :) 

A cheap Eurostar train offer was all the incentive we needed to book a weekend trip to Paris in February. Having spent a couple of days in Paris on stopovers to/from Toronto a few years ago, we had seen some of the headline tourist spots so we felt like we could be more flexible with our plans this time in what was a rare 'return' trip to a city – so we very quickly decided to focus this trip on seeking out Paris’ best patisseries (armed with a list provided by a French baker friend of V's, Fabienne).

The pastries

Our 3 days in Paris led us to quite a few stops at various patisseries, boulangeries and chocolatiers around town – from little neighbourhood spots to high flying shops that are much blogged about.

Some highlights:

-       Sudaharu Aoki: This tiny shop presents a Japanese twist on classic French pastries - stunningly prepared cakes with unique flavor combinations. We picked what looked like a layered green tea chocolate cake (amazing), had yuzu and wasabi macarons and tried our first 'chocoron' - a chocolate covered macaron.  We also noted there must be some connection between the Japanese and French as they both share so many traits when it comes to food - eye for detail, small portions, delicate presentation.

-       Fauchon: A gourmet food store-meets-patisserie with a mesmerizing glass display full of dessert artistry (my favourite looking cake was the four-square cake full of chocolate and caramel sauce 'lakes'). We tried a rose and lemon cheesecake and a savoury smoked salmon and sesame mille feuille – simply delicious.

    

   

-       Popelini: Now this was interesting – a shop that sells only one item – petit choux (cream puffs) in a multitude of flavours - rose, praline, passionfruit, raspberry, pistatio. V, Shrish (a friend from Jakarta days who has recently has moved to Paris) and I popped a couple of these little light cream-filled delights one morning for 'breakfast'. Ahh, do the French know how to live or what!

    

- G Detou:  Although not a pastry shop this baking store is where many aspiring and established pastry chefs get their goods from, so as you can imagine, V an aspiring baker, would make a stop there and of course buy 8 Tahitian vanilla pods, a 3kg packet of Valrhona dark chocolate and some rose pralines for a friend all while getting told off by the one of the staff for wanting the lower sugar content pralines given that pastry making "is not for if you want to be slim"!

What we loved about these places was that they were able to blend amazing presentation without leaving taste behind. Looking good seems to be only part of the story – albeit a part that is taken seriously (!) - but you have to deliver on quality for the discerning French sweet connoisseur. Beyond these locally well-known places, we also had some great treats at regular ‘ol bakeries in quiet neighbourhoods – a croissant here, a fruit tart there and some local things that were new to me (V of course knew them).

   

The food

In addition to stuffing our faces with pastries, our other goal was to experience some of Paris’ famous dining. We had lunch at our first Michelin one-starred restaurant where we had lobster macaroni (lobster pieces wrapped in three big pasta shells in a lobster bisque) and lamb cooked in red wine and cocoa (for 7 hours apparently) along with appetizers of scallop carpaccio and chestnut soup. A very nice meal, excellent service but maybe we were (unreasonably?) expecting something beyond that. Our other experience was a dinner at a rustic restaurant known for its cuisine from the Auvergne region (based on Simon, a foodie colleague’s rave review). We absolutely loved the food here – a cabbage soup with blue cheese and a sea bass carpaccio with celery and ginger for starters followed by roast duck with uber-creamy mashed potatoes (‘aligot’ – which the waiter dramatically lifts and ‘stretches’ out from the pot to show you how stringy and cheesy it is!) and a stuffed cabbage meatloaf dish for mains. The meal was topped off with a massive bowl of chocolate mousse (REALLY good too but V notes mum's is still better) from which we were served two large portions and then left with the bowl to “have as much as you like”! 

The other stuff

While it may not seem like it, we did actually do more in Paris than just eat. After all, getting from one patisserie to another did take some walking! That gave us a chance to enjoy strolling through grand boulevards lined with beautiful buildings with intricate wrought-iron balconies as well as dense neighborhood streets with lots of bustle.

For a bit of a culture fix, we spent some time at the beautiful Musee d’Orsay – a museum known for its paintings by the Impressionist masters (Monet, Renoir etc) housed in what was originally a train station.  Given the manageable size we were able to really enjoy the paintings and take in how these artists captured every day scenes with free and vibrant brush stokes (V's words).

Another day, we went on a guided walking tour in the lively neighbourhood of Le Marais – a trendy district full of narrow streets and boutique shops, and a rich history. The area is dotted with 15-16th century ‘town houses’ (more like giant mansions) with peaceful courtyards and gardens once home to the aristocratic elite who wanted to be close to the king’s nearby court. Many a scandal happened here including "the affair of the diamond necklace" involving Queen Marie Antoinette, a female conartist, an ambassador desperate to get back in favour with the Queen and a diamond necklace that both ladies wanted! Today, many of these mansions are public buildings that have been restored and the whole area is designated a historical site. One of the mansions we walked past was particularly interesting as it is still privately owned but oddly, is quite badly maintained from the outside (since its not publicly funded) while believed to be lavishly decorated on the inside. We liked the enormous 350-year old wooden front door with carvings of Medusa (to ward off enemies) which looked as imposing as it must have back in the day. The area was at one point also Paris’ Jewish Quarter and is still dotten with old Jewish book stores, schools and very popular falalel restaurants (we had lunch at one).