Man, the first ten days of our two week stay in Paris just seemed to fly by. At least for me. On this bright, but chilly Saturday morning, we decided just to do the flâneur thing as we headed down Rue Vieille du Temple. We found a couple of shops that caught our attention.
And had fun browsing…….
Man, I want to find an English edition of this book…..
Right across the street was a lovely park and garden.
This is the Jardin de l'Hôtel Salé.
Further down the street is a large community center; the Halle des Blancs Manteaux. Since it was Christmas season, there was a large craft fair going on.
We had a fun time exploring.
We made our way down to Rue Rivoli and saw this Eclair shop on Rue Pavée.
The Missus had been wanting to try some elcairs so we headed on in.
There was quite a collection of beautiful looking eclairs.
After some hemming and hawing, the Missus made Her selection.
And we headed on back to the apartment.
L’Éclair de Génie
14 Rue Pavée
75004 Paris, France
After storing our purchases, we gave some thought to lunch. For some reason, we felt pretty cold on this day. I mentioned a hot pot place we'd seen on Rue Saint-Denis a few days before. Hot pot sounded like just what we needed, so we headed off to Fondue 9.
The restaurant seemed a bit tiny, until we realized that there was dining upstairs as well. Can you imagine carrying hot pot up and down stairs….one false move! We also noticed that the customers during our visit were all Chinese, a bit of change since we'd seen pretty much a 50-50 mix during our visits to various Asian restaurants in the city.
After checking out the menu; we decided on the "lunch special".
After which we headed straight on over to the condiment bar to get our "stuffs".
Not much in terms of spicy sauces and no fermented bean curd. And we started to worry that the hot pot was going to be a bust.
But as our Yin Yang hot pot made it's way to the table we knew this was going to be ok. You could smell the herbs and spice.
Lots of white pepper.
All the usual suspects arrived.
Even frozen tofu! The noodles were quite stretchy.
The tripe was a bit too tough; though the seiche; the cuttlefish was surprisingly tender.
What was most surprising of all was the fish, which had been nicely velveted and rubbed with chili oil.
It was wonderfully buttery and tender after a brief swim in the broth.
The meat were of good quality; especially the lamb, which was so gamey and tender.
This was quite a satisfying meal for us. We had found a solution to the cold; at least for a while.
Fondue 9
168 Rue Saint-Denis
75002 Paris, France
We headed on back to the apartment and took a short nap.
When we woke; it was "tea time" for the Missus. Time to break out the eclairs.
These were a bit too sweet for me.
The Missus, it turns out, is not a fan of crème pâtissière, the custard fillings used for eclairs.
But of course, we had to eventually try elcairs….because, when in France, right?