Ah yes, the Louvre, the largest museum in the world at 652,300 square feet with over 35,000 pieces of art on display. It can be is quite intimidating. There's just no way to see "everything" in one visit and if you even tried this, would you even remember what you saw? We had been to the Louvre twice over the years and really wanted to visit yet again. We always get our tickets online, which makes things much easier and do either an early or late visit. On this visit, I was purchasing our tickets and noticed that there was a "Visitor's Trail" of the Louvre's Masterpieces on the website. Why hadn't I noticed that before?
I bookmarked the page in my phone. And since we had pocket wifi, I just followed the trail.
It all started with which entrance to take with turn by turn instructions and details of the masterpiece.
As well as some other historical tidbits. For instance the Salle des Cariatides which was both used as a ballroom and court of justice. There's also this tidbit on the website:
"And it was here, in 1572, that Marguerite de Valois, the famous ‘Queen Margot’, married Henri de Navarre, the future King Henri IV. Only a few days later, on 24 August, Protestant nobles who had attended the wedding were assassinated in the Louvre in the notorious Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre."
Of course, there are some works need no introduction…..
That's Venus and the Three Graces Presenting Gifts to a Young Woman by Boticelli below.
And of course, the Grand Gallerie.
I was a bit concerned about our next stop expecting a long line…..
But the line for "you know who"……wasn't very long at all. I guess one of the benefits of getting in right when things open.
Here's Michelangelo's the Rebellious Slave and the Dying Slave.
Doing this walk made me take a closer look at the pieces. For instance, I always wondered why this was called Nymph with a Scorpion.
I'd just take a look at the sculpture from the angle above.
This time, I took a walk around the work and it became very clear…..
After finishing off the walk, we headed on over to look at the Egyptian Collection.
There's a trail for that as well. I think we'll do that next time!
We had enjoyed the Louvre a lot more this time around and I think perhaps we may even do a private tour one of these days.
We strolled around the area near to the Bourse and window shopped along Galerie Vero Dodat one of the 21 covered passages in Paris, some of which I've posted on before.
Then we had to figure out what we wanted for lunch.
This was in December of last year and it was pretty chilly. We thought ramen would fit the bill and decided on a familiar spot that was on the way back to the apartment; Hakata Choten.
We got our usual, the Tonkotsu with Black Garlic and a Pork and Rice bowl.
The broth was a bit richer than what we had on our previous visit here which was nice. The tamago a bit over-cooked but nicely flavored. For some reason, I like the savory-sweet flavor that the black garlic oil adds to this bowl. The noodles were perfectly cooked on this visit as well.
The pork bowl was fine, there was quite a bit of rice in this. The rice was decently cooked, but there wasn't enough of a sauce nor pork to really balance out things.
Funny thing, on one of our previous visits to the Louvre we ended up at Hakata Choten as well, though it was the Opera location.
This was enough to warm us up for the rest of the walk back to our accommodations.
Hakata Choten Les Halles
16 Rue de la Grande Truanderie
75001 Paris, France
Where it was time for a nap!
Thanks for stopping by!
As you can see, the Missus was all about the tamago on this day. This bowl had a lot of "stuffs"; scallion, spinach, bean sprouts, cabbage. The best item in the entire bowl was the menma which had a wonderful texture and the earthy-soy sauce tones were on point. The two slices of "chashu", I use the quotation marks because the two thin slices were not pork belly, it was lean and tough. 
Ramen was the first to arrive. The broth is indeed lighter, though there were some nice globules of fat in it. I thought it was on the overly salty side and pretty one-dimensional in flavor, though that might be written off to the sodium overload. The chashu; which had a nice "fat cap", was thinly sliced, with a wonderful soy-porkiness to it and very tender. The tamago was also nicely cooked and marinated but was ice cold, a pet peeve of mine.
This version came with a small "pile" of veggies – mostly bean sprouts, some carrots and spinach, etc…..for what seems to be a two dollar upcharge that's not really worth the price. The shio broth seemed even lighter than the shoyu version, less rich, but not as salty. For some reason, there was a pungency like that of white pepper that resonated with me. I preferred this broth to the shoyu version.
Apparently some noodles were stuck together during the cooking process and melded into a hard, inedible ball of gluten madness. Oh man, what a bummer. I showed this to the young man working who was speechless and told me "sorry" and then walked away. Soon someone else brought me my check! So, perhaps I was in an alternate universe at that moment having lunch at Kita-"
On this morning the parking lot was empty. I walked on over and took a look at the posted menu and noticed the opening time was noon. I also noted that there were donburi and ramen lunch specials going for as low as ten bucks! In these days that's a bargain. I decided that I'd return on another day and check the place out. As I started walking away the "open" sign came on and the really friendly gentleman who runs the front of house waved me in. My lucky day I guess.
I would go on record to say this was more sausage than tsukune. It was hard, rubbery, tough…..I'm sure there are more synonyms I could come up with given time. Not much flavor at all….I guess that's why salt was provided.
And my worries were well placed. Ok, so since the ownership is under Olleh, my expectations were low, but this was even below that!
The chashu wasn't bad, nicely marinated, tender, decent porkiness. The noodles were standard issue, curly, a bit overcooked and mushy…which did nothing to enhance the dish. It had me thinking….at ten bucks what should I have expected?
I loved the presentation. And overall, I enjoyed this dish the most. Nothing fancy, just a by the book beef bowl. The beef was on the chewy side, flavors were quite typical, soy sauce – mirin – sake, which is not bad at all. A generous portion of rice….I wish there was more egg, but this was a decent donburi.
Nothing fancy mind you; but for a ten buck for lunch…I wouldn't pay $15 to have this for dinner, this might work out fine for you. After all, how much is a bento from Nijiya these days?
Which kinda hit the spot. This was not bad. So, here's where it gets interesting. This was actually from a package, albeit with some "additions". A few months back, I saw some frozen ramen on sale at Nijiya at $3.99. I thought it was expensive (it's now $5.69). And having tried the Nijiya brand and other stuffs by Sun Noodle that I thought wasn't very good….still, I couldn't help myself so I bought 5.
dinner, She said, "I'd like some ramen…." So, my first thought was Menya of course. But then I remembered "FOY" Junichi's mention of enjoying having a bowl of ramen at Santouka. Santouka holds a special place in our hearts. We consider it to be the first "real" ramen spot to open in San Diego, which started what we call "San Diego's Ramen Renaissance" back in 2008. Over the years it's the 
Man, this was so much better than takeout. The noodles, which were the biggest issue with takeout was decently springy. Still not quite I recall it being in the "good old days", but much better.
The noodles were really good, doughy and chewy. The tamago was cold, but nicely cooked and marinated. The chashu was on the tough side and needed more flavor.
They closed on August 21st and the signage is already down.
And I've got quite a history with them; from the days at 
It's the unit between 
