After our surprisingly enjoyable meal at Aux Crus de Bourgogne, a place that we had walked past countless times thinking it was a tourist restaurant, I made reservations to return for dinner. This took us past our favorite street in Paris, Rue Montorgueil, which I've written about countless times already.
During this visit, the street had been declared "Rue des Bulles" ("Bubble Street") for the season. Every year, Nicolas Feuillatte Champagne House declares a Rue des Bulles and the street is decorated in balloons that resemble champagne bubbles.
It makes an already lively street seem even more festive.
No matter how many times you've walked down a street, there always seems to be something you never noticed before.
We walked up to Rue Bachaumont and presented at the restaurant. One thing we quickly noticed was that the menu had changed since our last visit and several of the items we enjoyed last time were not available.
The place filled quite quickly……folks seemed to be really getting pretty large meals.
Of course, things started with the baguette with rillette, which the Missus enjoys.
We enjoyed the Vol-au-Vent with mushrooms the last time so we ordered the Bouchee a la Reine, which is basically vol-au-vent with poultry.
We had previously enjoyed the mushroom dishes here, but for some reason this dish was really weak in mushroom flavor and the chicken was super dry. The vol-au-vent was still good though; crisp and buttery.
The Missus enjoyed the Escargot as She did before.
And we got even more baguette for sopping up all that garlicky goodness.
Because we had eaten so much for lunch, we ordered one main to share. We ordered the Sweetbreads and Mushrooms. The mains come with one side and we got the green beans. We weren't prepared for the monstrosity that arrived.
The sauce for the mushrooms were wonderfully flavored, but very gloppy and pasty in texture. The veal sweetbread was massive, dry, tough, and very metallic.
The green beans were undercooked, hard, and in need to more salt.
The service was very prompt and professional.
Well, this was not quite what we expected based on our previous meal. It seems that the menu changes from day to day. Based on this meal, the Missus and I decided that we'd need to see the menu before committing to a meal here. So in the future, since we're usually close by, we'll check out what's being served first.
Aux Crus de Bourgogne
3 Rue Bachaumont
75002 Paris, France
Still, we enjoyed the walk and the always lively Rue Montorgueil.
On an interesting note; while searching for addresses I found that Onii-San opened a Sando shop named Ototo last years as well! Makes perfect sense.
It was as we remembered; a bit too dense and bready for our taste. But it was fun just to be here again after all these years.
No, this wasn't cheap, but the meat, while being a tad more chewy than I prefer was quite beefy, the broth had a nice beefiness, was decently rich, with good five-spice tones, not overly salty, with a mild spice to it.
The dumplings were quite large; the wrappers too brittle and chewy. The filling for the jiaozi were very beefy, with nice celeri tones, seasoned quite well, but quite tough. We were surprised that the black vinegar-soy dipping sauce was not half bad. This was our least favorite dish of the meal.
The rice was perfect, but the sauce was greasier and milder in poultry flavor than what we'd had earlier and the turkey meat was more chewy/tough as well. 
And even though it seemed pretty busy along the whole 500 meter route, there was a laid back vibe to things. And so, we actually enjoyed this night market more than the 
The woman working was quite a good salesperson. She saw the Missus and I walk up and immediately started conversing with the Missus. And apparently this tactic worked as we got a Hujiao Bing – a pepper bun. 
As you walk within the park, you'll come across amazing trees. An example would be the "three generation tree". Where one tree grew upon another, each serving as a base for the next generation, a symbol for all who some here.
There were very nice wooden paths and bridges making Alishan a very easy visit. Perhaps too easy for the Missus as She was getting kinda bored with the whole place. Whereas I enjoyed the view and the trees. Oh the stories they could tell!
