Fat Kid Abroad- Paris Day Five: Cheesy Breakfast & Snails

Day five was yet another epic food adventure day.

Started it off right with a home cooked breakfast- monte cristos (left) and croque monsieur (right).  Made by yours truly.  Not bad, eh? 

I came down with a bit of a head cold, so I stayed home for most of the day.  Towards the end of the day, I started to feel better, so I headed out with the rest of the group for dinner.

We tried to go to pub recommended to me by a friend from law school called "The Pure Malt" (link to come)...but alas, it was closed.  We arrived around typical late American happy hour (7pm-ish).  Either they are closed on Tuesdays or people get drinks after dinner (which is pretty late- earliest you can eat at a restaurant is 8pm).  We stumbled into another random brassiere and got super cheap beer with complimentary potatoes.  (Pictures to come.)

We then went on to Chez Papa (link to come)- this place was really, really, REALLY good.  For now I will just post the pictures with limited description, but just take my word: it was DE-LIC-IOUS.  Delicious.  Two stubby, fat kid thumbs up on this place.

Escargot (snails)!!!! It was awesome!

Foie gras.  I'm going to hell for eating this, but god it was so good.  Three different varieties.  

My dish: Rump steak with a blue cheese sauce and potatoes on the side.  

Nick's dish: (need to get the French name) beef stew amazingness with potatoes.  

Caitlin's Dish (Clint ordered the same thing): sirloin with pepper sauce.  

Billy's Dish: "salad" is a loose term for this.  It mostly consisted of meat, bread, and cheese.  

Dessert: creme caramel.  

Fat Kid Abroad- Paris Day 4: Family Breakfast

Our team coach finally arrived! To celebrate, we cooked an amazing family breakfast.

I cannot explain how flipping cute our little apartment is....so we needed to have a legit breakfast to celebrate family style.

Scrambled eggs, oranges, orange juice, sausage, bread, brie, jam, coffee, and breakfast potatoes.

Afterwards, we wandered around for a bit before Clint took us to a somewhat bizarre pig themed restaurant (name to come shortly).

As you can expect, they serve a lot of pork.  Including this "plate of pork," quite literally.

My favorite part was the free cookies:

(Note: more commentary and links to come.)

Paris Day Three: Sunday Sweets & Soup

I'm continuing to have a great time exploring Paris, especially the food.  Seriously considering abandoning the whole law school thing and simply attending cooking school here in France.  I have a few more days until I need to decide whether I come home or not. In the meantime, here are the quickly accumulating backlog of pictures documenting my food adventures.

(Note: For the sake of time, I'm simply throwing up the pictures with limited commentary.  Will go back through and edit more once I have a bit more time.)

Macaroons! My first ever legitimate macaroons!  They were delicious!

I got them from this lovely little pastry shop in the Montmarte neighborhood.  The most adorable French young woman waited on me.

I also got a madeline and another pastry (I can't remember the name right now!)- also fabulous. 

Caitlin ordered this yummy quiche- also delicious. 

Most of Paris shuts down on Sunday nights, so we had slim pickings for dinner.  We are staying in a pseudo-Japanese neighborhood (at least a neighborhood with a very high concentration of Japanese restaurants), so we got noodle soup for dinner- cold weather = soup.  Very tasty. 

Fat Kid Abroad- Paris Day 2: Chocolate Goodness

Paris adventures continue!  Jet lag took a toll on the group today, so we had a bit of a late start.  Despite this delay, we had many more food adventures as we wandered around Paris.

We started the day out right...by having lunch for breakfast.

Caitlin's cappuccino.  Looked delicious.

My shot of espresso.  Totally legit.

Tartine with goat cheese and apple butter.  Smelled it before I saw it coming- yep, it was super tasty.

Caitlin's quiche lorraine.  Had a nibble- confirmed that it was very good.

Nick's omelet.  I didn't try this, but he didn't leave a scrap of food on the plate, which means it must have been good.

Billy's Tartine Parisienne.  Salad with ham, cheese and tomato tartine.  Also very good.

While this was a great start to the day, the absolute favorite was the hot chocolate.

Heaven.  I'm guessing they simply melted a chocolate bar and served it in a mug.  I nearly licked every last drop out of the cup.  If you are ever in Paris, you need to check this place out.  They also served fantastic tea, but after the hot chocolate, it was difficult to remember anything else that came before or after we drank this pure goodness.

Spent the remainder of the day wandering around, stopping occasionally to grab a glass of wine to keep us powering through.  Still feels a bit surreal that I'm here in Paris.  Feel so lucky!

Fat Kid Abroad- Paris Day 1: Soup & Salad

Being a student is hard work, but it has it's perks.  Like when your school is willing to foot the bill for a trip to Paris.  For the purposes of representing the school in a legitimate international competition of course.  I can think of no better way to break a six month plus hiatus from blogging than for the purpose of bragging about sharing my food adventures abroad.

After a long travel day, we were relieved to finally arrive and get some grub into our bellies.  We weren't particularly discriminating when we chose Le Bis Repetita, but it was a lucky score.  

First up: soup 

Funny thing- French Onion Soup is also called French Onion Soup in France.  They probably called it another thing on the French menu, but at least on the English menu, they referred to it by this name.  No matter what you call it, it was delicious.  Exactly what I wanted and need- crusted over with a nice seal of cheese, a big thick slice of bread, and oh-so-wonderful caramelized onions.  So flippin' good.  

Next course: salad

They called this Fried Goat Cheese Salad.  They wrapped goat cheese in phyllo dough and fried it.  The salad came with three of these cheesy triangles of goodness.  The salad greens themselves were relatively basic, but very fresh.  Topped off with a simple vinaigrette. 

   

All so good.  It's ok to be jealous. 

I'll be in Paris for the next two weeks, spending a few days in Portugal before heading back to 'merica.  Any suggestions on places to try or specific kinds of food to eat?