A Week of Eating

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For the most part, November passed relatively quickly, and we worked a lot. My classes took up a ton of time; I had group meetings at least two or three times a week outside of class in addition to homework. Tyler was studying for his GMAT and getting application stuff together to apply to grad school. We were busy people. Luckily though that all paid off. I got 16 of my 30 required units finished, and my classes the second semester are a lot less time consuming. Also, Tyler got a really good score on the GMAT, and got in to SDSU’s graduate business program for MBA’s. The ninth was Tyler’s 22nd birthday. I made him a really fattening dinner, so he was happy. Also, I got him a Katana (it’s just a display piece) since he is so enthusiastic about karate. He’s not allowed to play with it, so I taught him escrima cub to alleviate some of the need to play with his new weapon. It’s funny, by November we had given up looking for a gym where we could do karate and decided to practice in the nearby park. So, for weapons practice, we use these long foam pieces that we have duck taped up- whatever works right?
The end of November came rather quickly, and along with it, Thanksgiving and our anniversary. For Thanksgiving, we made a feast for two, or at least as much of a feast as you can make for two people. We discovered that there are two tiny American food stores that have overpriced American food items that you can not generally find in Paris. Actually one of them is called Thanksgiving. They had pumpkin and cornmeal, and also dark corn syrup and shortening (which I used later in gingerbread men- yummy). Anyways, we had a lot of fun making our dinner, and Tyler helped out by making his mom’s famous rolls. We were so proud of all our efforts that we took pictures of our feast. It was a lot of fun to spend the whole day cooking, and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that my pumpkin pie recipe was quite good (you never know with pies- I just got it off foodtv.com). We were a little bummed out that we didn’t have anyone over to eat dinner with us, but my classes had been so time consuming that I hadn’t much spoken to any of the kids from the program in quite a while.
The real surprise came to me on Sunday the 28th. Tyler had made a reservation at some mystery restaurant for our first anniversary (Which is actually the 29th, but a lot of restaurants close on Mondays). He wouldn’t even tell me how nice to dress (I should have taken the hint from the fact that he bought himself a new suit the previous week). I thought he was being pretty silly, because I am in no way an expert on Parisian restaurants, and the likelihood of me being able to guess was so small that it seemed silly to me to be so secretive. But Tyler seemed to be enjoying himself, and refused to tell me anything. So, Sunday night came along, we got all ready, and headed out to an area, which he would not tell me anything about. We even took a metro line that I had never been on before. When we were about four blocks away from the restaurant we came out of a side street onto the banks of the seine, just a little east of Notre Dame, the thought crossed my mind that we might be going to this one restaurant that we saw from our boat tour, which the guide had mentioned. But, I quickly dismissed that idea, that restaurant was for dignitaries and presidents and what not.
As we walked up to and came to a stop at the Tour d’Argent, (the one from the boat) I was very surprised to discover that Tyler had indeed made reservations for us there. It was quite an amazing experience. I was actually a little intimidated by the entire adventure. For my memory’s sake, I am now going to give a full account of the experience, so bear with me, or skip on to the next entry. When we got in the restaurant, we were greeted by a door man, then a coat check girl who took my grey pea coat (the lining was split along the back- whoops) and Tyler’s jacket. Then the doorman walked us to the elevator, which also had a guy in it. He took us up to the restaurant where a hostess was waiting to take us to our table. Then when we got to our table, they offered us an aperitif (we took water) and brought us some super tasty mini filled pastries as an appetizer. Then came the menus. I was quite surprised to discover that my menu did not include the prices, only Tyler got to know that (I still, to this day, do not know how ridiculously expensive it was). After much deliberation, we decided to split the scallop salad entrée and have the Duck Marco Polo (recommended by our waiter after we had chosen the duck with sauce made out of blood without realizing it). I really couldn’t believe how much they took care of us. There were different servers for everything. The girl who offered us the aperitif and appetizers was different from our main server, and there were at least two of those.
Next came the wine list. Although I think I should call it the wine bible. The sommelier (wine guy) brought over a book that must have been 1500 pages long, separated by wine type and then a bunch of subdivisions that meant very little to us, instructed Tyler how to navigate through it, and left it to us to choose. It was so silly. We had no idea where to start. We didn’t even know what type of wine we wanted. After we had thoroughly confused ourselves, we decided to ask for some help. Luckily, our Sommelier was very kind. We told him what we had ordered, and he recommended a couple types of wine (I actually don’t remember what type of wine we settled upon… which totally bums me out…either a Burgundy or Bourgogne or something like that, maybe not as heavy as a Burgundy). Anyways, with his help we decided upon a 1985 B-something, and settled back to discover what an expensive bottle of wine tastes like. When they brought it out we were just receiving our scallop salad. The wine was wonderful. It was smooth and full but not at all harsh, it was slightly fruity, and although it was full bodied, it was light to drink at the same time. I don’t think my description does it justice, but it was absolutely wonderful. The salad was also excellent. The scallops were like butter, and there was a dressing that was so good you wanted to lick your plate. The lettuce that was used was a light thin leaf, and was topped with a very light sprinkling of caviar. (I usually hate fishy flavor, but this was so light that it just added a slightly salty flavor to the food). Of course, the presentation was also very gorgeous. It’s funny because this meal just kept getting better. Having never dined at such a fancy place, it was shocking. I told Tyler, and he agreed with me, that it was like everything in the meal was the best think I had ever eaten. It was like with each new course, the restaurant was trying to out-do itself.
In between courses, we had only a few minutes when there was not food at our table. However, I got to take advantage of those few minutes to remember one of the other main draws of this restaurant. All around the dining area were windows that looked out upon the back side of Ile de la Cite and the gorgeous view of the back of Notre Dame. The city was beautifully lit up for the night, and all the trees looked beautiful with the few leaves that were still holding on. Not long after the waiters took away our salad plates, they brought us another surprise. It was a between course appetizer, a soup that tasted either like it was made with a very light mushroom or a really rich cheese. At any rate it was like eating a sauce. It was so rich and yet I was able to eat every last drop without getting stuffed. That is the one thing that amazed me about this meal. There was so much food, but it was so well coordinated over the three and a half hours that we sat there that I was only pleasantly full when we left.
Duck is the specialty at La Tour d’Argent. They really know what they are doing. They started counting in 1890 and our duck was number 1,023,371. We figured that they must have it right by then. They did. The duck was served in two courses. For the first, they brought out the duck, and carved it up right by our table. They first served the breast (expertly cut from the duck by our server) with alternating sauces (I believe it was mashed potatoes with a pear/apple sauce). It was so good. The duck was cooked like a steak, but better than any steak I have ever had. They followed this up with the legs, which were trimmed down and presented with an excellent sauce that must have been some kind of wine sauce. I never knew duck could be so tender and delicious.
After we were finished with our dinner, they brought us a tray of mini desserts much like the appetizer tray that we started with. There were tiny pear tarts, some pastries, and peanut brittle. Then we ordered dessert. I wish we had photos of all this stuff, but then that would have ruined the experience. For dessert we split a peach dessert that was comprised of a flaming peach that was soaked in raspberry vodka, placed on top of a circular cake. Then the server poured more of the flaming mixture over the dessert and allowed it to warm the dessert. This was served with vanilla ice cream. The dessert was awesome and the visual aspect was very entertaining. We finished off the evening with a cup of espresso. In fact aside from one group of about 10 that had been there all night, we were the last ones to leave the restaurant.
Boy, don’t ever let me get going about food. That night was just about the most “magical” (gag me) night ever. It was like being in heaven; I doubt I will have very many chances to eat like that again. I don’t think Tyler could have chosen a better gift for our first anniversary. I will never forget it.

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Photos

Thanksgiving Feast
I know its blurry... these are our mashed potatoes, we barely put a dent in them.

Way Too Much Food!
We had leftovers forever, which kinda worked out well since I was not about to do anymore cooking.

Before our Mystery Dinner
I was pretty excited. Tyler wouldn't tell me one thing about this alleged "restaurant".

Super Flattering Picture of Myself
This is the only one that turned out. It's kind of mid-smile.

Postcard from La Tour d'Argent
They gave us this postcard with our duck (canard) number on it. The picture is a pretty good representation of what the dining room looks like.

La Tour d'Argent
As seen from across the street.

Where we Sat
See the second window on the top floor? Our table was right there on the edge of the first window.

The View of Notre Dame
I took this picture today from the bridge across the street from the Tour d'Argent. It is especially pretty lit up at night. Oh, and yes that is snow on the ground on the 6th of March...stupid weather.

The Best Side of Notre Dame
I really do think this view far outdoes the more traditional front view of the church.